Plurkisms

It occurred to me that many of my plurk friends have created a culture over the last few months. You can count on a guy named Class Tax to have a new crush every week (he'll edit the name in the lead plurk often). We will have at least some culinary discussion at least once a day. We will celebrate karma boosts with drive-by plurks and emoticons. We will share personal challenges and be encouraged by one another. And every Friday or Saturday night, one of us, idiots that we are, will have a few too many and will drunk-plurk. This is something I'd like to discourage. But it will happen and sometimes the results are hysterical.

When I joined plurk, there were very few folks around. But my friends list exploded overnight. I wish I could tell you who the evil person is who ... er... the nice person was who introduced me to Plurk. He created a monster... er.. provided me a means to explore further social networking.

From a social media standpoint, this is somewhat fascinating. When I joined, none of this existed. We created the drive-by "naked cartwheels" (thank you Trinners). We created the banana dance welcome. We wake up to each other in the morning and tuck each other in when it is bedtime. And we do it across time zones, all over the world.

I've seen the frustration of one plurker who was dealing with citizenship issues, the pain of another who was trashed while she made every effort to be professional, break ups, get togethers, and even medical issues. Where, in all the world would such an environment be where this kind of encouragement exists? Have we come to the place where we can no longer do this in real life, but must now find our support and affection from 140 characters or less on a social media site, by strangers?

I'm delighted we have each other. I am saddened that this acquaintanceship doesn't exist in real life for many. And I look forward to my plurkdom growing and prospering with all things good and none of the nastiness that comes from people who don't know how to be grown ups.

Here's to a great Plurk!

UPDATE: I stand corrected. Plurk is not technically a "social media" but instead a "microblogging network". Thank you guy-who-gave-me-the-link!