Somehow it never occurred to me before today that I can just search “Star Trek” on Twitter, scroll through the results, and find totally random people to talk to about Star Trek.
Twelve-year-old me — who was heartbroken when my parents quit AOL (which charged by the minute) because I’d racked up $300 in one weekend on hanging out in a Star Trek chat room before they’d realized — would be THRILLED.
My memories of that Star Trek chat room are still so vivid…
The adults kept getting unruly and talking about boring things like their lives and weekend plans, so I’d get them back in order by quizzing them on Star Trek trivia. I’m sure they loved it.
Oh no… I just realized… now that I’ve learned how to turn this app into an engine for finding people to talk to about Star Trek… how am I ever going to do anything else?
Suddenly, I have a lot more sympathy for my parents shutting me out of that AOL chat room.
I still remember Voyager762 and CmdrData fondly. Also LionChazz and LionAlina, although they were among the foolish adults who kept talking about their weekend plans. And I don’t remember a whole lot of actual human beings that I knew IRL from that time period fondly. (Partly because I was too afraid to interact with the IRL human beings. They hadn’t pre-labelled themselves as interested in Star Trek.)