Monday, February 28, 2011

Home Is Where The 404 - Page Not Found Is

Like a few hundred other people this weekend, I'm a trifle surprised and somewhat unimpressed by the closure of the Guardian talkboards. It's also true I'm not utterly bereft, partly due to parting with my previous employer (shite be unto them) and now earning a living somewhere that widescale online activity is just not possible and partly due to my natural social behaviours having gradually caught up with my online behaviours, both factors contributing to my ongoing decline in posting. All the same...

Something like nine years ago, I got into the habit of doing the Guardian Quick Crossword in its online incarnation: it would take me five or ten minutes, keep my synapses mobile and give me a brief yet stimulating break from whatever else I was thinking about at work. Then came a decision to charge for access to the crosswords, and being tight enough to at least qualify to visit Yorkshire, I had to cast my net a little wider for distraction.

Finding myself drawn into this thing called The Haven and a variety of offshoots, I also found myself reading things people were saying and thinking 'hmm, that's not quite right!' and so a username was born. And life was never the same again.

If you look at the list of links to the right, you'll find blogs long since left unposted even longer than mine, and some since deleted, but sharing their author being some other GU poster whose path had crossed mine along the way. Between them they changed my life, and while my ability to deal with that has been patchy (and at times questionable), they'll always be special to me.

It was on the internet in their company that I first felt comfortable discussing things I would struggle to mention with people I work(ed) with or have known a long time, and it worked primarily because we were talking more about the subject rather than my iffy qualifications in that area. It was in some of their company that I first introduced my alter-ego to anyone that wasn't a partner of mine, and while I've been told of several occasions where I was literally shaking until the wine kicked in, there is no question that my transvestism would have remained a very closely buried secret without GU Talk and various of its denizens.

And sure, it's no surprise that it is still A Big Deal for me, and my sketchy ability to express that or deal with it had a seriously destabilising effect upon my relationship(s) with various among them. But when I say they changed my life, that's stone cold fact rather than subjective opinion.

I can think of five posters who've died over the period of my posting, and I'm sure there are more - likewise I can point to weddings and offspring which take their genesis from time spent in a shared online space. So I'm sure I'm not the only one who had their life changed by it.

On the plus side, it's testament to the GUT community that multiple splinter alternatives have sprung up over the weekend, and that almost everyone has been able to track down everyone else between them. While I missed the world-changing events of September 11th online, what this weekend has most reminded me of is the 07/07/2005 London bombings, though happily to far less devastating effect. On that day, most of the ongoing arguments were set aside as posters all over the place set about establishing that the many London members of the GUT community were all accounted for safe and well.

Sure, there are things I'd change if I could go back, and nothing is either perfect or forever. But all the same I'm proud to be sat here in a dress that could be described as M&S does middle-aged corporate womenswear circa 2007 after watching an episode or two of Mad Men, and raise a glass of wine to Guardian Talk posters past. To those no longer about to post, I salute you. Cheers!

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