Don’t Listen to the Internet

There’s no one right way to do this

The internet is a wonderful place, full of interesting people and thought-provoking stories and helpful information and really cool oddities. Also, pet memes. The internet is a terrible place, full of bile-spewing morons and echo-chamber rants and misleading misinterpretations and utterly terrifying obsessions. Also, pet memes.

Both of these things are true. Because people are chaotic and complicated and the things we invent are just as likely to be abused for ill-gain and nefarious purposes as they are to inspire us to be better versions of ourselves.

Last month, I was writing about the weirdness of the expat/immigrant friend pool here in Portugal and I veered off down a fairly large rabbit hole about the internet’s role in our expectations of what life should look like.

It sent my piece in a whole different direction than the one I intended, so I pulled all of those paragraphs out and set them aside. But it’s a tangent I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

This is what I keep wondering: How would this particular experience of moving to a new country be different if we did it without the aid and observation of the internet community?