It’s crazy how the internet makes the world smaller, thanks to how it enables smaller, niche communities to find each other.

My friend, Tender Signals, a person who missed the way the internet used to be (and creator of the viral Message in a Bottle), found other people like her. She’s not the only one. Turns out there’s such a thing as HTML Day, where people get together and celebrate HTML. And that’s an amazing thing.

And that’s just one ‘society’ or clique. There are so many clans and tribes out there. No matter how small or niche your interests are, there’s bound to be other people out there who share them (assuming they want to be found, for obvious reasons).

I was thinking about this the other day while listening to a New Yorker podcast called The Journey. The whole reason the investigation started was because a community of women who were surrogates connected online and discovered that they were all carrying babies for what turned out to be the same family.

Shit was bananas. The ‘parents’ had successfully paid for 20+ kids, which led to an investigation into who they were and what they were doing. Anyway, I don’t know if it can be considered a happy ending, but all the kids have since been removed and placed in state custody.

It’s interesting how the internet can bring people together over the most unexpected things. In this case, it helped a group of women realise they were all caught up in the same bizarre situation.

I like podcasts about true stories (I can always look up the endings if I can’t wait for them to finish).

On another note, listening to true crime podcasts makes you realize how corrupt or incompetent law enforcement can seem to be. Or maybe this is confirmation bias because people who do their jobs properly don’t make interesting stories. Unsolved mysteries and unjust practices make for more compelling tales. Anyway, I’m going off track.

I’m sure I can find someone who thinks the world is corrupt too, and that everything is fabricated, we’re all being fed lies, and vaccinations don’t work and cause autism. Oh wait.

But going back to the part about connecting with people, back when I started blogging, strangers would randomly comment on my blog posts. At first, it was just other kids from my school, but as time went on, I’d get comments from people I didn’t know in person.

I wasn’t part of any blog rings. I never really felt like I belonged to any of them.

These commenters stumbled upon my blog because they were readers of another person’s blog, and that person had linked my blog. They’d read my post, have something to say and drop it in the comments. I’d reply, and if they had a blog, I’d visit theirs and comment on their posts too.

Over the years, that developed into some sort of friendship that expanded to MSN Messenger and Friendster. To this day, I’m still in touch with some of them, though none of them blog anymore cough cough.

Many people moved on to microblogging. Facebook status updates, which turned into Facebook Notes, and then tweets. In between, there were YouTube vlogs for people with cameras (still not that common back in the day). Then smartphones came along and Instagram became the standard. Snapchat rose to prominence for a short while in Malaysia until Instagram introduced Stories. I don’t think I have any friends using Snapchat anymore.

I still remember that period when everyone stopped writing about their personal lives and started turning their blogs into advertorials instead. Eventually, even the people who continued writing weren’t really writing about themselves anymore. I see the same thing happening on Instagram now.

While all this was happening, most people started forgetting about writing long-form personal essays, and eventually, I became one of the few remaining blogs from my ‘circle’. They were my people, but like life would have it, everyone moves on. And that’s okay. I suppose that’s part of growing up. You find your people, spend some time together, and eventually, life takes everyone in different directions.

It was fun to read about what someone was going through. The best part was that everyone had their own voice, their own writing style. Reading Person A’s blog wasn’t the same as reading Person B’s. Some people were funny, some were eloquent, and some had the strangest observations. But it was all fun.

I do miss that part of my internet life. So here I am, plodding on, doing my part to keep this medium alive. And if you’re doing the same, I salute you. I may never read your blog simply because I don’t know it exists. But if you have one, leave a comment below and I’ll pay it a visit.

Maybe I’ll find other millennial men who share my interests, questionable guitar skills, and the inability to grow a decent beard.