twitch of twitch.cymru

personally i find it weird when people say "you can tell who's from the usa online because they're the only ones who don't have their country in their bio because they have a baseline assumption that everyone is american, and everyone who's not american puts their nationality in their bio because we'd hate to be mistaken for americans" (ok i don't actually know how many people say this, but i've seen some people on tumblr believing in it). but like that's just. not true.

like some people just don't want to do that. not because we're american. but for idk privacy reasons? like yeah you probably won't get doxxed just by putting your country in your bio, but when it's a small country like wales where i live (population is 3m) then it really narrows down where you might be. if you mention you live in wales and that you went to waitrose the other day, then well there's only 4 waitroses in wales so it really begins to narrow it down even more (don't ask why waitrose was picked as an example.... me and some friends were googling how many there were in wales idk). even our largest city cardiff only has a population of 300,000 so like you can't even mention what city/town you're from without it dramatically increasing the risk of people doxxing you, whereas people from larger countries seem to be happier to mention what city they live in.

and yeah i list that i'm welsh/cornish/scottish/irish on this site, but i only put that information on sites where i don't care if someone irl sees that site and links it to me. it's a specific combination of cultural backgrounds that nobody else i know has. irl people have recognised my online accounts before and linked them to me just from me putting my cultural background in my bio. and when i start to add my disabilities and gender stuff to that then well it's even more obvious.

like yeah i don't want people to assume i'm american (or english) bc i want to resist the globalisation of american/english culture/language, and i'd be dead before i'd put 'uk' in my bio, but also just people are allowed anonymity. if you're assuming that someone who doesn't put their country in their bio is american and that there's no reason for minorities to not include their country, then that also feels very assumptive?

The Welsh word for chosting is tsiostio.¹

1. Source: We made it up months ago, but by transliterating chost and giving it the right verb suffix. Tsiost rhymes with the English cost.

Mi tsiostiwn ni tan Ddydd y Farn!

'cohost' is always a funny word for me bc my welsh auto-correct always insists that it should be the welsh word 'chost' (as in the aspirate mutation for the word 'cost') NOT to be confused with 'chost' in the cohost sense of the word. this post would make more sense if i broke out the IPA maybe.

rejoice!! the age of webbed site is here!!

i think if one of the social media i had when i ws a teenager had shut down i would've been in such an awful state mentally. and it is sad that cohost is going (augh my phone keeps correcting cohost to chost, thank you welsh auto-correct). but i'm also lucky to have overcome some of my worst social anxieties in recent years and i have irl communities that i love so much now. i know not everyone is as fortunate as me, and i'm still not able to be a part of these communities all the time when i have a health flare-up or whatever, but. idk where i'm going with this. just realising i've made a lot of personal growth i guess.

i think also maybe i haven't really processed that cohost is closing down? bc i saw the announcement after i had just left a memorial for my friend's son who i knew a bit too. so everything already felt weirdly surreal that day and i just don't think i've processed that this site is going yet.