My Stickam Timeline

Just over a year ago, I signed up for a stickam account. At first it scared the life out of me because it was people I didn't know asking questions, that isn't comfortable for me. So for a couple of months, I rarely used it.

However, now I have to admit my guilt, I used to be subscribed to Blade376 and my first taste of getting to know people was on stickam, I say people, it was really only Dale, after we talked for some time on MSN, I ditched Myles' room and only went in to Dale's live chat, from there Dale pointed me in the direction of a guy called Daveyboyz, he said, come in, he's really nice (some people may think that is no longer the case)

Davey's room was the first regular stickam hang out, it was the place when I met my first few online friends other than Dale. They were, Davey, Sydney and Dave (musicfromblueskies). At the time, neither Dave's had been featured and I believe they had about 500 subscribers each. Because there was only five or six of us that chatted nightly, the bond I felt between myself and them was strong.

It was at this point, a lady by the name of Mhairi started to go live on stickam. I knew vaguely of Mhazz because of my adoration of Alex (Nerimon) and so I decided to go to her live. It was great, it was all new to her and so she was so enthusiastic and greeted everybody as if they were her best friend, it was slightly different, there were more people in Mhazz's live, but not so many that it was uncomfortable and impersonal. She had about 1000 subscribers at the time and I met a few others, them being Ginger Chris, John Cox, Sinead and Jess. Added to Dale, the Dave's and Sydney, I consider these eight to be the core group which I enjoyed hanging out night after night with. As Mhazz described it at the time, 'it's like a group of friends hanging out in somebodies room, but on the internet'. This was a good time and it all felt close.

Over Christmas 2007, we hung about in eachother's rooms, I played Chrismas music and it was good fun. At the time I only saw the friendships getting closer, perhaps not so with Jess, I never really got the feeling she liked me, for a time it seemed closer however I got the feeling she needed to make an effort to either tolerate or like me. But, my friendships withe the rest seemed strong.

I think there were several factors that killed of the 'special relationship' I had with stickam and the people on it. Firstly, both Dave's were featured on the front page of youtube, this meant that they had immediately more people interested in talking to them. As everybody knows by now, I am not hugely accepting of new people and I'm sorry to say that most newbies I take an instant dislike to that rarely changes.

The more key reason I think the stickam spirit has died is because of youstaged. At the time of youstaged, the vloggers needed to bring all their subscribers together in order to gain the most votes. This meant that lots of subscribers of Myles amounst others, started to become aware of Davey and Dave. It was okay for a time because a lot of those people were all together in one youstaged stickam room, although this was the time Davey realised he could have fans and no longer needed his current friends.

The big question was, where were all the youstage fans going to go after it had finished? Answer, where the youstagers were, so while many went in to Myles' chat room, many came into the rooms we had considered our 'online bedrooms', from this point on, it didn't feel close anymore, probably for a combination of reasons, me being unaccepting of new people was one factor for sure, however the rooms became too crowded and impersonal to feel special anymore and the close relationships I had formed with people over the months preceeding 'youstaged' were dwindling.

At that time I tried to save those relationships by going live myself and setting the room to private and not accepting any new friend invites. This was so, our core group could still hang out. But this caused problems, I got many invites from people wanting to come in to my live, I had people in the room asking if I could let somebody in, which I knew that if I did, the floodgates would open and it would defeat the purpose of keeping the room private. Other people from our close group stopped coming in because I wouldn't let other people in, so eventually I gave up.

I've tried on and off since then to intergrate into the new stickam hardcore however it no longer feels natural, I'm sure the people are very nice, however it feels like going to a party with all of your friend's mates, you don't feel like you belong. On top of that, for some reason stickam seems boring now. I don't remember what we used to talk about prior to Christmas 2007, but I know we happily chatted in to the wee small hours of the morning and it felt good. It seems hard to spend an hour in stickam now without being bored, picking a target to constantly rip on gets tired, I don't see it as worthwhile.

It's very rare but occassionally there is a very good stickam day, where things seem right again, but they only cme along every couple of months and I go on so rarely now that I probably miss them. It's sad for me, I miss those close friends I made nearly one year ago.

Even now, many months on, I consider that core group to be my only friends, with the addition of PJ, who I adore. Our friendships have weakened in recent months and while I feel a strong bond with a couple of you, I wish the rest of us were as tight as we once were.

it doesn't do the confidence any good

So the video Mhazz made for my channel has over 2,000 views and yet I've only gained 5 new subscribers. 5 out of a possible 1500 or so. I am offputting to 99% of people, why am I not dead?

Just wondering, does anybody actually read this?

