Parents say it all the time: Don't talk to people you don't know on the Internet. Everyone's heard it before. It's common sense, right? I heard the same thing when I was young. By the time I started to use the Internet, I knew exactly what I was in for.
This Internet was a dark and dangerous place. It certainly wasn't safe for my young eyes and so I never ventured into its depths. But there came a point in my childhood where my friends started discussing dumb videos they'd found on YouTube. I'll admit, I went home from school one day and wondered why "utube.com" didn't yield any results when I typed it into the search bar on my family's computer.
As my childhood progressed, I started spending more time on the computer, partly because I thought it was funny and partly because I had this really shitty babysitter for a hot minute who would monopolize our TV every day because she had to watch Dr. Phil. Anyway, I came to realize: "OK, the Internet is still a dark and forbidden forest, but if I only take a couple steps into it, it's just some funny cats who can play the piano. The bad part of the Internet is much deeper and as long as I stay cautious, I will be safe." Well, clearly that didn't happen.
I've seen my fair share of the oddities and horrors online, but that's not what we're talking about here. I found something far more valuable on the Internet. Better than the funniest video of a baby laughing or even the dankest of memes. I know, wild. Let me explain.
The first time I decided to disregard "Don't talk to strangers on the Internet" was on Twitter. One of my friends, Anna (who I met at VidCon, a YouTube convention, and stayed in contact with mainly online), introduced me to her friend Grace on Twitter.
Grace and I had two things in common: we liked YouTube and One Direction. Soon, we were the best of friends. Our Internet friend group grew in a similar way for a couple years. At first it was weird to explain to people that some of my closest friends were people I'd met on Twitter or through YouTube. I got used to people being confused and concerned when I talked about my Internet friends. But that didn't stop me from building these awesome relationships.
There's a lot of discrepancy in my mind over calling my friends who I've met online "Internet friends." It kind of makes it sound like they aren't real friends. It sounds like they're less than an actual friend because they're confined to the Internet when that isn't true at all. My friend Damian made a great video on the topic that you should check out here:
Since we all started talking online, my Internet squad has all met in person. It was the coolest thing ever (the picture is up top!). We spend the summers together in LA and at VidCon, we have Google+ hangouts that last multiple hours and we tried (and failed) to have a YouTube channel that we don't talk about anymore. As a disclaimer, this doesn't mean that all strangers online are really cool people that you want to be best friends with. Creepers exist and, unfortunately, there are lots of them. But I was lucky enough to find some creepers who just happen to be some of my favorite people ever.
Moral of the story: Don't talk to strangers on the Internet unless they also like One Direction?
