The internet is... Good?

The internet can still be... Good?

I am as stunned as you are.

Ok, so here is what happened:

Patreon made their own social media thing, called Quips. I am as jaded as the rest of you, but my profession requires me to stake out a space on all the new platforms so at least my handle doesn't get gobbled up by somebody who might bring shame to my good name, like a Republican or somebody who publicly praises the taste of Marmite.

What typically happens is I hang out on each new platform long enough to make a couple posts, hit 'like' or whatever on any that catch my eye, follow a handful of familiar faces, and then I forget it ever existed.

What happened on Quips is that I was seeing a lot of interesting posts. Like. I guess due to the nature of being hosted on Patreon, the users and creators are all people who are already here to be involved with creative works, so that's what's being shared and that's what people are being excited about. And on top of that, Quips was auto-suggesting a ton of brand new creators to me, people and entities that had never crossed my internet path before even though a lot of them are actually really well established and have existed for years if not more than a decade already???

One such account that burst into my feed was Lingthusiasm, the podcast for people enthusiastic about linguistics. We mutually hit 'like' and left a note or two on a couple of our respective posts, but then they shared this banger:

So, obviously I had to draw it.

AND THAT'S HOW I MADE INTERNET FRIENDS WITH LINGTHUSIASM'S ACCOUNT-RUNNER GRETCHEN McCULLOCH. But don't take my word for it, go watch her recount this tale in her own words:

Chatting with this funny, creative person naturally led me to look up her co-hosted podcast and then absolutely devouring her book, BECAUSE INTERNET (affiliate link), in, like, 48 hours.

Like. The whole experience was like the good old days of Internet! When people were just makin' goofs and sharing cool shit and being excited about it together. And it's not unique to my bumping into Gretchen on there- this kind of open, friendly, creative, collaborative vibe is just baked in to the infrastructure of Quips right now?

I've been posting my photos and bullshit pretty much daily and urging all the artists in my studio to get on this-- and that was months before Patreon reached out to produce this video for Quip's public launch. So, like, yeah, technically the video is #SponCon but I was already saying all of this stuff for free in my real life anyway, I'm literally just repeating myself verbatim but now I'm getting a one-time compensation for saying it again on video, sooooooo ¯\(ツ)/¯

And don't get me wrong, there's bugs that need to get worked on and basic features that really do need to be incorporated (Alt text for images, please!), and I knoooooooow the culture of each new social media platform evolves over time. But:

But, it's just really nice right now.

I'm genuinely enjoying it, as a creator and a patron.

More Internet like this, please!