Friendships

Sometimes you stumble upon snippets of information that make you wish you were in the loop. You can't make people like you but I must admit there are several friendships I've made in the last 11 months that I wish were closer. I want to be somebodies confidant, I want to have a bond with people that I used to have with the occasional 'real friend', obviously it's harder when distance separates people but it's not impossible. I guess I'm always asking myself why I'm not the one people come to when they want to talk? Talking is one of the few things I'm actually quite good at.

But like I say, you can't force people to be your friend, it's a two way business. I guess the few people I do wish to be friends with, don't quite feel the same way.

Youtube

So I upload videos, get less comments than people with half the subscribers I have.

I put up a video yesterday and since then I've lost 3 subscribers.

I'm on the verge of giving up altogether!

*UPDATE* 2 days online and I've now lost 7 subscribers, was it that bad?

Fucking Computer

Last week my computer died. I was talking to Dale and John on skype when my Norton anti virus told me to uninstall and reinstall so as I did this the computer crashed and the next thing I know, I have to replace the hard drive and then reinstall everything, Luckily installing a new hard drive is quite easy however £45 I don't have. Fortunately Dale sent me a disk of Windows XP, or else I would have been screwed because Acer don't bother giving their customers copies of operating systems or even disks with drivers on it. So the past two days since I have gotten access back to the computer, I've been installing drivers, and software and trying to get back some of the programs I previously had, although I can't remember most of them. The shit thing is, I've lost all my files, my documents, videos, music and bookmarks. So I have to start all over again. Which kinda sucks. I have the old hard drive set up in an enclosure now and I hope maybe I can find a program that can help get some of that data back. But at the moment it's telling me that the drive isn't formatted.

Anyway, I realise that was too much detail for a blog that people barely want to read in the first place, so I'll stop there.

3 step plan

1. I'll find a way of getting youtube fame, hopefully through bumming somebodies subs

2. The Mystery Package people give me free stuff.

3. Profit

Just to ellaborate a little more

I constantly reflect on things I do and say and I am so sorry if my last post makes me seem ungrateful, because I really am, I loved the video, I genuinely laughed a lot when watching it. I guess I just compared it to other people's birthday videos and noticed how few people wanted to be a part of it, and while some of the most important people to me where in it, it's easier noticing the people who were not part of it. I guess I just feel like spending 5-10 minutes recording a little something isn't much to ask and certain people who I think a lot of didn't make the effort and had the time and so I guess that's what I'm thinking. But for those of you who did make the effort, I can't express enough how grateful I am and how much I enjoyed watching it.

And Tom is just the worst singer in the world!

I don't know why

But I'm totally down and I guess I piss myself off for not being grateful for the things people do for me. I always want more. I wonder how much I need before I'll be happy. But to everyone who made the effort, I am very grateful, honest.

So, I guess I'm blogging

I used to have a blog that covered my social anxiety disorder, Oh yeah, for those of you who don't know, I have Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) or otherwise known as Social Phobia, so if you're wondering why I don't come to gatherings, then wikipedia SAD and you should understand me a little better.

So, Today is my birthday and I didn't make a conscious effort to create a blog, however I deleted my old blogger account and so couldn't reply to other people's blogs. Today I read Mhairi's blog and wanted to comment and so needed to create a new account. From there, I just figured I'll write a blog entry and see whether I bother to continue with it. I certainly wont be as prolific as Alex with his diary, more than likely I'll be as lazy as Jimmy is with his.

My initial objections to writing a blog was simple. I have no life, my social anxiety has crippled my life up until this point and while I do feel happier now I've met some youtube friends, I still live a non existant life and am embarrassed to talk to people about it for the most part. So I knew that if I were to blog, I would have to open myself up and let people know more about me, which I wasn't sure I wanted to do, I'm still not sure to be honest. I guess it depends on the numbers of people who read the blog as to how comfortable I feel about it. Only time will tell.

Mhazz called me the other day for the first time, which made me happy. I miss the close relationships that other people seem to have but I can't because of my problems. Because I don't meet up with people, I don't feel like we can develop as close a bond as others are forming and it makes me feel left out, I try to compensate for it by getting as much attention as I can online with stickam and other such things. When I don't feel important enough, I leave for a while. And I usually convince myself that I am unimportant to everyone. It's not nice, I do it to myself and I know I shouldn't. But for any of my friends online reading this, I am always available to listen if you want to talk to me.

Twenty five today and feeling better about life in general and depressed about another year older especially having acchieved nothing. I am in awe of all these teens that travel about meeting eachother, I wish I could join you. Maybe one day I will?