I definitely didn’t expect to be working with so many different types of new media when I first entered this class, nor did I expect to be given the opportunity to do so many creative projects. Now that I’m in the process of editing my podcast for my final project, it’s weird to think that all I have left to do is six minutes’ worth of standing around while a recording of my voice plays. After being assigned to listen to so many and now to create one, I have a new appreciation for podcasts; I’ve never really put aside the time to delve into the Apple podcast library aside from one or two series on occasion, and I have issues with my attention span so I’ve struggled in the past to really get in the habit of listening. But I’m excited to come up with my final product, and hopefully over interterm I can give myself an opportunity to give podcasts another shot, now that I’ll have some time.

I think my biggest takeaway from this semester is going to be the idea that a website is never truly a closed-off medium, but rather a resource that connects to countless other resources through hypertext that can transport you to an entirely different site on an entirely different topic with the click of a mouse. Since I grew up accustomed to using a computer, hypertext was something I never questioned or thought about critically, so having to consider how to use it meaningfully was a much appreciated challenge. I had also never considered the similarities between hypertext and traditional citation footnotes found in paper books and essays until we addressed it in class, and that changed my perspective on how connected new and traditional media actually are. Though we might think them to be polar opposites, they’re just different media that accomplish similar goals in their own ways. Additionally, I enjoyed comparing the pros and cons of both new and traditional media, because so often we take for granted that one is simply “better” than the other, whichever one we might think that is, when in actuality they both have their unique advantages and shortcomings that make certain forms of media appropriate for different occasions.

As far as the most meaningful assignment, I think the chain poem project that I did with Paige, Rachel, and Michelle was the most enlightening. As a creative writing major, something that’s vital to my career that I need to get used to is collaborating with other people, whether they’re editors or other writers, and this project provided an opportunity to try that out on a very small scale. Because it was in theory a simple project, once we worked out the parameters we decided to write in a semi-random sequence, in which whoever happened to log on and see the next part had been written would write the next part. Something that I noted in my reflection for this particular assignment was that this method had its difficulties in that I would log on expecting to be able to write another part, but would then see that nobody had replied since my last addition. Overall, I’m grateful that I got to take part in this and get a taste of what future collaborations might be like, with all their ups and downs.

So thank you, Jaime, for being my professor, and thank you for this class. Of the long list of classes eligible to fulfill the literature/rhetoric elective requirement for my degree, I’m glad I chose this one.

Coming from a community that is very close-knit and open about our queerness, allyship isn’t a hard thing to come across because we tend to be pretty selective about who we associate with in the first place. But sometimes we end up in situations where we’re reminded of how little some people know about us; for instance, last year I found myself in a queer psychology class in which I was the only openly queer and trans person in the room, while for a good portion of the class it seemed that this was their first time ever interacting with my community. While this is by no means necessarily a bad thing, especially given the fact that they were in that class to begin with, I began to wonder what the education of allies is like for those whose only resources lie online, as opposed to being taught by somebody with a doctorate on the subject.

A quick Google search led me to GLAAD’s short list of tips on how to be an ally. This list serves as a basic guideline on how to begin thinking critically about identity in general, with an emphasis on listening to members of the community and deconstructing the ways in which one has been trained to perceive the world. From an LGBTQ perspective, these are certainly must-haves for an ally, but its reach is somewhat limited due to its concentration on the prerequisites of allyship as opposed to the active participation that defines what allies do. It declares that one should “defend [their] LGBT friends against discrimination,” but there is no information provided on how to do so beyond designating anti-LGBTQ jokes as “harmful,” which in the mind of an inexperienced ally may be taken to mean that intervention is only necessary in situations that they can already recognize as discriminatory, such as cases of clear verbal or physical assault. Even this guide to allyship created for educators published by Teaching Tolerance, a group dedicated to spreading social justice in the classroom, does little more than encourage critical thought about identity as a whole, when in fact teachers are just as likely as any other ally to witness acts of queerphobia that they are in a position to put a stop to. As such, the next question my research sought to answer was what allies are being taught to recognize as discrimination and how they are being taught to handle it.

