![]() ![]() We would plot out ideas in private messages and boards, recruit new roleplayers and members to our roleplay “threads”, and sometimes get into squabbles if someone wasn’t playing by the guidelines. Here, I could join other players in collaborative storytelling in either an original story setting or one based in a popular TV show, movie, or cartoon universe. The most popular feature of GaiaOnline was their forum boards, especially the roleplay forums. I spent hundreds of afternoon and evening hours on GaiaOnline, a popular anime-themed social site where you could customize your avatar and interact with others in a virtual world. In my isolation, I was sucked into the void of the Internet, where I found a creative outlet and established relationships that would become an indelible part of my internal machinery.Īs a victim of severe bullying by my peers and authority figures, I retreated into virtual fantasy worlds, cartoon websites, and blogging sites. A greasy-haired Jewish teenager, I lived in a majority Christian city with few hangouts and fewer options to socialize. Aside from the high school anime club, I didn’t participate in any other extracurricular activities. My internalized misogyny was only encouraged by what I saw plastered on television screens and glossy magazines: thin, blonde, pink-wearing preppy girls who gabbed on and on about boys and shoes. ![]() I loved anime, cartoons, manga, and hated traditionally feminine things like makeup and fashion. I was a teenage girl in the early 2000s, and I truly believed I wasn’t like Other Girls™. ![]()
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