[ 2 ☽ 28 ☼ 2015 年 ]

Several days ago, I celebrated my 21st birthday on Wednesday.

It was a fairly nice birthday—but being the type of introverted person who prefers not to make a big deal out of birthdays, I didn’t hang out with my friends or go drinking. My university club kouhai’s were incredibly incredibly sweet and made me this giant poster/card at our club meeting on Thursday, but I didn’t do much, per say. The card is hanging in my room and it looks pretty.

I’m the type of person who has a lot of nice acquaintances, but very very few close friends.^[1]

My best friend is actually traveling in China right now and behind the Great Firewall, so yes—to be honest, I was at quite a loss for what to do on my birthday.

 

Wh◼: Haaaappy birthday Maat-chan. If it is an ask.f isn't a dirty liar, of course

fwachan: Whempai noticed me~! Thank you!

As embarrassing as this is to admit, in some senses anitwitter was possibly the highlight of my day. I was honestly surprised that people sent me messages/ask.fm’s since I didn’t make my birthday very obvious and people somehow seemed to notice anyways.

It made me very very very happy and I got a lot of sweet messages from all sorts of different people.

I felt very much like what Lemur-kun said here:

@L◼: You know, I feel more at home on anitwitter then I have anywhere before. I love this place and all my friends here.

♥15 2:12 AM - Jan 22, 2015

Which, for that matter, brings us to the main meat of this post.

 

Color. Colorless. Invisibility. Anonymity.

Durarara is a story about colorful people interacting behind a colorless screen and banner. In particular, we have the Dollars, an online group that is composed of various residents of Ikebukuro who are individually very vibrant and have exciting personalities.

It is a little ironic that the Dollars are considered “colorless”, especially when they are compared with the Yellow Scarves or Blue Squares. The Dollars are the most colorful gang of them all.

I mean, how could you deny it when you’re driving a van with Miyuki on it?

 

 

Of course, the anime defines “colorless” a little bit differently than I do. Ryugamine Mikado intended it to mean there is no “single color” in their group. However, if you allow me to be technical in my annoying little way, colorless refers to an absolute lack of color, not a rainbow spattering of many of colors.

Colorless, to me, more specifically refers to invisibility.

The anonymity of the Internet chatroom.

Colorless means Tanaka Taro, Kanra, and Setton.

Not Mikado, Izaya, or Celty.

Colorless means the anonymous lurker who doesn’t even have a name.

 

As many of you may know, my involvement in anitwitter started out with being an anon on ask.fm.

Anitwitter is a little bit like a solar system. We have very many godly, famous anibloggers, yet millions more little meteorites and specks of dust caught in the gravitational orbits of these massive interstellar bodies. Some of us are like comets, coming and going, leaving noisy trails wherever we pass. Others are wholly invisible, murky as black matter. Some of us don’t even leave a trace.

For the most part, I still distinctly remember what it feels like to be anonymous.

That tiny nameless voice that’s part of that massive sea.

Voices that are both fake and real, sincere and insincere.

There are pros and cons to being anonymous. It feels very safe to be anonymous, and seductively so. No one really judges you for being weird, no one judges you for asking stupid questions, and no one judges you for who you genuinely are or genuinely feel. Well, at the very least no one can attach an anonymous identity to a real identity that is much more delicate and fragile.

The things “Anonymous” says will always remain unattached.

 

In real life, I’m not a genki girl. I’m quite the opposite.

It’s embarrassing for me to go out and proclaim my love for F◼-kun.

To some regard, that’s why I insisted on remaining anonymous in the very beginning, all the way back in September before I made an ask.fm or twitter account. I really did secretly like F◼-kun and I believed he deserved every ounce of love that he got, and I expressed it by boldly shouting things I’d never dare say out loud in real life.

I totally fanspazzed over F◼-kun as people do for Kpop stars or idols.

In the beginning, just the thought that people would be able to associate the “crazy anon” on ask.fm to a discrete identity and name was mortifying. I hesitated for months before I finally created a twitter account. It’s one thing to be “that weird anon lol” and another thing to be “that weird Matcha lol”, but I did it in the end because the allure of communicating to someone for real far outweighed the shyness of wanting to stay safe and anonymous.

I was afraid—and I’m still afraid—of being judged.

I don’t really like being in the spotlight.

People judge on first impressions. On the Internet, people especially judge on the basis on intelligence or skill. If you’re stupid or simple-minded, you don’t stand much of a chance on a comment thread or conversation.

I feel really stupid a lot.

But here I am nonetheless. I am no longer invisible, I am no longer anonymous. Even if the larger world can be scary sometimes, I’m very happy, and I’m happy because so many people are nice to me and accept me for who I am. People accept me along with all of my eccentricities, and I am incredibly thankful.

 

In Durarara, the Dollars are simultaneously colorful yet colorless.

This is the nature of the Internet, and in particular the anonymous Internet. Even the colorless anon’s on the Internet are real people, oftentimes colorful people.

There is someone real on the other end, even if they’re an anon who’s never said a word to you. Even if the comment they left was full of logical fallacies. Even if they’re a jerk. Even if they’re weird.

Someone is watching, and that person is a human being.

Even if they’re invisible, I think it’s nice as bloggers to keep in mind that they’re present. And conversely, if you are one of those invisible people, please don’t be shy because nice things happen when you talk to nice people, and a lot of people in this community are very kind! They’ve been very kind to me!

 

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Notes:

1. Most of this is my own fault, because I’m terrible at staying in touch with people, but this is another story for another time.

 

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【 anonymousmatcha - written 1152 days ago 】