Just like any normal teenager of the time, I spent the majority of my adolescent life online on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, even Myspace. It was around this time when I started finding feminist blogs. Now, up until then, I had only heard the feminist stereotypes. You know the sort, it's the whole "all feminists are man-hating lesbians" skit.

Nevertheless, I started actually reading up on what they were saying and what feminism was about. I read countless accounts that were written by not only women, but also men telling their stories about how they, their family members, and their significant others were being affected, most of the time not even intentionally, by the patriarchy.

Now, I was incredibly sheltered for most of my teenage life both by my parents and the family that I created for myself online. Thus, until recently, I hadn't seen much of the backlash first-hand. It was all second-hand, either told to me by the community or what I found myself, most of which were trolls or people who just genuinely did not understand what being a feminist was about. Yet, there were the few who actually believed that feminism was not only unnecessary, but that women were genuinely inferior to men. They would occasionally even become violent at the thought of the two being equal.

Those were the scary ones.

I am now in my sophomore year of college. Although I was very sheltered, I have now met many different people with many different viewpoints, some of which I have agreed with and many that I have not. I also have many friends with varying opinions and belief systems: self-proclaimed "feminists," "equalists," "anarchists," and "democratic socialists." We all debate and, yes, we all butt heads, but, at the end of the day, we are still friends.

Now, I am first and foremost an internet feminist, but that is probably my one critique of the internet in general. People must realize that we can have differing opinions and still get along. It doesn't have to be a cat fight to see which beliefs last the longest. I feel like this mentality not only hurts the people who you are "debating," but also hurts the idea of feminism as a whole.

I love my community and I will always be a feminist, no matter what.