The first result for “how to recognize homophobia” brought me Planned Parenthood’s page addressing what homophobia is as well as what to do to prevent or stop it in everyday life. What struck me about this page was its thoroughness in discussing not only the basic definition of homophobia, but also defining internalized homophobia and outing, two extremely relevant terms related to the topic of queerness and allyship. Furthermore, it provides resources for both LGBTQ people experiencing homophobia and allies seeking to confront it, listing around a dozen ways to eliminate it behaviorally in oneself and in others. It also notes something that is too rarely talked about in ally circles: one must consider if and when it is safe for the victim to be defended by an ally, as well as how they will approach the confrontation so as to have the most effective outcome. People often joke about how the Thanksgiving dinner table is the site of family arguments and political dramas, but this doesn’t always have to be the case; it’s vital for an ally to pick their battles, not only for their own sake but especially for the sake of the victim of discrimination. But this framing of the situation can unintentionally imply that being an ally is a passive role, one that must be invoked only when outside stimuli encourage its use. My next goal was determining what allies are being taught about their role in discriminatory situations and the active nature of being one.

Comedian and activist Franchesca Ramsey declares in her video “5 Tips For Being An Ally” that the most important thing to remember about allyship is that “ally is a verb,” meaning that it is not enough to simply declare oneself an ally, but such a label must be backed up by actions that consistently work toward the greater good of marginalized people. A similar article published by Everyday Feminism concurs with this idea, citing an anecdote of a self-proclaimed “ally” tweeting a homophobic joke and using this alleged badge of allyship as a shield when called out for it. The problem with the notion of allyship in general is how performative is tends to be, as once people have adopted the label they think that’s all they have to do to be adequately progressive or “woke.” But being “with the times” isn’t the goal, and in perceiving it as such we lose sight of the actual aim of ally movements: the elevation of minority groups to an unmarginalized (or, in the short term, a less marginalized) status, which can be achieved only through active participation in social movements for change. Even the term movement should be self-explanatory; allies don’t sit at home and watch everything happen around them, policing language here and there as they see fit, but rather allies are the ones on the front lines paving paths alongside the marginalized so that the marginalized can have their voices amplified.

My question was thus answered. An ally with only the Internet as a resource for allyship can learn that their role must be active, open-minded, and critically perceptive. The key word here, though, is can. One of the most active steps an ally can take is simply getting started educating themselves, and this can prove challenging for those who still need to learn about the queer community as a whole first. Something else I noticed was that no obvious source on allyship noted the importance of intersectionality, or being aware of the ways in which identities both marginalized and unmarginalized intersect to create unique discriminatory situations. For example, it’s important to keep in mind that belonging to a single marginalized group does not excuse a person from being prejudiced toward marginalized people, or even toward their own group. Because of this, I think I want to focus my final project on where ally education doesn’t quite meet the needs of the queer community, particularly when it comes to race and ability status. I’d like to aim for doing it in podcast form, but because I’ve never done anything like that I’m a little hesitant to declare it with certainty. I know that I want to interview peers in the community for their perspective on allyship, but it all comes down to whether they will be recorded primarily in transcript form or podcast form. Regardless, I’m excited to see what they and I can come up with.

I am like a lot of other people of my generation in that I grew up playing video games. I also grew up being taught that video games were, in the words of Bogost, “mere distractions” that served only to damage eyes and promote irritability (136). While the latter may have been true for my childhood self (having been a perfectionist who just wasn’t accustomed to having to repeat things many times to get them right), the reduction of video games to having no inherent intellectual or moral value is something I resent. But I find that Bogost presents a very important lens through which to view video games, in order to reach a general understanding of not only what they are and what they do, but what they are capable of being and doing. By analyzing the misconceptions behind games and demonstrating what games have to offer rhetorically, their overall reputation could be drastically changed and result in more productive conversation.

