Friday, August 20, 2010

A brief history of the Internet (for Kristina).

Alright, as I have already said too much about what I'm doing next week (many of you have jumped to a conclusion far, far more exciting than what's actually happening) I am going to switch gears and do something completely different for today's BEDA post.

Yesterday I went to that meeting for the PDX Zine Symposium (the one where Kayley and I are speaking on a panel) and we had a long chat with the other three guys about social media and our histories with it/using it/how it's impacted our lives.

It got me thinking that my usage of social media didn't just start with YouTube - it goes way, way back to when I first got a computer. I've been utilizing the tools of the Internet before I even realized how beneficial it could be to my life. So today, I will tell you my story.

-

We got our family computer when I was a child. I don't remember exactly when that was, but I'm assuming it was something like age 8 or 9. When my parents first hooked it up, I was pretty apathetic. I played Ski Free, I drew things in paint, I had my Barbie Fashion Show computer game, but beyond that, I preferred a good Babysitter's Club book over the computer any day.

It wasn't until we got AOL that I started to realize the computer was a communication tool. I found chat rooms geared toward kids, I made friends with people in a chat room for aspiring child writers, I started to add friends from school onto my "buddy list".

As more and more of my friends at school starting using computers, I remember some time in 6th grade, when I was 11 years old, we all found out about Neopets. Each one of us made an account, and we'd play - during lunch, after school, at home on our family computers. We made guilds, we played games, we competed over who could earn more neopoints - all the while beginning to develop a sort of online community, even though we saw each other every day at school.

The next year, when I was 12 and the cool-ness of Neopets was dying down, I remember we discovered the world of blogging. Though we didn't know it was called blogging at the time. The first site we used was teenopendiary.com, a very regulated, hard to customize site where many of us complained about our lives, our friends, our families; all in a public setting for everyone else to read and comment on and talk about behind each other's backs at school. Then the site went under, deleting all our posts without warning, causing us to switch to diaryland.com. This site operated much more like a personal website, with skins that made everyone's personal diary look as unique as they wanted. And though this site never deleted itself on us, it too faded in coolness and within a year we'd all switched to Xanga.com. By the time we hit Xanga, we had a little better idea of what should be posted publicly on the internet and what shouldn't, but this was still during Middle School, and 13-14 year old minds don't operate under the same rules of discretion as older ones do. I can remember countless fights happening during these years of my life with my school friends over what someone posted about someone else in their blog.

All the while, I was still fascinated by the sheer amount of opportunity on the Internet. When most kids were worried about being popular at school, I was trying to find ways to fit in online. Backing up a little bit, I remember my friend Lis had showed me my first of work fanfiction ("Royal Flush", it was about Sailor Moon) at age 12. From there I found Fanfiction.net, a site with amateur works about literally anything your heart desired. I rooted around until I found Harry Potter fanfiction. From there I developed a fascination with pieces about Draco Malfoy, which soon turned into a passion for Draco/Ginny. I read hundreds of fanfiction (which is also to blame for why I read nothing but Harry Potter for nearly 3 years of my life). Because of my love of the D/G ship, I started a Yahoo Group about them, joined up at various other fanfiction hubs (Fictionalley and Portkey.org) and sooner or later became a site moderator for Portkey. It was here that I started to build real friendships with people who were passionate about the same things as I was.

On Portkey I met my good friends Crystal and Daniela. We were all moderators on the D/G side of Portkey and together worked on many different writing projects (including a huge undertaking where we planned to rewrite the entire HP series from Draco's POV, which never actually happened). But when I realized the D/G community was too small for me, I branched out, finding a particularly active thread on the site called "Wonky". I discovered it because I saw someone posting there whose info claimed he went to the same high school as me. My curiosity got the better of me and I private messaged him, asking if we really were neighbors and what Wonky was all about. Turns out we were about 3 years apart in school, and that Wonky was a thread that had started between a few people that seemed to never die, and so it was given a name and got its own moderators, and became a sort of exclusive safe-haven for people on Portkey to "belong" to, to talk about things other than Harry Potter with a group of HP fans that would never judge them. It became a little eclectic family, right there in the Portkey.org forums.

My friends from Wonky also encouraged me to start a LiveJournal account, because even though I still actively used my Xanga (it was still cool with my school friends) LiveJournal catered much more to creating communities, easily following your friends' updates, and of course implemented the popular "LJ icon" to which we were all so fond. So I switched.

It was shortly after I started the Yahoo Group that my good friend Adrian excitedly sent me a link to the band "Harry and the Potters". I fell in instant love, and was even more thrilled when he got me their first CD for my birthday. That summer (of 2004) they toured the country and Brittany and I (among a whole slew of our other friends) were first in line to see them play in Seattle. It was around this time as well that we decided it would be funny to start our own little Harry Potter themed band, only we'd sing about evil things rather than about love and bravery like the boys. We pitched this idea to Paul and Joe and they encouraged us to keep writing music. So we did. And we put our songs on Myspace.

