Sparkleee-Sprinkle
Get to know each other!
There’s something special about NON-instant messaging that I feel helps people build stronger connections online.
Nowadays, everyone expects everything to be literally instant, no delay, no moment to think or breathe. Most websites now have live notifications and a form of direct / instant messaging that anyone can talk to you through, when before, that used to be a meaningful exchange of contact information between you and only your closest and best friends. Sharing AIM or MSN usernames felt so special and personal. Even later on with Skype, it still sort of felt that way, but it started becoming less intimate by then.
But take a moment to think about how communicating through a comment on someone’s profile page felt. Or a forum post. A Note on DA.
When conversations between people online were slower and more thought-out. Rather than speeding through a million instant messages back and forth saying mostly nothing of value or meaning to either of you, it took time to really reply to someone and think out what you were going to say to them. You couldn’t smash the enter key after every word and spam them with words in an instant. You had to write out whole paragraphs at a time, sometimes even longer. It almost felt like sending someone a handwritten letter, like a digital pen-pal!
When things move slower, they feel more intimate and peaceful. They hold more meaning, and the experience leaves a lasting impression on you.
When things move quickly, it becomes overwhelming and anxiety-inducing. Nothing feels like it’s of any value, and by the end of the day you’ve forgotten 99% of what you experienced.
On the few places where you still have to reload the page in order to see your new messages, because they don’t have live notifications, things still feel more grounded and personal. When it takes just slightly more conscious effort to interact with someone, both of you connect more deeply, and just a simple conversation feels like a fun “event” that happened.
Sure, it takes hours and sometime days just to finish one conversation with someone, but that’s what makes it so special. When you reload that page and see you finally got a reply, it’s exciting! It feels like a special event for those few minutes you’re writing up a reply. The conversation, the person you’re replying to, has your full and absolute attention. Your words feel more connected when they read it. You both feel more connected to each other.
With instant messaging, it feels like you’re being “harassed” or bombarded with things, especially when you’re in the middle of something else. But if you’re busy, even if it’s for only like 30 minutes or an hour, you feel pressured to answer immediately because of how people’s expectations have shifted due to everything being instant or live now. This is how people get into texting and driving accidents, or trip and bump into things when replying to someone on their phone, and why it feels like a chore to respond to people. Because it lasts all day. It’s nonstop notifications.
Having to manually reload a page to check your messages makes it less constant, and more of a conscious time allotment. You give yourself a few minutes every so often throughout the day to reload and check and respond any comments or notes that you’ve gotten. And if you’re in the middle of a conversation with someone and you’ve been replying to each other throughout the day or week, you can give each of your responses the full attention they deserve within that allotted time, and then once you’ve hit “send” or “post,” you can go back to giving your full attention to whatever you were just doing. That’s because you know that your friend will reply soon, and you will reload the page again in a while, you have nothing to rush or worry about. Everything is okay and you can focus on creating or cleaning or watching something, whatever activity you’re up to.
You get more done and have better results, you build stronger relationships with everyone you talk to, you feel more relaxed and at peace every day, and it makes the whole experience of online socializing much more enjoyable for everyone involved.
Yes, instant messages are brilliant for the few people you actually really want to talk to like 24/7, but does everyone you talk to more than once need your Discord number, your phone number, or some other form of constant access to you? You’re supposed to have healthy boundaries for yourself, and letting more than just a few trusted people have access to your attention and energy destroys those boundaries. Even if you’re someone who takes commissions, or some kind of private client, they don’t need to have access to you every minute of every day.
Saying “hi” on a text or a DM has lost a lot of its impact, because people are being spammed with things from all directions now. Back when you actually had to visit someone’s profile page, scroll all the way to the bottom, and think out a greeting to type that they would see the next time they logged in (which could be in a minute, or a month, depending on their choices) that felt so much more powerful and it filled your hearts with such joy and appreciation for each other when the message was seen. You knew that your comment had meaning, and even if it took a while to get a reply, you knew you’d get one eventually and it would be enjoyable.
Now, if someone doesn’t answer within a few minutes or an hour, people will freak out and either get angry with each other, or believe that they’re being ignored and their friends don’t like them anymore. The expectation for everyone to respond to everything in an instant is absurd, especially since most people are hypocritical with this feeling. People don’t want to be bugged all the time and don’t like being yelled at for having slow replies, but then they turn around and demand instant replies from everyone else they talk to.
No one is happy with how fast-paced and demanding just chatting with someone is nowadays, but no one is attempting to try it a different way either, so everyone is becoming content in their anxiety-fueled lifestyles believing that it is normal to feel this way. It’s not normal, it didn’t used to feel this way. Meeting new people online was so much fun and it felt much more welcoming, polite, and relaxed. Now no one wants to talk to anyone they don’t already know, and even then they stress out about replying to their friends.
Slow it down! 
You can still find places and ways to bring the intimacy back to the internet, but you have to be a part of that too. You have to get involved with this mindset and act accordingly, whatever that means to you.
