it can't be forced. most movements and phenomena are only labeled as such after the fact. usually, you don't know you're in the middle of a zeitgeist while it's coming into being.
for months now, my intellect and my instinct have been sparring.
i am not someone who does this.
what is this? well, i've gotten into it a bit already, but more specifically, amidst the thesis making and dissertating on youtube clips, friendships have begun to emerge. i noticed that there were a handful of people whose thoughts i was especially keen to read, who i hoped would comment, whose perspective on the narrative snippets i trusted more than others'.
we were beginning to interact with a braided narrative structure: the content itself, the recasting of that content into a new context that allowed for textual commentary upon the visual, and we were also bringing our memory of watching these scenes in real time, twenty to twenty-five years prior.
We were kids when these dramas first played out, and we could see that in many instances we really didn't know what was going on then--and our adult minds were being a little bit blown by the implications we missed as young girls who simply wanted to see frisco & felicia kiss and make love.
to have the chance to go back and not just reengage the narrative, but to reengage who we were when the narrative first unfolded for us--in various parts of the country--has forged a bond i did not count on.
i am not someone who makes friends online.
soon the comments boards weren't enough. i began writing two of my yt friends via personal message--still not going beyond the parameters of the site--but we found there was just more to say than the 500-character comments limit would allow.
it was delightful. i found that i couldn't wait for the notifications to my g-mail account telling me that there had been some activity--a new comment, a reply to a comment, an upload, or a longer note waiting for me in my yt inbox.
lately, things have gotten even more meta. we've been dissecting some interviews and writings about the show and the actors, and sometimes you need to process from a more visceral place than a keyboard will allow. . .
one of my two main yt people wrote me in a note recently that after reading one piece i'd passed along that she wished she could call me to talk it through because her thoughts were going in so many different directions.
i sent her my phone number.
she gave me hers.
we didn't talk that day, but she called me last night. i'd already put her number in my phone, so when i looked down at the display and saw who it was, this whole thing became imminently more real.
greeted by her warm and cheerful voice, i knew i was in for one of those long, deep conversations that feels like finally finding a friend at camp, the first sip of a hot cup of coffee, and a breath of fresh air all at once.
there were no awkward moments, just a good, old-fashioned gab fest. we talked fast and animatedly about our feelings and memories about the characters. i was so happy, i was tripping over words, laughing, and saying things like "yes, absolutely," over and over again like some sort of babbling fool. and i didn't care.
i can't wait for the next conversation. or the effort that i and two other yt'ers are mounting. we're just letting the situation organically unfold.
whatever this is, i am someone who does this.
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