The typical image of an exasperated parent trying in vain to get their video-game-addicted child to stop playing is one that is pretty easy to conjure. One is more often than not inclined to pity this parent, who only wants to spend time with their family but is rebuked by the hopeless offspring whose eyes remain glued to the screen, and this perception of the situation is one that perpetuates the idea that video games are mere nuisances that threaten familial bonds and social lives. But Bogost rejects this notion, preferring to address the rhetorical capabilities that video games have. “Video games make arguments about how social or cultural systems work in the world,” he says, “or how they could work, or don’t work” (136). In other words, video games serve an identical function to any other form of media, being crafted and created with some purpose in mind, and often some message to send.

Of course, this does not automatically mean that every video game holds some deeper philosophical meaning as to what life is really about. Many are on the simpler side and simply reward skill or a high score within the given constraints (think Pong and other games with a straightforward goal that is achieved through one linear and unchanging method of play). Many others can be summed up as what the gaming community calls “collect-a-thons,” in which the player’s overall goal is to collect certain amounts of resources or objects within the game in order to further some sort of story. But who are we to conclude that even these games hold no deeper meaning when we cannot possibly dictate what its players take away from it, especially when they may not know themselves? Consider Bogost’s initial Animal Crossing example. He notes that Animal Crossing “models the redistribution of wealth in a way even young children like my five-year-old can understand,” and as an avid player of the original GameCube edition as well as its various sequels, I can attest to the truth of this statement (119). But when I was five and playing in my town each day, the lessons on financial flow weren’t something that I consciously thought about, but rather simply accepted. Thinking back, yes, it was an incredibly beneficial way to learn about managing money, friendship, and responsibility, but those aren’t qualities that I was able to reflect on until I was much older and facing those problems in the real world. This is one way that video games work that is potentially unpredictable even if one actively discusses these aspects of them with their children as they play. Encouraging critical thinking about the media that we consume is absolutely an important conversation to have, but before preaching to others, we ourselves must understand what we take from the games we play, which can only occur if we first promote critical thinking in grown adults.

And this is where the problem lies. When we think back to the image of the concerned parent and the occupied child, there is no desire in the parent to understand how and why their child came to enjoy playing video games in the first place, nor is there any consideration that the content they are absorbing might be beneficial to moral development, whether conscious or unconscious. There is only the fear and frustration that leads to the conclusion that one must do away with all video games to solve this epidemic, depriving their young player of what brings them joy. This outcome leaves little to no room for a conversation between equals, but rather features a parent exacting their will over a subordinate child without giving them a chance to learn anything from them. As Bogost says, the future of critical consumption of media begins “at home where parents can help their kids play games critically, just as they might help their kids understand novels or films by virtue of their own familiarity with those media” (136). A parent who brings their matured perspective to the table need only open their mind to learn something before teaching. After all, Bogost continues, “such a future [of critical video game consumption] requires parents who are themselves literate in the medium of video games.”

It is a folly to denounce an enemy that one does not fully understand. The world of video games has as much diversity to it as the rest of the world of media both old and new, and even the most stubborn parent would be able to find some common ground with their child through the lens of video games if they decided to swallow their pride and ask questions. This issue is not limited only to the subject of video games, as Bogost’s discussion of the rhetoric of video games is also deeply intertwined with that most impactful relationship between a parent and a child, or even just the relationship between older and younger generations. Rhetoric is all about learning how to teach each other, but persuasive skill is meaningless unless we also take the time to listen to one another.

wassup im elliott and im a lonely person. i mean im not SAYING someone should date me but. someone should date me 😏😏😏 @ ppl not dating me ur missing out. i will only accept a date invitation if u serenade me with smash mouth’s version of i’m a believer.

