I can't remember if I was high or not. I probably was. I'm pretty sure I was. I was high and watching movie trailers, IFC's list of the 50 greatest trailers to be exact. Number 15 is Pulp Fiction and it's a great trailer, but it wasn't the trailer itself that triggered this idea in my head, just a line from it. Jules tells Vincent that he's going to "...walk the earth, meet people... get into adventures. Like Caine from 'Kung Fu.'". I've watched Pulp Fiction several times, so I've heard that line before, but this time it really resonated with me and I thought, "great idea, I want to actually do it". Of course reality set in, I am not able to just leave my shit and "walk the earth". Was there something else I could "walk", explore, discover? That's when I got this idea. Since I'm online a lot, I will walk the internet, meet people...get into adventures. Like Caine from "Kung Fu". That's the premise, the pitch, me exploring internet communities, from popular ones to ones tucked away in the ass end of the net. Internet Vagabond.
I will participate and immerse myself in a new internet community each month. I will evaluate the community with three blog posts, one for initial reactions, one as a midway update and lastly one as a conclusion on my overall experience. Beginning, middle, end. I hope that a month will be enough time to allow me to get a good feel of how these communities conduct themselves and for me to come to conclusions on them.
I will primarily be travelling between forums. Forums are the best vessels for online communication because of their thread/post structure and penchant for creating unique internal social dynamics. Forums are vastly superior in terms of cultivating discussions than instant messaging or comment boxes because of the thread/post format that sets a topic and asks the posters to post specifically about it. This doesn't always work out, but at the very least it is organized. Smaller to medium sized forums also have a tendency to generate their own hierarchies and internal social structures, often helped by the built-in hierarchy of moderators and administrators. These internal forum dynamics give them a uniqueness in comparison to massive forums and communities such as YouTube and 4chan, where it's likely your post will go unnoticed. Posts are also archived on forums and are easily linked to, making them advantageous for referencing. I'm not ruling out non-forum based communities, but they're not desired. I will be mostly be travelling to and from active forums.
That is it, that is what this blog is. Essentially a journal as a I go from online community to online community each month. I will start the actual wandering of the digital plains in February. I will give more background on myself and my history in relation to internet communities before then. Not that anyone is going to be reading this, but just in case. This blog is first and foremost for myself, to log my experiences so I can look back on them. I'm also sure this has all been done before, but I don't care. If I'm going to spend my time online I think I should at least create something out of it.
