I spent much of today going through last night’s post comments, and making sure that people I’d inadvertently blocked on Twitter were unblocked.
But, uh, the thing is … after going through about 250 links, I’d only actually blocked three of them. Everyone else was “just in case” or something like that. I thought, gee, maybe I didn’t make the instructions for finding out if you’d been blocked clear enough.
But the other thing is, I ain’t even mad. Because I did that today, I saw a couple hundred real people’s faces, and got a tiny little glimpse into what all of those people have been doing with their lives. It made me feel connected in an unexpected way (it put the “social” in “social media”), and though it was time consuming, it turned out to be a nice way to take a break from doing actual work.
And it gave me an idea: Why don’t you introduce yourself to me and other WWdN readers?
Leave a comment in this post that tells us a little bit about yourself, if you feel comfortable sharing that sort of thing. Don’t post personal stuff that could be too revealing or hurt your privacy, but maybe share your first name, if you’re married, have kids, what sort of work you do, and maybe something that you like.
The idea is that, when you see the actual, real, human person behind a screen name or twitter handle or whatever, it’s a tangible reminder that we are all people on the other end of the connection. We’re people with families and jobs and hobbies and passions and hopes and fears and we all live on the same piece of rock, hurtling through space.
Of course, you don’t have to do this, and I can’t stress enough how important it is that you protect your personal information, but since I enjoyed the social experience of feeling connected to actual humans, maybe you will, too.
Or maybe you won’t. I’m not the boss of you.
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My name is Daniel. 30 years old. Married to a wonderful women for a 1yr and change been together 4. This past year we got into tabletop by accident, our comic shop has free demos and just stumbled on to it. Then discovered Tabletop and been hooked since.
Hi! My name’s Mark, and I just adopted my second pit bull, Carter! He’s getting along very well with Penny, who’s been with me for almost a year and a half. I work a college in Central New York, and I enjoy going to hockey games, musical events, and eateries, and writing about all of the above.
Hi. I’m Andrea. I’m a media professor. I teach film, television and video game analysis. (How awesome is that!). I have two cats (rescues). Max Weber and Elvis. I live in Florida. I travel a lot. I just finished my chemo treatments and am cancer free. Yep. That’s me in a nutshell. 🙂
My name is Brian. I have an awesome wife, three awesome kids, and three crazy cats. I am a scientist by day (I work in Los Alamos, NM) and a math, reading, and a (pretend) Brazilian jiu jitsu instructor at night. I also love the Oxford comma!
I’m Lindsay, a crystal healer in New Mexico. Yeah, I know. Automatically considered lunatic fringe. Originally I was an electrical engineer – working with our human energy isn’t that far afield. I am also staff to 2 cats.
I’m Julie. Married with two kids, two dogs, and one lonely cat. I love languages and Sci-fi, particularly Stargate. Oh, and food. And wine. And craft beer.
My name is Andrew, but I answer to Drew. Or my last name, but I’m not posting that. I’m 28, turning 29 soon. I work for a large health insurance company and I love the crap out of my girlfriend, and our fur kid – Kobe.
I’m Scott, I’m 40, grew through my teen years watching STNG. US Army vet, University Administrator, drummer in local punk band. I love tabletop and have a 9 year and a 16 year old that have grown up playing the good board games. Also, I have brewed since 1999 and love beer.
Hello. My name is Alice, and I live in Perth, Western Australia, almost halfway around the world from LA. I have two degrees, three cats, a husband and a girlfriend. I self-identify as bisexual/homoflexible, polyamourous, a goth, a geek, a fangirl, a cricket tragic, a (slightly selective) sports fan, an board-game player, a role-player, an aspiring runner, a person living with an anxiety disorder, a wannabe baker, and a mass of contradictions.
My name is Gemma. I am 30. I have a wonderful husband and a 1 year old baby boy. He is cuter than the other kids, my husband and I had an objective vote and we objectively found it to be true. I am a stay at home mom. I like to write, but depression makes that difficult. Wil makes it less difficult by inspiring me to just put pen to paper.