i am so horribly awkward sometimes i cant believe how bad i am at trying to make people i like smile. im really gay yall. i am rlly craving affection rn lmao. quick u have to flirt with me i dont make the rules sorry bruh. lmao i feel like nobody gives a shit about me. so like, i need a reason [person] to go to prom [with] so i dont regret not going. somebody should ask me to prom because i feel horrible. 

i dont wanna create a self fulfilling prophecy but this is gonna be the first time ive shown up alone to a dance since sophomore homecoming and considering how miserable that was i have my doubts about this evening

feeling pretty damn good for once. i got really sad so i made cookie dough to eat. it helps a little :U wow okay there goes my good mood. this weekend could have been better. 

i think im gonna go by elliott for a while and see how it goes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

this old couple at office max thought i was a boy from the back #missionaccomplished

a waiter at the spaghetti factory called me bud when he took my order ive officially achieved optimal androgyny levels

hi im queer genderless and probably poly whats happenin ✌ #nationalcomingoutday

psa: you dont get to say you respect trans people or preach that we deserve respect if you simultaneously insist we’re “fundamentally wrong.” You clearly do not give two shits about us and we dont want your backhanded poisonous “““respect.”””

okay cream puff notes: 1. buy parchment paper dont be a dumbass and use wax paper youll burn your house down for the love of god dont be like me 2. remember to flavor your whipped cream please use sugar and vanilla and its okay to go a little over what the recipe calls for because if youre using a full two cups of cream itll be hard to to flavor it 3. do not pipe the puffs too widely theyll puff outward instead of upward and that defeats the purpose yknow? 4. dont stress about how long theyre cooking they need to go that long so they get dry and a little crisp on the outside 5. do not stop filling that puff until that cream starts coming back out dont give me a half filled puff u heathen 6. please do not let the cream get to room temperature thats not fun to eat ily but stop 7. somebody make cream puffs with me till i get it right please

my love, today was absolutely amazing and i’m so happy that you had a nice birthday. i’ll see you in two weeks 💙

local nerd gets to kiss other bigger nerd and have a really nice time watching movies, more at 11 💙

i cant put into words how wonderful this trip has been. thank you for being such an amazing partner in crime and part of our family 🌹 i love you so damn much

this man right here is so full of light and creativity, i cannot even express how much i admire and adore his talent. these past two years have been the most wonderful experience, and i cant wait to spend countless more with him. my sunshine, my chickadee, my dearest, i love you to the moon and back three times over. happy anniversary 💙

This meme was made in response to the recent donation from the Argyros family to the Chapman school of business. The “Distracted Boyfriend” meme generally involves the man pictured in the middle looking favorably at something that indicates a bad or unwise decision, while the man’s girlfriend, representing a more favorable or ideal choice, looks at him with an offended expression at his display of betrayal. In this case, the man represents wealthy donors to Chapman, while the object of desire is a large donation to the business school, and the offended party is the various arts programs (of which I am a part) that receive miniscule amounts of funding in comparison.

I wouldn’t necessarily consider this meme subversive in itself, but rather a representation of a subversion of logical and/or productive decision making for the purpose of humor or, as in this case, a political statement. Often this meme is used to point out a ridiculous contradiction between what a public figure does and what they would ideally do, from the perspective of the people affected by their decisions. I made this meme from that perspective, as I find myself feeling bitter knowing that the business school–a popular program with plenty of students’ tuition money flowing in–is receiving an enormous financial resource the likes of which I can’t even comprehend, while other smaller programs that promote artistic enrichment are swept under the rug and ignored by donors. One would think that programs that haven’t already received millions of dollars worth of aid at a time would be next in line to receive, but this is simply not the case (and yes, I understand that the Argyros School of Business was named after the Argyros family in the first place and thus represents their ties to the school, but this does not change the fact that there is a generally narrow view of which academic programs are deserving or in need of donations, let alone $10 million at once).

