Good post, a lot rings true in my experience! Twitter is a uniquely good place to meet people, though it requires a lot of work and calibration to use successfully, and it takes practice to be yourself in a public broadcast medium. But I feel like curating a quality follows list and interacting with people you like online has very high ROI. And it's worth taking the initiative — asking good questions, planning casual events, proposing ideas for collaboration — even if not everything pans out, it's about increasing the surface area for serendipity, opening up more possible paths, planting seeds…
Making friends on the internet
11–20 of 62 posts
Re: Making friends on the internet
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, probably the saddest thing I read this week. Self-promotion on twatter and HN is different than forming friendship. The goold old days of fora was way better to make friends from the internet IMO. Nowadays everything seems to be a link aggregator which fundamentally change how people interact with each other. Also it may be more an academic thing, but cold emailing is a good way to make contact. Not necessarily…
> The goold old days Okay. But those days are gone. So what do you expect OP and folks growing up today to do? Shy of time travel they cant live the childhood you did and experience the magical internet of the ~90's. Maybe their version is just as good to them as yours was to you?
Those days are not gone. Forums mated with IRC and became Discord.
Re: Making friends on the internet
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The goold old days Okay. But those days are gone. So what do you expect OP and folks growing up today to do? Shy of time travel they cant live the childhood you did and experience the magical internet of the ~90's. Maybe their version is just as good to them as yours was to you?
Those days are not gone. Forums mated with IRC and became Discord.
Uh I guess? Wasnt the point thought that companies are shaping the online experience more now than in the past? Discord may be less moderated than most (although the controversies section of their wiki page is longer than any other section) but that seems to be more of a bug than a feature. Eventually the big acquisition or IPO will come and then the moderation will follow.
Re: Making friends on the internet
#14The problem with Twitter, and other social media where people use their real name and photo is that in fact people are NEVER going to be themselves. People want to show their best to the world. I don't want to meet 'Yes' friends or 'always positive' friends. Social media is fake. There is no way around it. LinkedIn is fake and disgusting, looking at my feed for a second when I'm responding to recruiters makes me want to vomit.
I have known people who were going through divorces, abusive relationships and major life issues, all while their social media feeds were showing how great everything is going.
The only 'REAL" people I met online were either focused niche/small subreddits or gaming communities. As you build trust you learn more and more about their real life, good and bad. Growing up I met a girl who was going through chemo treatment and could not leave her home due to all the severe side effects. This was in one of the gaming communities. I really enjoyed her company and it really opened my eyes. Internet was/is an amazing place, I was able to really connect with someone who normally would not open up to strangers. In the end, I didn't really know her IRL, maybe that is why she was able to open up and be direct about sharing her thoughts about suffering, life and death. I have not been able to connect with anyone like this IRL, is it me that doesn't seem trustworthy or approachable?
Re: Making friends on the internet
#15In my opinion, the answer has always been to participate in group activities that cover something you're interested in, as it gives an easy starting point to begin a friendship. For me, it is either games or certain coding niches.
As a non-user of Twitter, I don't think its organization is conducive to easily finding friends - instead of focused individual communities, I believe it is more free-form (?) as a result of "the algorithm" determining your interests. Which could be considered a plus because of discovery as noted in the article.
I do see how you could extrapolate similar interests from other users based on their tweets or replies and bootstrap a friendship from that as the author mentions (kind of risky when dealing with anonymized opinions about controversial topics or just straight up lies), but it seems like much more work compared to participating in a group which you know already shares that interest.
To summarize, finding friends on Twitter is kind of like shooting in the dark.
However I initially missed the main point of the post because it was stuck towards the bottom after the list.
> translat(ing) these (online connections) into offline connections.
So now my question is why do you need to make your online connections offline? I have good friendships that are ongoing for years with people that I've only met online and have never felt the need to meet them offline. Note that I don't consider setting up an irl meeting online then meeting them irl as "making friends on the internet" unless I have been regularly interacting for a while already in somewhat private circumstances (like daily casual talk or playing games together).
Re: Making friends on the internet
#16soulful post. for all the hell/chaos of twitter, it's still the equivalent of OkCupid for meaningful friendships.
Re: Making friends on the internet
#17I made a lot of friends on IRC and internet forums a long time ago. It is much easier when you are anonymous and be truly yourself. I miss these communities nowadays and can't really find a replacement.
Re: Making friends on the internet
#18The problem with Twitter, and other social media where people use their real name and photo is that in fact people are NEVER going to be themselves. People want to show their best to the world. I don't want to meet 'Yes' friends or 'always positive' friends. Social media is fake. There is no way around it. LinkedIn is fake and disgusting, looking at my feed for a second when I'm responding to recruiters makes me want…
> The only 'REAL" people I met online were either focused niche/small subreddits or gaming communities.
I've found gaming communities (and I've been in many) to be excessively toxic. You can meet good people there, but I've found it's not worth the headache.
Re: Making friends on the internet
#19The problem with Twitter, and other social media where people use their real name and photo is that in fact people are NEVER going to be themselves. People want to show their best to the world. I don't want to meet 'Yes' friends or 'always positive' friends. Social media is fake. There is no way around it. LinkedIn is fake and disgusting, looking at my feed for a second when I'm responding to recruiters makes me want…
> The only 'REAL" people I met online were either focused niche/small subreddits or gaming communities. I've found gaming communities (and I've been in many) to be excessively toxic. You can meet good people there, but I've found it's not worth the headache.
I do agree with your observation. It is generally difficult to find a non-toxic gaming community. This was actually a battlefield group, which brought a lot of older folk. In the 20 years of gaming (jesus, can't believe it has been that long). I have only found a few good communities.
Re: Making friends on the internet
#20The problem with Twitter, and other social media where people use their real name and photo is that in fact people are NEVER going to be themselves. People want to show their best to the world. I don't want to meet 'Yes' friends or 'always positive' friends. Social media is fake. There is no way around it. LinkedIn is fake and disgusting, looking at my feed for a second when I'm responding to recruiters makes me want…
> The only 'REAL" people I met online were either focused niche/small subreddits or gaming communities. I've found gaming communities (and I've been in many) to be excessively toxic. You can meet good people there, but I've found it's not worth the headache.
Some are toxic, some are cliquey, some are too established to do anything in. If it isn't a PvP game, odds are you missed the boat if you don't hop on in the first 1-2 weeks of its introduction (or for MMOs / games with long lifespans, a major patch), or you have to really stand out in something (skill, fanart, whatever).
I like games, but the ease of getting into a community is nowhere near as low as some people like to sell it as. Especially today. Even if they aren't toxic in the obvious sense, it often feels like a minefield navigating these communities without upsetting someone, getting dogpiled or anything.