There is this really hurtful assumption that online friends are like imaginary friends and the need for them would just fade away if you have "a life". Online friends are not chatbots you can turn to when you are bored or hate your real life friends or they hate you all with a sudden after you had no problem with ditching your online friends for them more often than not.
#OnlineFriendsAreRealPeople #InternetFriendsAreRealFriends #FoundFamilyIsFamily
Kids learn object permanence really early in life, yet, many people never learn online friend object permanence. Like, these people don't cease to exist just by you turning your computer off. The time span you don't see your friends in the place you are living is experience the same by your online friends.
#OnlineFriendsAreRealPeople #InternetFriendsAreRealFriends #FoundFamilyIsFamily
What people with a "real life first" approach when it comes to with whom to spend time don't seem to get is that yes, you are connected to your online connections via the internet but these people are (assuming these are not catfishes or the like) as real as people you are meeting face to face. There are real people behind the other screen. So this approach doesn't really make sense.
#InternetFriendsAreRealFriends #FoundFamilyIsFamily #OnlineFriendsAreRealPeople
Now there's a GoFundMe, with funds that could be directed to funeral expenses, if we could find his family. ๐คทโโ๏ธ
I'm sure this will hit me soon, and once again, I will grieve someone I cared about.
3/3
What complicates the situation is that, like so many of us #netizens, Eric used a pseudonym online. I don't know his legal name, just as you don't know mine. So I have no real way to confirm the reports of his passing. I do know that he hasn't checked in online as expected after returning home. That's not a good sign.
2/
A little while ago, I started seeing unconfirmed reports that an online friend from Diaspora had passed away last Sunday. This is someone for whom a bunch of us had started a fundraiser to get his leaky roof repaired.
We knew he was going into the hospital, ostensibly for diagnostic tests. Nothing believed to be life-threatening.
I'm just ... numb. I don't feel it yet. Maybe because there's been no official report.
1/
Zuri (he/him) โ๏ธ๐ ๐ CET
Janet Logan (she/her) ๐ณ๏ธโโง๏ธ
AllynCrowe