I also hold a general disdain toward such donations when I know that they are not going toward supporting the professors that make our education possible; I know for a fact that many of the talented individuals teaching at Chapman have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, and sometimes that still isn’t enough. There’s a reason that teachers across the country have gone on strike to protest unfair wages and lacks of funding that force them to pay out of pocket for basic educational supplies. I feel sick knowing that my $60,000 a year doesn’t necessarily come back around to be reflected in my education. As such, seeing such unfathomable donations being made at the drop of a hat by disgustingly wealthy families makes me even queasier because I know that even such a generous gift won’t even touch any of the programs I’m involved with. So today I suppose I myself am the offended girlfriend, and I’m not happy that my boyfriend finds giving millions of dollars to the business school more appealing than assisting other areas of study that aren’t seen as taking nearly as much priority.

Word vomit time to organize my thoughts!

My main takeaway after reading through the criteria of this assignment is that I do not want to be working alone. Whether tackling an analysis of our class’s past collaborative works or creating a new one entirely, I know that I would feel more comfortable having somebody beside me to bear the burden of the project and to bounce ideas back and forth with. So there’s one thing done.

The problem that arises from there is just who I want to collaborate with: do I find someone in the class who I’m inevitably unacquainted with but who understands the work that needs to be done, or do I seek help from my friend circle, who may be resourceful in their writing and creative experience but whose schedules might conflict with what needs to be done for the project? If choosing the original collaborative project option, which I am leaning towards, I think working with people whose creative minds I know and like would yield the best results. But on the off chance I choose the more analytical path, someone from this class would undoubtedly be a better asset because they will have taken part in our discussions, have done the readings, and certainly be more familiar with the rhetorical concepts this class has been studying. I suppose the most risky part of asking friends to help is that there’s no guarantee anyone I know will be able to or even want to, while a student in this class tasked with the same assignment would, of course, be obligated to work with me.

Although I am much favoring the creative option, I’m a bit apprehensive as to how it would work in terms of drafting. A creative work such as a chain story is certainly feasible to make drafts of, provided that it is a fictional work rather than, say, a series of responses to a static question (something more diary format, etc.). Perhaps the name “chain story” already implies a fictional narrative, whereas a series of journal-like reflections contained in the same email thread would go by another term on the spectrum of collaborative [hyper]text. But that leads me to another problem: I’m having trouble conceptualizing what a non-chain story creative project would look like, or rather how it would be contained in its hypertextuality. Would each participant form their own website that would be linked to, or would I create a series of posts on my own WordPress page that could link to each other? I guess it would be easier and more effective to do the latter, since it would keep the narrative contained within a single location/website/host rather than forcing the reader/user to run wild across the Internet to finish reading it. And if I ended up collaborating with someone from this class, it would be helpful to indicate who wrote which parts by travelling from blog to blog (perhaps a choose your own adventure style piece?).

The most challenging part of the creative option is figuring out what the hell I want to write! And furthermore, since it’s a collaborative effort, what I want to write might not matter if whoever I’m working with wants to do something else entirely. Compromise isn’t the end of the world, but the worst-case scenario is working with somebody who won’t budge at all, which I fear would lead to a lower quality product overall due to underlying resentment or disdain for the subject matter. So I guess it would both help me and hurt me to know exactly what I want to write about going into class tomorrow morning. Maybe some minimal brainstorming will suit me best for now…

Now that I’ve gotten all my thoughts out, I think I’m pretty set on the creative project, so figuring out the who and the what will be my main focus for tomorrow. I’ll put out a call in the discussion thread, too, just to see if anyone will bite and we can get a head start on ideas.

