I think the
internet is a wonderful thing. It’s made the world a much smaller place. It’s
made it possible to make friends you never would have otherwise. Let me give you a couple of examples. Once,
while in the hotel in one of my many visits to Las Vegas , I was surfing for geeky related
things and I found something called micro heroes. These were small gif files of superheroes
with heads too large for their bodies. I
was enthralled. These things seemed easy enough for me to make and there were
entire web sights dedicated to these little guys. I’m a very visual person. I
love looking and things and designing things and Micro Heroes gave me an outlet
for both. I started making my own and “collecting” (a real habit of mine) ones
that others had made. It was then that I
discovered that there was a group of people, a club if you will, who shared
their creations with each other. I signed up for my first internet “group.” I
would receive emails from Robert, Kat, Matthew, and a whole slew of others who
were just as geeky as me and who just wanted to show off their latest Micro. We
talked to each other through these emails and told each other how cool their
latest work was. It was nice to have “friends” who were interested in similar things.
On one trip to Phoenix
I actually got together with Robert for lunch. I remember a coworker marveling
that I would just go to lunch with a complete stranger. I told him that it
wasn’t really a complete stranger. After all, we’ve shared Micro Heroes and we
both liked comics. He still had trouble grasping.
Anyway, that was
my first foray into an online community of any kind, but it wouldn’t be my
last. Set the time machine forward a few years and my wife bought me an MP3
player for Father’s day or our Anniversary (I forget which it was) and within a
few weeks I had discovered these things called podcasts. I could find programs
on the internet that talked about comic books??? That was crazy! I remember the
first one I downloaded was a podcast called Raging Bullets. All DC comics! I
was hooked. The hosts would talk about DC Comics, but the also talked about
being part of the Comic Geek Speak (CGS) forums. I had never joined any kind of online forums
before and wasn’t sure what to expect. I started listening to CGS as well and
they often spoke about their forum members like they were friends. I took the
plunge and joined. I was very much a “lurker” for the first little bit. The first thing I noticed was that a lot of
the people there all had odd names. There were people like Peter, Bryan, and
Shane, but there was also Dr Norge, Rainbow Cloak, and Filthy McMonkey and
many, many others. I’ve done my share of chatting via AOL and Messenger so I
was familiar with screen names. I picked the one I always use and finally
started interacting. I started becoming familiar with the personalities behind
the names. Little by little and bit by bit, these strangers became acquaintances
and then friends. We discussed not only comics, but politics, family triumphs
and tragedies, or the latest movie or TV show. We even have a yearly “Secret
Santa” which is just a fantastic thing every Christmas season. We feel so much like friends and family that
I felt and feel like I would be totally at home meeting them in real life. I
actually would like nothing better than to meet Sean, Darren, or Scott. (Norge,
Cloak, and McMonkey) These are people
from all over the globe and from many different walks of life. People I know I
never would have met otherwise. And the internet brought us together.
One in particular has become one of
my very best friends in the world. Our
friendship has grown beyond the forum and the computer. We converse over the phone at least once a
week and sometimes more. We’ve laughed at each other when we make idiots out
ourselves, and shed a tear or two when there was no other way to express what
needed to be said. He and his family live over 2000 miles from me and mine and
yet because of this little thing called the internet (ok, so it’s really quite
big) we’re as close as friends that live 2 miles away. I have friends in Colorado and New York as
well as Canada and New Zealand .
For someone who spent many years with a very small, limited group of friends,
the world is now open to me in a very real way. So, to you friends out there.
To Shane, Darren, Paul, Peter, Scott, Matt, Bryan, Sean, Leroy, Brad, Ken,
Toni, Wayne, Caleb, Murray, Jim, Don, Chris, Frank, Sarah, Adam, Aaron, Kyle,
Jamie, and all the others. To all my friends I’ve never met. Your friendship
means more to me than you may ever know. Here’s to you. Here’s to friend who
have or haven’t met. And, oh what the heck, here’s to micro heroes who started
this whole thing off for me.
