Good day, Kind Reader! I realize I left this one a slight bit late, but it's also understandable that I can just post when the typing bug bites me. I brought this up in a recent stream, but communication is our conversation piece today! As the years pass and Internet usage across the world only continues to increase, I've noticed a staggering decline in a very subtle art; speaking to people! Crazy, right? I thought so, too! Whether you're trying to talk to that one "Oshi" (your favorite streamer/content creator), making friends in a community, or finally hiring that artist you've been saving up for. Over the last 7 years floating between the Vtuber space as a whole on Twitter and engaging with VRChat, it seems like directly speaking to people is extremely foreign. Ironic for VRChat since it's literally in the name.
Maybe it's because of the oversaturated social media glorification where the dopamine hits from getting likes and reshares matter so much more than leaving a simple comment and engaging with the topic on hand. When I left for the detox, I found it easier to communicate with people face to face. I shared common interests and previous job/life experiences with people around me. We had some differing opinions on things that are part of our lives in the grand scheme of the world, but that didn't stop us from connecting. On the flip side, online, people don't reach out to me much outside of my inner circle. No one messages to ask if I'd like to hang out or how my day was. Sometimes, it's memes (and I'm really bad at responding to those because it winds up a "LUL" and that's the end of the chat), but most times it's nothing else with substance. When commissioning artists, I'm not sure if there's an aura or hidden side of me that I can't see, but even when I reach out, sometimes I'm ghosted for periods at a time and I'm left wondering why they find it easier to post on Twitter very actively. Sometimes 6 or more posts in a given hour.
It seems it's another subtle reality check that the Internet that I once knew that thrived on conversation with others has left and I'm here drowning in the sea of irrelevancy, refusing to keep up with the times. However, in being unchanging, I've still found plenty of people online who like to talk. Others who enjoy company in silence. Others that greet me with the fastest "Hello!" in the West and I wouldn't have it any other way. Thank you for indulging me for this March. I'll see you again as I start posting at a more timely manner.
Until we connect again, Kind Reader.