Personally, I really love just having a slow conversation with someone on DA either on their profile page or in a Note. That’s why the recent trend of people saying “don’t comment on my page because i want my page ‘clean’ and also don’t note me” has been harmful to rebuilding the community. That turns it into every other stress-inducing social media site where no one really talks to each other, and just wants to openly shout things on their posts all day to get noticed. It’s upsetting. Whenever I can, I make it a point to send people notes, leave hearts or smiley faces on their profiles, and just tend to the good feelings and relationships between people. Even if I’ve never spoken to them before or I just found their page for the first time, I will leave a nice comment just to get the momentum going!
I would eventually like to create my own Discord server for a small number of really good friends, just like chat rooms used to be back in the day, and the only way to build those relationships is to move at a much slower and more intimate pace. I haven’t used Discord really in over a year because the one group I’m in is way too negative and fast-paced. It’s full of people constantly complaining about their lives and being unfriendly. It’s not a welcoming place, and when I couldn’t take it anymore and stepped back from my “role” of being the one who held the fun and smiles together, it became even more negative and self-focused. It's too cynical and sarcastic. If I can find some others online who can slow down enough keep up with me, then it would make the internet feel more like a genuine and honest in-person conversation again, where everyone involved is fully present and connected to each other.
Let’s start getting more involved in this way by leaving a friendly comment on each other’s profiles once in a while, or send a Note just to chat, maybe create a forum to get people talking to each other! All it takes is one person to start, and the more of us that show up and do the same, the better!
This post is not here for you to focus on the negative and complain about it or mourn the "good old days." It's here to help you focus on the positive so you can take those good feelings and spread them around to others. I want you see and feel the difference between these two styles of communication so you can create more of the good, not attempt to destroy the bad.
Focus on what you want, not what you don't want.
You want connection, intimacy, meaningful conversation, fulfilling relationships, friends to laugh and share things with, peaceful and relaxing interactions, a heart full of appreciation and gratitude.
Focus on these concepts, and figure out what you can do to start creating them in your life and the lives of others.
I hope everyone here is having a good day and finding little (or big) things to smile about! 
Take a deep breath... Make sure to stop and smell the roses each day! 
—RB
sorry, i keep really really wanting to be active on here again (or anywhere honestly) but for the past 4 years ive only been drawing like 1 thing a month or less 
i hope this changes, i miss like 10 years ago when i was drawing literally constantly!!! 
since eclipse is really stupid and unhelpful, most people's art is being posted really tiny and compressed with artifacts everywhere. it looks as bad as twitter or facebook art posts!
make sure you're clicking on "SHOW ADVANCED OPTIONS" every single time you submit, and checking off the "free download" box and/or at least making sure the view size is set to its original dimensions to maintain your art's quality!!
everything is so stupid and hidden now, always double check submissions to ensure your art isn't being sacrificed by a dumb user interface!!
Get to know each other!
There’s something special about NON-instant messaging that I feel helps people build stronger connections online.
Nowadays, everyone expects everything to be literally instant, no delay, no moment to think or breathe. Most websites now have live notifications and a form of direct / instant messaging that anyone can talk to you through, when before, that used to be a meaningful exchange of contact information between you and only your closest and best friends. Sharing AIM or MSN usernames felt so special and personal. Even later on with Skype, it still sort of felt that way, but it started becoming less intimate by then.
But take a moment to think about how communicating through a comment on someone’s profile page felt. Or a forum post. A Note on DA.
When conversations between people online were slower and more thought-out. Rather than speeding through a million instant messages back and forth saying mostly nothing of value or meaning to either of you, it took time to really reply to someone and think out what you were going to say to them. You couldn’t smash the enter key after every word and spam them with words in an instant. You had to write out whole paragraphs at a time, sometimes even longer. It almost felt like sending someone a handwritten letter, like a digital pen-pal!
When things move slower, they feel more intimate and peaceful. They hold more meaning, and the experience leaves a lasting impression on you.
When things move quickly, it becomes overwhelming and anxiety-inducing. Nothing feels like it’s of any value, and by the end of the day you’ve forgotten 99% of what you experienced.
On the few places where you still have to reload the page in order to see your new messages, because they don’t have live notifications, things still feel more grounded and personal. When it takes just slightly more conscious effort to interact with someone, both of you connect more deeply, and just a simple conversation feels like a fun “event” that happened.
Sure, it takes hours and sometime days just to finish one conversation with someone, but that’s what makes it so special. When you reload that page and see you finally got a reply, it’s exciting! It feels like a special event for those few minutes you’re writing up a reply. The conversation, the person you’re replying to, has your full and absolute attention. Your words feel more connected when they read it. You both feel more connected to each other.
With instant messaging, it feels like you’re being “harassed” or bombarded with things, especially when you’re in the middle of something else. But if you’re busy, even if it’s for only like 30 minutes or an hour, you feel pressured to answer immediately because of how people’s expectations have shifted due to everything being instant or live now. This is how people get into texting and driving accidents, or trip and bump into things when replying to someone on their phone, and why it feels like a chore to respond to people. Because it lasts all day. It’s nonstop notifications.
