Online "friends" ...

I feel like I've blogged about this before...

Nonetheless!

Online "friendships".

I was thinking the other day that it is a very strange phenomenon that occurs between a "fan" of someone online and that person. For example, I was trying to tell my mother about Kristina Horner from youtube/the parselmouths/italktosnakes blog, and I found myself wanting to say "my friend Kristina". Although that is not strictly true.

She actually only vaguely knows of my existence. And mostly that knowledge just places me as an anonymous number in her "subscribers" or "listeners" or "readers". But if this were offline, I am fairly sure that anyone who paid this much attention to what she had to say, and appreciated her creative outlets as much as I do (and the rest of the subscribers... I'm not the only one!), would probably be classed as a friend.

But because it is online its different. It is like a one-way friendship. I would kind of like to have a conversation with her - and anyone else that I watch/read - but I know it would be wierd because I would be at an advantage. I already know a lot about her and her life. But she would know practically nothing about me and my life. So it would be awkward probably. Or maybe I'm too selfconscious about that fact?

I think it would be similar to meeting a celebrity for the first time. Like I would really love to meet and talk to Amanda Palmer. She is my favourite artist of all time. I love her music. I love her blog. And I really admire her commitment to both music and creativity in general. She is a wonderful person. Yet if I were given the opportunity to sit down with her backstage I would feel really uncomfortable blurting out all these things because she does not know me! Sure I could think of some interesting questions to ask her and start a conversation but it is still wierd because she is the one that I know all about, and I am just fan number xy.

Anyways... Just thought I'd blog that. Its a thought that has been running around in my head for a while. :-)