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Notes -
How do I make online friends?
Due to a number of factors that
paranoiaopsec considerations prevent me from explaining, I am currently in a situation where I can’t regularly see/call the friends I’ve made and cannot make new ones. This has motivated me to turn to the Internet: stories of gaming groups or webcomic fans or whatever who stayed friends for over a decade and met up with one another and were chosen to act as best men at one another’s weddings—these stories are rather common. It seems nice! To think, no matter how busy your day is, no matter where you are in the world, you can always hop on voicechat and spend some time with your mates.Therefore, what I’m wondering is where and how you’d make these online friends. My vague recollection of how this would work ten years ago was that these were the options:
Find some multiplayer video game, find a community server with a constant/active playerbase, take it from there.
Look up “forums for [INSERT HOBBY HERE]”, choose one you like, take it from there.
Surprisingly, I remember making a good couple of Internet acquaintances on Tumblr. So certain social media sites might yield bounty.
But I don’t think these approaches work as well in Anno Domini MMXXIV. Approach 1 is hampered by the lack of modern multiplayer games with community servers (although there are probably still a number of niche ones out there). Approach 2 is hampered by the death of the classical forum. Nowadays, it seems that Discord servers [^1] have supplanted them, but most of the “public” servers that I recall being included in those large lists of Discord servers tend to be insufferable: no actual discussion of anything, just five-message-a-second posting rates of nonsense. I’ve heard that servers for specific YouTube channels tend to be better, but I’ve never been enough of an e-celeb fan for that. Approach 3 might be tenable, although Twitter might have taken Tumblr’s place, but I’d really prefer not going that route: I was briefly on Twitter at one point, and I quickly turned into an absolute notification whore, constantly checking to see if I got any new likes or replies or followers. Maybe that’s a “skill issue” on my part, but I’d rather not put myself in that vulnerable position again.
Also, common to most of these approaches is the problem that I don’t love most Internet culture any more. Often, it feels like online communities either get turned into MtF transgender therapy circles, or “/pol/-Jugend” witchling havens (where the average witch must be 15 years old). Ah, and in general, you’ll see places filled with kids who think and speak in all-caps memes. This can’t be a universal phenomenon, but I feel it deserves mention.
So, what suggest the fine users of The Motte? How have you made Internet friendships?
[^1] I absolutely loathe the terminology “server” in this case: it’s a complete lie! A Discord “server” isn’t actually a separate server. Rather, it’s almost certainly merely a bunch of entries in a centralized database. You are not the one in control of your server, you are not the one running your server: Discord is. This unfortunate appropriation of a term from the days of IRC (when your server was an actual server) rankles the FOSS autist in me.
I made a whole bunch of friends from joining an Arma 3 clan or two and playing Escape from Tarkov with random strangers. Hell, even a few people from this site.
A close-knit gaming group is probably the easiest route, since I've been on The Motte for who knows how long and it takes a while for people to care enough to call you a regular or befriend you.
Hmm.. I think my oldest Arma buddies and I have known each other for 7 years, we're all in a WhatsApp group shitposting even if I haven't played properly with those idiots in 5 years or so.
Man, so there are still multiplayer games out there where you get to know your teammates/opponents, instead of them merely being faceless hindrances delivered up by a matchmaking system. Who knew? Thanks for the vidya recs.
Yeah, that makes sense. This seems reflected the fact that off-topic threads (e.g. this one, Wellness Wednesdays, Friday Fun Thread, etc.) are relatively inactive compared to the main Culture War thread (for contrast, I remember that on old-style forums, off-topic threads were often more active than on-topic ones, even if more effort went into the latter), meaning that the userbase here is relatively less-concerned with interacting with their fellow interlocutors outside of the context of culture war debate. I know that personally, I primarily come here to read intelligent people discuss current events, and any knowledge that I’ve acquired regarding these people qua people usually comes from someone explaining how their nationality/occupation/life story has influenced their perspective on some issue. Another possibility regarding the imbalance in activity in these threads, though, is that the framing of the off-topic threads as belonging to a specific day dissuades some users from posting top-level comments in them after that day has passed (even though I know that many users do use them as weekly threads). Well, I’m just musing here, and I am personally content with lurking The Motte as it is.
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