absence of something

I thought about just tagging this 'nuff said, but it's not.

I want to say something to all of the women under 50 on this site. Ready? You do not have to be over 50 to start taking up space.

Maybe don't be dicks about it? Let people come in, and give them a little raccoon mask and teach them how to have grubby little raccoon paws.

[text from Twitter user evacide: "Some of you have never had your home on the internet crumble beneath you like chalk, and it shows."]

You will realize that there are people you only know in a online space, and you will realize it when that space goes dark. You won't know the size and shape of space it takes up in your head and heart until it vanishes. Those little interactions on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even occasional basis mean nothing until they're gone, and suddenly there's a weird fucking hollow space when an icon on the other end of a screen just isn't there anymore - and not just one, but multitudes are gone.

You won't understand how you're mourning just a silly website, until you realize the way your day or week flowed around it like water around a boulder in a stream. Is it better or worse? That's not the question - how different is it? And how does that difference feel?

The first time a BBS I dialed into went dark, I realized there were people I enjoyed talking with that I would never chat with again. It's like they fell off the earth. "Were they friends" is not the question - suddenly there was a thunderclap of silence because people who had been there were suddenly gone, and I knew I would never ever talk with them again.

It's just a stupid hellsite until you realize it's all people. And you're a human animal who is hardwired to notice the absence of other humans. Capitalism foundationally sucks, but it is the foundation. Good or bad, right or wrong, money goes in and hellsite comes out. If money stops, hellsite goes away. You're looking at one of the last big bastions of old-school weirdness out there. They're not offering participatory monetization like ad-free and blaze to get rich, they're doing it to keep the lights on.

also you are never going to be safe for people for whom english is their second language. if someone clarifies their meaning and apologises and you can't accept that over the original wording then don't bother pretending to be autism friendly.

and like part of my autism is that i become convinced that the way i interpret words is the way that they're meant. my autism is disabling to my communication abilities. i have poor emotional regulation, i jump to conclusions. a lot of my reactions are informed by prior negative experiences. i can and probably have been overly defensive in the past.

and i've been misinterpreted so much and had my words picked over and mocked for saying the wrong things and mocked for being unable to say anything at all and it always feels devastating. it's ironic that the same disability that has me treated poorly would have me react poorly to a similar situation, but that's just how it is.