Sitting in silence can be really, really hard for me because I have Tourette’s, which can manifest through ADHD-like symptoms. I spend a lot of my time either in places with plenty of background noise or anywhere at all with my earbuds playing familiar music right into my ears, sometimes because I just need a sound to anchor my focus onto so I can direct that focus toward whatever I’m doing. Silence is also something I have a complicated relationship with, as somebody who experiences depressive thoughts that can feel amplified by the utter aloneness that silence brings. But perhaps because of this, I make an excellent example of somebody who needs to better control their sound diet for their own wellbeing. I did sit in silence for a bit today, and after following it up with a high-volume listen to one of my favorite songs, I found that the contrast between the two made me better appreciate the complexity of both the organic sounds around me and the manmade ones coming through my headphones.

As I said before, my case of Tourette’s is one that goes hand in hand with ADHD, and this extends to my ability to sit still, in silence or otherwise. Though I was quite comfortable in my sitting position when I began this exercise, the urge to fidget was very strong, and this made it difficult at times to focus on the lack of sound rather than the buzz of activity in my impulsive thoughts and desires to move around. All that said, when I noticed this, it made me search for an anchor sound for the purpose of improving my focus on sound as a whole, and what was most available to my ears was the murmur of my mom’s television in her room upstairs, as well as the living room fan gently circulating air. My cat, having posted himself in front of the sliding glass door, would adjust himself every so often and rustle the blinds. I closed my eyes, and it was so comfortable that I had trouble convincing them to open again.

What became most apparent in my mind, though, was something I hadn’t anticipated becoming a distraction: the song I had decided to use as my post-silence noise experience, playing on loop in my head and thus paradoxically breaking the silence. I struggled to keep myself from using this as my anchor of focus, but there was a significant period of time when I failed to do so. I really wish that I had been able to actually block out this thought so that I could improve my experience in the diminished-noise environment.

When I moved on to the noise-intensive portion of this exercise, I found myself instinctively relieved to once again partake in the sounds I knew so well. I was apprehensive at first because I was afraid that I wouldn’t notice a difference in a song that I’d listened to so many times before, but my fears were unfounded in the end because I was able to pick up on many more subtle things within the music than I usually would have. Music in general tends to become very flat when recalled by the brain, and as such I was surprised by how many layers of harmony I had been glossing over while just singing it in my head. Not only did I notice new sound effects and backup vocals that I had never consciously heard before, but other small aspects that I had already known about felt much more rounded out and three-dimensional than they previously had. It was additionally such a distinct experience from the sensation of having to search for a sound to latch onto during the silence portion; I felt that I couldn’t listen to enough sounds at once! Of course, only so much impact could occur since the song was nowhere near a novel experience, so I wonder if listening to something I had never encountered before would have changed my perception in one way or the other.

Altogether, I found that both parts of this exercise had their positives and negatives. But this is to be expected, as all forms of sensory experience are complicated in their own self-contained spaces, and they will all consist of aspects that we do and do not enjoy or understand. Silence carries with it a set of benefits and setbacks that noise-heavy environments will never have, and vice versa. When you find yourself focusing heavily on one side of the spectrum, it’s important to balance it out by creating room in your sound diet for the other end, as a healthy mix of both will ameliorate your aural experiences all around! I’m definitely going to be more aware from now on of how populated my sound diet is with noise overload, and hopefully I can find more time in the day to take steps to counterbalance it.

When I decided to give in to my friend Kara’s demands and start up a Tumblr blog on December 26, 2013, I was fourteen years old and still thought I was, and always would be, a straight girl. Unlike a select few (of whom I am definitely not jealous), my family had never really gone out of their way to present me with any other options, which I attribute all these years later to their own naïve assumptions that a queer person would never appear among the branches of our family tree. I will admit that I, too, fell into this misconception, and I certainly never expected that such an identity would begin to take root within myself. But that day was the beginning of the beginning.

