We’re on blogcation, & will be back with all new content
August 2! Until then, please enjoy some of your favorite articles
from the last year. Originally published January 6, 2010.
Over Thanksgiving dinner a conversation started about Twitter. The main gist of which wasn’t favorable. It started out harmless enough (I kept out of it considering I’m a Twitter fan) but got pretty intensely negative, albeit in a half joking tone. Ten minutes into it my 12-year-old daughter leaned over to me and asked under her breath, Are they making fun of you Mom? They weren’t but I couldn’t help but feel totally misunderstood.
That same week my husband, while flipping the channels, landed on a Dr. Phil episode where Dr. Phil insisted that internet relationships weren’t real relationships. I understood for the most part the point of the show and that he wasn’t talking to me, or about me or about my online relationships specifically but I still chose not to watch it.
I spend a lot of time online. Probably too much time, I’ll admit. But, that aside, I will stand firm in defending the kinds of connections and relationships that I have made on the web over the last few years. Blogging has been the catalyst that created and continues to create a circle of people that I deeply care about in my life. I have dear, cherished friends that I would have never even met if it weren’t for the internet. And I know that many of you reading can say the same. These are friends that I look forward to reaching out to everyday (via Twitter or Facbook) and friends that I cannot wait to see at BlogHer (or Mom 2.0 or the Alt Summit) and friends that I now talk to on the phone and plan gatherings with because I value their friendship THAT much.
It’s real; this thing we do online everyday. And it cultivates the kinds of real relationships that have made my life that much more rich and complete.
As for the people that don’t understand it, don’t believe it, or won’t support it, well, that’s just their loss. As for me? I’ll just keep enjoying and celebrating it…this authentic and real thing we’ve got going on here. Care to join me?
<