It feels like everything was such a blur after starting the Parselmouths. We recorded a few songs, we saw Harry the Potters play a few more times, we got to meet Draco and the Malfoys (Brian and Brad really inspired us to record an album), we found out about the Remus Lupins (and met Alex Carpenter), the Moaning Myrtles (I started emailing with Lauren Fairweather) the Whomping Willows (Matt Maggiacomo invited us to come play our first show in New York in early 2007). We also submitted a Christmas song to the first Wizard Rock collab album in late 2006. Shortly after our New York show (where we met even more Wizard Rockers and fans and people in the community) we were asked to play at Phoenix Rising, which led us to attending our first Harry Potter conference at age 19.

But even though wizard rock was taking off in a very exciting way, that didn't stop me from finding even more avenues to express myself online. In late 2005/early 2006, my friends Liz and Miranda (from high school) were just starting to get involved in stock photography. They showed me there was this whole community on Deviantart.com where various amateur photographers/models would post their unedited pictures for other artists to use and manipulate to practice their own art. I knew it was something I would love, so I grabbed my aspiring photographer friend Justin (not my room mate, the other one) and we spent the next two years going to different locations with trunkfuls of costumes. Before long I had a huge gallery of stock photos on the site, and hundreds, then thousands of people started using them. My likeness appeared in sketches, paintings, vector art, on t-shirts, in school art projects, you name it, my stock was probably used for it. Liz and I met so many people in the stock community - I started going to the stock model chat rooms, we held contests on the site, and all the while it never even occurred to me that I'd managed to find yet another close-knit internet community, just by following my passions.

Wizard rock was exploding - we put out our first album which I sold out of my bedroom through paypal. I used to pack up the albums and take them to the post office myself. My return address labels had a little snake on them. We were getting asked to play more shows, being interviewed for newspapers, local television spots, MTV - and yet, I still needed more to do.

One day I was talking to Lauren and she showed me a video made by Bre Bishop (ifancythetrio) in which she lip-synced to "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley and made it about the HP fandom -- and I knew instantly - I wanted to do that. Not lipsync videos, per se, but making videos on YouTube. So I did. I made a channel, I started filming myself in my bedroom - talking, singing, dancing, footage from various wizard rock trips - and then, in a missxrojas video, I found the vlogbrothers. I started watching Brotherhood 2.0 and became involved in that first year's Project4Awesome (Liz and I made a video together, coining the nerdfighter notes by hiding them in John's books in our local library). One of the brothers liked our video enough to feature it in an email during the P4A, and I honestly credit that as when I "made it" on YouTube. I knew I had the support of the vlogbrothers, and from there people just seemed to keep finding my channel.

Meanwhile, I knew a fanfiction author who had written a blog about this writing project called Nanowrimo, and after a year of wondering what it was and if I should have done it, I finally signed up in 2006. It became a huge topic for me to discuss on YouTube, and through it I met a lot of other writers on the video blogging site. This is how I started talking to hayleyghoover, one of my best online friends and internet collaborators.

When the vlogbrothers completed their first year of daily videos, being ever the inventive one, I took it upon myself to create a spin-off channel. I called up Lauren and together, we chose Kayley, Hayley and Liane to fill our our 5-day week and started fiveawesomegirls. We truly thought no one would really care all that much about our videos, aside from maybe our friends, so when we got around 10,000 subscribers just in the first few weeks, we were shocked. Fiveawesomegirls really brought the five of us to where we are today - through it we met so many of our other friends on YouTube, whether they were on another fiveaweome channel or making responses to our videos.

It was once I started gaining a following on YouTube that I started utilizing sites like facebook, twitter, and dailybooth as additional ways to interact with not only fans, but my other friends who lived far away. Everything started to snowball from there. I hosted BlogTV shows, I got a smartphone and started doing twitpics nearly every day to better chronicle my life, and grew accustomed to never leaving home without a camera. I "auditioned for" and got to participate in the Fiesta Movement, and met a ton of people through that as well. The final blog switch, also, came about in late 2008 when I realized most YouTubers were making their home on blogger.com. That explains why I am here, posting religiously on this site.

I met loads more YouTubers when I attended YouTube Live (my first big event that wasn't HP-related), and in the background, Wizard Rock was still a huge, dominating element in my life. I started trying to change my "image" from italktosnakes, the Harry Potter girl, to "ohheykristina" - a more generalized version of who I wanted to portray online. I wanted to start a "Kristina Horner" brand, as lame as that sounds.

This story almost brings us up to date, aside from the biggest force I think of any of my Internet endeavors, which I would say has been ALL CAPS. Luke and I had always worked well on music together - I've helped with more than a few Ministry of Magic songs, and he helped produce the most recent Parselmouths album. So when he suggested we write some songs together that weren't about Harry Potter, just for fun, I was more than happy to oblige. Our first few songs (the zombie songs, Mrs. Nerimon) were kind of testing the waters, and when we got such a positive response, we decided to write a whole album. We recorded and released "Songs in the Key of Email" without telling any of our friends we were doing it, and were literally knocked on our behinds over how much people seemed to like it.