I think a lot of us like to look back on our younger selves and wallow in embarrassment at their regrettable words and behaviors—as if we have become in some way superior—despite the fact that this is a never-ending cycle that our future selves will undoubtedly repeat with our current ones. I was no exception; I was annoyingly vocal about anything I was even slightly interested in, and I made too-frequent use of the caps lock button in expressing these vocalizations. Yes, I’m sorry to say that I did in fact partake in the rise of that dreaded phenomenon…

It’s funny, though: in the modern era of Tumblr, this kind of obsessive fandom interaction is discouraged, but back then it was the common practice among users to join together in this passionate scream-blogging. We were a community back when we were oblivious to our irritating habits, and we’re a community now in being glad that we’ve grown out of them.

It was during that period of my life that I met Hunter and Ellen. I made both of their acquaintances by being a part of the online fanbase of the semi-obscure band Steam Powered Giraffe, and we shared a unique affinity for steampunk subculture, particularly robots and automatons. Hunter was also the first person I ever knew to be genderqueer, and as our interactions turned from platonic to romantic, their gender was the last thing on my mind. We were young and infatuated, and I didn’t have a care in the world as to whether they were a boy or not. I’d come across the term “pansexual” many times, and so after doing the obvious and asking an online Ouija board whether the term was correct for me, I happily adopted it as my identity.

Of course, this was something I only expressed online, since much like Ellen, who was stuck in the asscrack of North Carolina, I feared that such a label would be ill-received by my family. Ellen confided in me the identity that she could not acknowledge out loud–first as genderfluid, then as a transgender girl. Since knowing Hunter, being trans wasn’t something that necessarily alarmed or surprised me, but I had never seen such a development occur right before my eyes. Though I have made countless trans friends in the years since then, my own gender would never have become what it did, when it did, if Ellen hadn’t become my closest companion. Even my mom knew about her, even though I didn’t tell her about my own sexuality or about my relationship with Hunter.

She once asked me, after sending off a care package for Ellen, if I was trans too. I laugh now to think about my response: “If I was, I think I would know it by now.”

Riiight.

My gender identity wouldn’t come into question until several years later, but in the meantime my romance with Hunter, once thriving passionately with the long-term goal of eventually moving in together and getting a couple of cats, degraded. Looking back, I think we could have made it work if I had just expressed the monotony I had begun to feel with our conversations: asking about each other’s days at school, exchanging the same compliments and affectionate notions, and not really able to do anything new together due to our long-distance status. Unfortunately, when you’re a ninth grader and don’t know the importance of open communication (i.e. discussing your feelings and working towards a mutual solution like adults), that stuff doesn’t occur to you, and before you know it, you’re hitting send on a Skype breakup message.

I told myself I wouldn’t do long distance anymore because of the toll our split took on my emotional health. Self care be damned, I didn’t listen.

It didn’t take long for me to meet Chris, another queer girl* like me, and as we talked back and forth through our Tumblr messages, it never occurred to me that becoming the steady girlfriend of somebody I’d known for maybe a month was a bad idea. Infatuation once again took hold, so much so that I just went along with their “I love you”s from the first day and, even worse, believed myself when I returned them. I was so happy about our relationship that I put a link to their blog in the navigation menu of mine, where anybody who visited my page could plainly see it. Anybody.

*Chris is, also like me, no longer a girl

 “So tell me about your girlfriend,” my mother said one afternoon, sitting at the foot of my bed in that intimidating fashion.

My world collapsed in my head as I realized that she had found my blog and, using the sleuthing skills of a housefly, was able to determine that Chris and I were a couple. Although she took this revelation about my sexuality rather well, thank god, that day made me understand that nothing I would post on my blog would ever be truly private, even if I considered it my online oasis. I was more diligent, from then on, about what I made public in my posts, for fear that my mom was on the other side of the screen, peering into my brain. Learning my secrets.