Hi, I’m Kayla! I have a wonderful partner in crime (to whom I plan to propose at GenCon this year…shhh!) and I kid you not, 6 fur/feather babies. I am a psychology student, a tabletop gamer, and a huge fucking geek from Indianapolis. I love eating food, drinking craft beer, and channeling my energy into creative pursuits like writing and performance. I live with anxiety/depression and have mixed feelings about my ADHD diagnosis, but it is my sincere hope that I can do something to fight the stigma of mental illness and give hope to others who live with it in my career.
I’m Greg. Long time reader, first time poster. Long time WWdn / WWinExile reader, beer maker, and geek. I’ve got two boys (4&8) who I’ve been able to turn into Table Top game lovers thanks in no small part to Mr. W over there. TableTop and Geek and Sundry have become a mainstay in our home – and my 8 year old has a bright gaming future as a result.
PS Wil, you’ll be happy to know that my oldest now refers to Gordie as ‘The guy from TableTop when he was a kid’. I think that’s a hell of a legacy.
Craig here. I missed this post (and the experimental burrito) when the went up). Married, no kids, three cats. I like and work with computers, love old video games. I’m a private pilot, and I like working on cars (especially my vintage one).
I regard my role in life as being able to fix things about people’s houses/cars. It’s very rewarding, when it works.
I love RFB, and I’ve been following Wil avidly on the internet since he appeared on slashdot in, I think, 2001. I think the success of TableTop is amazingly awesome and I love watching it, and stuff like W00tstock.
Hi there! my name is Naseem, I’m 22 and I adore Wil Wheaton. I’m from Calgary, Canada and I’m not married yet, therefore no babies. I’m an interior decorator, I’m a super fan of The Killers and I’m trying very hard to not make this a cheesy first day of school thing but whatever. In 2011 I found this website, RFB and @wilw… Ive been hooked ever since.
Wil, I want to say thank you. You are so incredibly delightful and for what its worth, I’m sorry you have to deal with the Stupidsphere every now and again. The way i see it, its as if its the only way the universe can balance out how much positivity and joy you generate everyday. You positively impact people more than you could know, Please don’t forget that!
Again, Thank you so much for being so wonderful and allowing us a chance to discover each other in a place that you’ve created for us. We all have our differences and our similarities but you are the common thread between each and every one of us. We are celebrating you, it is a beautiful thing!
I’m Eric, I just turned 38 this month, it feels weird being so much closer to 40 than 30….. anyway, I work in IT, mostly as a manager/analyst…. you know that guy in office space that takes the requirements from the customers to the engineers, except he doesn’t do it his secretary does, because he’s a PEOPLE PERSON… that’s sorta my job, but I actually talk to the customers and basically manage the developers and delivery to make sure its something people would actually want to use. Anyway, I travel for work most weeks and in my down time I play video games, read/write, watch Tabletop on youtube, and spend time with my kids/family…
Hi all, I’m Shell, a librarian, gamer, and book nerd from Ohio. I am engaged to Ben, who introduced me to Star Trek and d20 RPGs.
That experimental RFB podcast on December 28 was the best birthday gift—thanks Wil! Everything in it, including your dream and narrating what your pets were doing, reminded me of phone conversations with old friends.
Reading/listening to content online may not be friendship, but it IS finding a kindred spirit (or many, in these great introductory posts!) and that is worthy of a Huzzah!
You can’t fight destiny Wil, so keep making things!
Hi, I’m Lindsay. 36 year old geek who loves sci-fi, games of all shapes & sizes, reading, photography & basically all things geeky. By day I’m a sys admin. By night (at least right now) I’m planning my wedding to my geeky sweetie of 6 years while impatiently waiting for my custom engagement ring which happens to be shaped like the Enterprise-d (seriously the renders are awesome & it’s been like 8 weeks so I’m chomping at the bit waiting for it! ).