Existing on the Internet
I've been on the internet a long time — well not that long I've only been alive for 20 years after all. At least over half my life has been on the internet (roughly 13 years) so it felt pretty long to me. Yet, I've almost exclusively used the internet as a read-only kind of place. I mean sure, I've posted videos here and there about some Celeste maps or whenever I do something I'm proud of in a game, but those still always felt a little bit formal in their own right.
I was thinking back on a movie I had watched ages ago that I remember really loving called 君の膵臓を食べたい！ or I Want To Eat Your Pancreas and there was a particular quote that has stuck with me for a while.
If you’re all alone, you cant tell that you exist. Your relationship with others, is what defines being alive. I know my mind exists, since I can interact with others. I know my body exists, because others touch me.
As someone that has always struggled a little with human interaction, I've always felt like its a little hard for me to feel like I really exist sometimes. I think the happiest I've always felt in life has been interacting with others and learning about other people. It's the reason I ended up falling in love with game development of all things.
You might be saying "Denpakia you say all this but you also say you don't really interact with the internet that much" — to which I say, I know! Isn't that crazy? For someone who found so much solace in the internet I sure did stay a recluse both in person and online. It's only very recently that I've started to put more of myself out there, creating this website is one part of that.
I grew up in a time where with GamerGate1, streamers getting swatted, and trans people getting doxxed from sharing even just their hotel room's bed sheets2. It instilled a lot of paranoia in me to be hyper vigilant with whatever I post on the internet. I tried to always keep as much of my real-life self out of the internet if possible and so I never really joined communities online. I quickly realized though, I'm not very content with that. I never really felt like I existed anywhere. I was too "weird" to fit into anywhere when I was still in school and I was too scared to interact with anyone on the internet, where I spent most of my time. All that left just a tired 電波少女 with nowhere to fit in. I guess it didn't help that I'm Asian-American so I had to deal with the whole not being Asian enough for Asia and not American enough for America.
Why all this now? Well, I felt like even though I have thankfully found myself in a college and friend group where it feels like I fit in, I couldn't really say the same for my internet-self. There were — and are — so many cool people online that I want to talk to, make games with, and learn from, so I decided that maybe I should start making my presence known. Just so I don't reach out to people as a basically anonymous blob who hasn't done anything.
I'm still scared, and I'm still cautious, but I feel like I've met enough lovely people online who have so much personality that I thought, maybe I should start breaking out of my comfort zone and put myself out there too. Thank you game dev communities for being so sweet <3.