But that’s not to say our relationship is completely stunted. I trusted her enough to, not long after, confess that my mental health was becoming worse–a conversation rooted in an anxiety attack I’d had after a dispute with Chris–and that I thought it was time for me to look into taking antidepressants. She said had been expecting something like this since she, too, struggled with anxiety, and all she wanted to do was help me feel better. Depression is always a work in progress, even after seeking treatment, but if I had kept it a secret then I wouldn’t have made such progressive strides as I currently have. I suppose it wasn’t entirely a secret to begin with; I never kept it from any of my friends I kept in touch with online. Even for those I knew in real life and saw daily at school, the only place I felt comfortable expressing what was happening with both my love life and my mental health was that little space I’d carved out for myself in the inner workings of my laptop.

Around 2015, when I had become more public about my sexuality, my mom called me into her room and asked me if, due to her previous discovery of my online life, I felt that I had lost my opportunity to come out to her. She let me, then, tell her in no uncertain terms that I was pansexual. And she accepted me, as any parent should, with open arms.

Chris and I, meanwhile, began to slow to a stop just as I had with Hunter, but this time it was different. Rather than finding monotony in the words we exchanged, we barely exchanged words at all. We would go three days or more without speaking to each other, which may sound like nothing to some, but for an attention-starved anxious ball of queer, it wasn’t working. I followed my instinct to a confusing conclusion, in which Chris was entirely unfazed by my ending things so suddenly and moved on with their life immediately afterward. I know this because for whatever reason, I remained friends with them on Facebook for a while and got the occasional update, up until I realized how many red flags should have been raised during our relationship, not only from moving too quickly but from their general reckless behavior. Seeing their profile eventually brought me too much pain, and I blocked them.

Because Facebook messaging had been our primary method of communication when we got together, the aftermath of the breakup had me using Facebook less and less. I wasn’t spending hours of my phone’s battery life having stream-of-consciousness conversations with a significant other anymore, and as such I didn’t “need” to log on much.

That being said, I’ve found that for the purposes of public disclosure of my identity, Facebook is the most efficient platform to reach the widest audience, since my friends list includes much of my extended family, as well as old school buddies I haven’t spoken to in a while but would like to keep in the know. I made a couple of heartfelt coming-out posts for both my sexuality and my gender identity, and while plenty of people saw them, that doesn’t always mean that they put their knowledge into practice. Many of my immediate family members still misgender me even though I sent a separate message to our group chat detailing my new name and pronouns. A lot of queer people like myself don’t really have the energy to sit down and have a big talk explaining themselves and taking the position of teacher for those who don’t quite get them, especially with the Internet readily available to answer any number of invasive or condescending queries they might pose; as such, I kind of just deal with it. But an important factor in my ability to deal with it at all is that I always have my phone with me, and I always have a friend or two to talk to—someone who understands and supports my identity and makes it a point to reaffirm their love for who I am.

It’s not that I take misgendering as an automatic lack of love. I know that my family loves me and their intentions are innocent. But I’m really bad at confrontation, and I’m even worse at just letting things go, so every so often being “she/her”ed gets to me, really gets to me. Without my source of social media that connects me to countless like-minded people, it would be a lot harder to get through family gatherings emotionally unscathed. Sometimes when my relatives see me on my phone, they think of it as a typical byproduct of being a teenager, as if all stages of teenage years are interchangeable. But I know how much I’ve grown, and how much of that development is thanks to my connection to an unending swarm of people and viewpoints and information. It probably sounds pompous, but I like to think I’ve come pretty far from where I was when I was fourteen because of the wealth of culture I experienced on the Internet.

It’s easy to feel embarrassed about something you did when you were a young teenager, but in the end, it’s important to understand that every moment of those years helped us become who we are now, and that we as people are never static. I’ve learned to approach my relationships more healthily, I think Steam Powered Giraffe are a bunch of assholes for reasons I won’t get into, and I’m unapologetically queer. If I hadn’t met all of these people who changed my life for better and for worse, and if I hadn’t learned to think critically about what society dictates as the norm, I might not have the parts of me that I love so much now. My identity is inexplicably tied to those hours I’ve spent online clicking from site to site, and I wouldn’t change that for anything in the world.