there is a fundamental tension that I've noticed and has caused me a lot of difficulty in trying to find people to share the joy I feel for my hobbies

most people simply do not care

when people care a lot, they are often jerks

this is not universal! heck, part of why I like the energy on cohost right now is just that...there is that sort of earnest energy. people care! but they're nice! at least thus far! that's great! it's a precious thing.

I am someone who finds it hard to half-ass anything...I "have no chill." I've also been called a robot (affectionately). I bring my whole self to the things that I do and care about. some people can find this a little overwhelming. I don't think I'm autistic, but I have always appreciated talking to people who hyperfixate and overshare. I always prefer "liking something too much" vs "not caring at all."

that doesn't mean I have to be a party pooper, of course. I do try to read the room, as it were. but I just love that feeling of...communing with someone who gets it. where instead of spending the whole conversation explaining (of course, that has its place too!), you can play off each other's passion for something.

it's hard to find!!

but it does exist!!

but it's hard to find. well, I think in some domains it can be harder to find than others, but these days with the internet...well, one has to hope it does exist, it's just a question of finding those communities, building a rapport, etc

it's ironic, because I grew up socializing on the internet. IRC and forums, and then of course twitter

but I think I got a bit spoiled with twitter. through working in tech (at twitter, in fact, though it's been a long time), I organically grew a pretty badass twitter network. but I realized something: my twitter didn't look like other people's twitter. not that my timeline was so unique or anything, just that I never had to deal with that feeling of logging into twitter and then..."now what." following some celebs, maybe following the people you know IRL who might be on the life, then just tweeting about random shit. instead, I had an incredible network bootstrapped for me

this became painfully clear as I tried to use twitter to connect with people from, well, anything that wasn't tech. I am awful at it! how do I find people to chat anime with? honestly, I still have no clue. I have found a lot of good accounts to follow for takes on anime, analysis of anime, memes about anime...and that's all great! but that isn't community, you know?

reddit is...well, I have a real love/hate relationship with reddit. the tantalizing thing about reddit is that there are so, so, so many communities there. that thing you love? there's probably a community for it! the hate comes from how bad communities there can be. I've actually had an ~ok time on r/anime...the weekly threads for less popular shows are actually pretty fun. but it's not the same as talking about anime with a smaller community that you have a real rapport with

you know, I grew up playing magic the gathering. I sort of refuse to play the game anymore due to the totally broken economics of the game (despite having a collection which at this point is quite expensive)...but it's an amazing game. I yearn for a game that plays like magic. but I digress. one thing I liked about magic was that...I was not the most intense person in that community. being super into it was the norm, really. people spent a ton of money on it, they really cared about their decks, they cared about playing well in tournaments. honestly, socially, I had a pretty good time in mtg...I think it'd be a lot harder now, because I am much older and what I want out of the people I spend my time with has changed

some people have suggested taking up "female coded" hobbies, which they've found have much more supportive communities. this is an interesting suggestion, though honestly, I really shouldn't take on any new hobbies at this point...

I think what brought all of this stuff to a head though was language learning. I used to spend a lot of time on language learning subreddits, doing my best to help people out as I gained experience...and it ended up really burning me out. I found that I was getting angrier and angrier and angrier. reddit's model makes building community hard, and especially for really large subreddits with a lot of turnover (which language subs definitely do), the community fact is pretty much nonexistent. I dunno, I didn't like who I was becoming in these places, so I stopped visiting them

but it was lonely...I spent ~5 years of my life studying chinese then japanese pretty much...100% of my time. that sounds like an exaggeration but it really isn't--I went hard in a way that can be a bit hard to imagine. of course, the beauty of language is that it lets you talk to people and engage with new media, new communities...that aspect has been really amazing. I should probably post at some point about life in china, and my community here. but still, on the "language learning" side of things, finding community has been difficult...though for various reasons I think that language learning is not a great thing to seek community for. I think it's generally better to find community in the things that you want to do with the language, eg manga, anime, calligraphy, whatever

still, I sort of got used to just...going it alone. at various points I'd tweet about it, which got some interesting engagement, but it didn't feel like anyone could really share in the essence of this thing that I had come to invest so much of my time, my self in. and I think that sort of just crushed the desire to share

I'm slowly getting it back. and I should say, I have found some "fellow travelers" even in language learning, which has been nice (I could go on and on about why I think it's tricky to find people on the same length in language learning in particular...and I admit, I'm sort of at the extreme end of the spectrum in how I approached things)

still, it can be frustrating how hard it feels like it is to find community. like, I know these people are around that like x y z thing, but I don't know how to find them. is it discord? ugh, I hate discord, but I have tried it out and just...where are these communities? it feels like large communities are way too overwhelming. small communities? well, you have to have an in, right? so it's still a question of how you find those people

this stuff is all still swirling in my head. cohost is a new platform, and I'm trying to just...channel a bit more openness. there are certainly things I still don't quite feel comfortable sharing (maybe I'll make a private alt), but I've just been trying to focus on the joy that I feel for certain things and share that. trying to channel how I felt back in the livejournal days

I think what happened is that that feeling of...yearning for community and seemingly never finding it for anything I was passionate about was more painful than not having community. so I just gave up on community

I'm not trying to treat cohost as if it will fill this or that hole, I think that is going to lead to disappointment. instead I'm just leaning into the vibe that the site provides...there are a lot of techies, there are a lot of lgbt people, there are a lot of lovable weirdos, and there are some anime fans. that vibe is really nice!

still, I do think that I would like to figure out where "my people" live online. maybe there isn't a ready-made place, and it will be something that I have to cultivate over time (that's certainly a good motivator to post more about anime...as if posts gushing about symphogear are going to make people like me :P)

I don't know. I'm just rambling. it's just a dynamic I have seen over and over again. get really invested in something, search for community and it's either...a bunch of people who don't care, or people who care and are jerks. but of course not every space is like that. I don't know

be the choster you want to see in the world I guess

less navel gazing, more aniposting!!!