Having to manually reload a page to check your messages makes it less constant, and more of a conscious time allotment. You give yourself a few minutes every so often throughout the day to reload and check and respond any comments or notes that you’ve gotten. And if you’re in the middle of a conversation with someone and you’ve been replying to each other throughout the day or week, you can give each of your responses the full attention they deserve within that allotted time, and then once you’ve hit “send” or “post,” you can go back to giving your full attention to whatever you were just doing. That’s because you know that your friend will reply soon, and you will reload the page again in a while, you have nothing to rush or worry about. Everything is okay and you can focus on creating or cleaning or watching something, whatever activity you’re up to.
You get more done and have better results, you build stronger relationships with everyone you talk to, you feel more relaxed and at peace every day, and it makes the whole experience of online socializing much more enjoyable for everyone involved.
Yes, instant messages are brilliant for the few people you actually really want to talk to like 24/7, but does everyone you talk to more than once need your Discord number, your phone number, or some other form of constant access to you? You’re supposed to have healthy boundaries for yourself, and letting more than just a few trusted people have access to your attention and energy destroys those boundaries. Even if you’re someone who takes commissions, or some kind of private client, they don’t need to have access to you every minute of every day.
Saying “hi” on a text or a DM has lost a lot of its impact, because people are being spammed with things from all directions now. Back when you actually had to visit someone’s profile page, scroll all the way to the bottom, and think out a greeting to type that they would see the next time they logged in (which could be in a minute, or a month, depending on their choices) that felt so much more powerful and it filled your hearts with such joy and appreciation for each other when the message was seen. You knew that your comment had meaning, and even if it took a while to get a reply, you knew you’d get one eventually and it would be enjoyable.
Now, if someone doesn’t answer within a few minutes or an hour, people will freak out and either get angry with each other, or believe that they’re being ignored and their friends don’t like them anymore. The expectation for everyone to respond to everything in an instant is absurd, especially since most people are hypocritical with this feeling. People don’t want to be bugged all the time and don’t like being yelled at for having slow replies, but then they turn around and demand instant replies from everyone else they talk to.
No one is happy with how fast-paced and demanding just chatting with someone is nowadays, but no one is attempting to try it a different way either, so everyone is becoming content in their anxiety-fueled lifestyles believing that it is normal to feel this way. It’s not normal, it didn’t used to feel this way. Meeting new people online was so much fun and it felt much more welcoming, polite, and relaxed. Now no one wants to talk to anyone they don’t already know, and even then they stress out about replying to their friends.
Slow it down!
You can still find places and ways to bring the intimacy back to the internet, but you have to be a part of that too. You have to get involved with this mindset and act accordingly, whatever that means to you.
Personally, I really love just having a slow conversation with someone on DA either on their profile page or in a Note. That’s why the recent trend of people saying “don’t comment on my page because i want my page ‘clean’ and also don’t note me” has been harmful to rebuilding the community. That turns it into every other stress-inducing social media site where no one really talks to each other, and just wants to openly shout things on their posts all day to get noticed. It’s upsetting. Whenever I can, I make it a point to send people notes, leave hearts or smiley faces on their profiles, and just tend to the good feelings and relationships between people. Even if I’ve never spoken to them before or I just found their page for the first time, I will leave a nice comment just to get the momentum going!
I would eventually like to create my own Discord server for a small number of really good friends, just like chat rooms used to be back in the day, and the only way to build those relationships is to move at a much slower and more intimate pace. I haven’t used Discord really in over a year because the one group I’m in is way too negative and fast-paced. It’s full of people constantly complaining about their lives and being unfriendly. It’s not a welcoming place, and when I couldn’t take it anymore and stepped back from my “role” of being the one who held the fun and smiles together, it became even more negative and self-focused. It's too cynical and sarcastic. If I can find some others online who can slow down enough keep up with me, then it would make the internet feel more like a genuine and honest in-person conversation again, where everyone involved is fully present and connected to each other.
Let’s start getting more involved in this way by leaving a friendly comment on each other’s profiles once in a while, or send a Note just to chat, maybe create a forum to get people talking to each other! All it takes is one person to start, and the more of us that show up and do the same, the better!
This post is not here for you to focus on the negative and complain about it or mourn the "good old days." It's here to help you focus on the positive so you can take those good feelings and spread them around to others. I want you see and feel the difference between these two styles of communication so you can create more of the good, not attempt to destroy the bad.
Focus on what you want, not what you don't want.
You want connection, intimacy, meaningful conversation, fulfilling relationships, friends to laugh and share things with, peaceful and relaxing interactions, a heart full of appreciation and gratitude.
Focus on these concepts, and figure out what you can do to start creating them in your life and the lives of others.
I hope everyone here is having a good day and finding little (or big) things to smile about!
Take a deep breath... Make sure to stop and smell the roses each day!
—RB
Mel is getting her own sub-website attached to mine, which she runs herself
this is my site:
https://rbtheartisan.neocities.org/
click on "FOX DEN" to see an early rough WIP of Mel's!
sign up for Neocities and follow her adventures!!!
making a fun thing with lots of glitter web graphics!!!
https://rbtheartisan.neocities.org/