not precisely me, but i still relate to the overall idea of taking a left-turn into becoming just as much of a freak as possible, after a certain point.
i think of the site culture here on the whole as looking back fondly on the half-remembered memory of tumblr's (the widely felt "internet millenial retirement home" vibes), and in doing so, also reproducing the major structural problems endemic to that zeitgeist. @alyaza speaks better to this much better than i can here. with the major caveat here that there are serious culture problems with the site that i'm almost completely insulated from in my experience of it, i think a couple of good things made it in from tumblr too.
far be it from me to ascribe any amount of greater cultural significance to this tiny sliver of the internet that i have an outsize emotional investment in, but at the scale of the personal, being on here has been huge for me in terms of connecting me with other like-minded (and more importantly, not like-minded1) points of view. and i think that what makes cohost at this moment more significant to me than just sleepwalking through the motions of ye olde tumblr, is that me and a lot of other people who came out of that time aren't teens posting in the isolation of our suburban bedrooms anymore. there now exists for me a greater sense of possibility that with the increased life experience (and hopefully agency) me and other former tumblr kids have under our belts, there's a better chance for the exciting communities and ideas that find fertile ground here to find some degree of embodiment, however small, out in meatspace. again, this isn't to say the scope isn't still tiny, but for me, and i hope at least a couple of other people, being able to be a part of the community here has made a world of difference to my horizons. i want to do what i can for other people who aren't white to feel welcomed here the same way that i have.
but yeah, i'm visiting minneapolis later this month, and it feels like a very important thing for me that i probably wouldn't have taken the material risks to do, were it not for being able to imagine a better future as part of a diverse community, as inspired by having a window into the lives of other people on cohost seeking the same thing. it's also made me a bit more confident in my writing, which regardless of any actual increase in quality, is valuable to me just because it's good to make things!
uhhh, anyway. be a freak (person seeking out a community of diverse voices) on cohost.com, but don't forget to take it to the streets too2!
to book end this, i'm gonna once again gesture to another post by alyaza as an example of the kind of cool stuff i see on cohost that i want to bring more of into my life outside of the computer, and that i hope other people will too.
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this isn't empty liberal hand-wringing. i've rightly been straightened out for my behavior on here more than once by other people, and i wouldn't trade those instances for any number of connections to people whose backgrounds and biases are functionally identical to my own. ok, maybe it's a little bit liberal hand-wringing. grr, i'm so tough and gritty for doing the basic emotional work of being a mature adult and processing conflicting viewpoints to my own in a healthy way bites you
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as is reasonably safe for you to do wherever you're at (a lot of the reason i didn't act on what i discuss here sooner, besides not yet having recognized my desire to do so, is because im in the process of trying to get out of florida for somewhere safer for me)