What I Want

I used to think a lot.

Now, when I say 'a lot', I want to make sure you understand exactly what I mean. The fact is, there have been many times in my life where I had few or no friends. I would have absolutely nobody to socialize and share my thoughts with. Because of this, I spent a large amount of time alone, my thoughts compounding on themselves, echoing in my head, distorting themselves and each other, becoming twisted and gnarled until I had no idea where my train of thought had taken me.

My mind has calmed down since then. I have friends now. I talk to people, I do things that drown out the cacophony in my head.

I still think, though. Not all the time, but sometimes. Something that wanders into my head every now and then is what I want. Not what I want in general. I wonder that, but I've decided I won't figure it out by thought alone. What I spend time thinking about is exactly what I want out of the Internet. The Internet has done a lot of great things for me over the years. It's killed countless hours of my time. It's gained me friends. It's taught me things I'd never think to ask about. (I'm looking at you, Wikipedia.) Now it's led me to a community of which I am happy to be a part. YouTube. It extends onto a few other sites, like Twitter and Dailybooth, but the focal point is YouTube.

As I spent more and more time watching videos, I found the people that interested me, like everyone does. I subscribed, and when they recommended someone, I checked them out too. This has gone on pretty much since I made my account. Now, in the time I've been a part of the community, I've noticed these interpersonal connections that have formed between YouTubers. these are people who have probably never met IRL, but they behave like friends. This was a pretty strange concept to me at first. These people would watch each other's videos, decide the person interested them, and just make contact.

Does that seem really strange to anyone else? I don't think we have anything like that IRL. If you want to get to know someone, you have to talk to them. For long periods of time, even. YouTube lets you skip a lot of that. It's like a cheat code.

I love it.

These days, I do that with pretty much anyone I meet online. Usually they'll link to their YouTube channel or their blog from their Twitter page, and then I just watch their videos or read their posts. Videos are better, of course. As an actor, I've learned to pay close attention to little things, like how much people use their hands when they talk, how much of their face they emote with, and little features like laugh-lines. Seeing the way people talk tells me at least as much as what they're actually saying. I have the exact skill-set needed to properly use this cheat code.

I digress. This post isn't about how I cheat at getting to know people. It's about the people. I see these friendships link to other friendships, and become these tight-knit little groups. I love the dynamic of these groups. VlogCandy, VlogVetica, FiveAwesomeGirls, all of those. These people, brought together by fate, God, whatever you want to call it, just hanging out over the Internet.

I think, more than anything that's what I want from the Internet. I want to be part of a group like that. Views and subs are nice, but what I really want is to interact with other people in the community. Yeah. That's pretty much it.

I'll get there eventually.