After being signed to DFTBA, releasing our second full-length album, going on a nation-wide tour, and seeing our name climb the charts on iTunes, I can safely admit I never saw it coming.

I never saw any of it coming. I didn't create stock with the dream of seeing my face on shirts in legit shops in Spain, or on a tee of the day on Teefury.com; I never dreamed MTV would give a crap about Wizard Rock. I made videos because I thought Bre looked like she was having a ton of fun, not because I expected 57,000 people to want to know what I'm up to on any given day. I used to blog solely to say mean things online about my friends in middle school and complain about how unfair life is for a 13 year old girl, not to share the intimate details of my day to day life with strangers. And ALL CAPS was a project between a friend and I, writing songs about zombies because we thought it was funny, not because we ever expected our album to place with Owl City's in rank.

Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve any of this. Sometimes I wonder if I drank a whole gallon of Felix Felicis as a child and it still hasn't worn off, because it feels like every choice I made seemed to be the right one. I have been so damn lucky, with almost every endeavor I set out to do. But looking back over my life, over my internet history - I have been working hard for 10 years, never stopping once. If something wasn't cool anymore, I moved on. If there was an exciting new opportunity, I took it.

It's funny, too, because my parents used to really get on my case about how much time I spent on my computer. I got my own desktop when I was 14, and my mom used to go crazy over the amount of time I'd spend alone in my bedroom. I don't know what she thought I was doing (probably just wasting time, in her mind) but I always assured her I was "working on something really important". And now, after all this time, and showing them what I've accomplished, having them come to my shows and see me on MTV and ride around in my Fiesta; they finally believe me.

So that's all I did. This was how it happened. There was no magic spell or generous handout or cool kids club I got a membership to - I just became obsessed with social media and the opportunities of the Internet at a very young age and over the years let it consume me, in a good way. And I feel like I owe so much of it to every person I encountered every step of the way.

So thank you. For being here, for supporting me, for anything you may have done at any point in my journey that encouraged me to keep going. You're the reason I'm still here.

Last google search: "gnarls barkley" (I had no idea how to spell that)
Chipotle burritos: 17

46 comments:

Ben Cracknell said...

For as long as you're present online, I know I certainly will be following your every move.

elfarmy17 said...

I think you mean Felix Felicis- not Veritaserum.
This is an amazing story.
All of the friendship-making seems to have happened when you were just a little bit older than me (I'll be 15 in October). I feel like I missed out on the Formulative Years of wrock and Nerdfighteria. If only I had started just a few years earlier, and had been BORN just a few years earlier...so much more might have happened to me.

BradAusrotas said...

Thanks so much for doing this, Kristina. It was completely fascinating. I think it would've been even better to see like a timeline of The Parselmouths, but of course social media has had a much more overarching presence in your life.

Just one thing, though- Veritaserum? Don't you mean Felix Felicis? :P

Anonymous said...

It's nice to hear about nice because getting lucky... because they actually deserve it.

Tessa (meekakitty) introduced me to your music at the same time as a friend introduced me to Wizard Rock. Thanks for sharing your passion with slightly less talented and incredibly appreciative geeks like me. :-)

Noahsark said...

I'm darn glad you did.

to_thine_own_self said...

Aww, I'm so glad that you got so lucky (even though I don't think that's completely why you're so successful) because reading your blog/watching your videos/seeing your tweets have become a daily part of my life. I couldn't imagine an internet without Kristina =]
I follow your endeavors because I can relate to you and you're funny and smart and kind. And I think that's why other people follow you, as well. You're just all around likable (and, not to mention, talented). That has a lot to do with why you're so successful, definitely. It certainly wasn't all luck...you made a lot of it happen. And that's just how life should be; ten parts motivation (which you obviously have a lot of) to one part luck.
And you know...it's funny. You, over the years, have joined different little online "communities" and felt right at home with them and now that you're writing this blog it's like you've created one. We're all here because we want to know what's up with you and, in turn, we've become a little Kristina-blog-readin' family <333

Oh...the internet is awesome. Haha.

Rachel said...

I'm a long-time reader, but a first-time commenter, and I absolutely adore this post and your writing. I'm so glad that you find being on the internet FUN because, just reading your blog posts make my day better. :] XX

India said...

Veritaserum is the truth serum! You mean Felix Felicis aka liquid luck! :)


Amazing story, Kristina! <3

India said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
lauren_ashley said...

I admire you for all you've managed to acomplish. Well done :) xxx

Unknown said...

Wow...Your story is still better than mine

Basically I got a computer in 2003, and then being only 8, I didn't know how to use the internet properly, and then last year I really got into the whole youtube thing (I blame Andrew Sims). I was just starting to get into Harry Potter in 2005, and so it just went from there. Low and behold, one day on a Lost spoiler site I read something about a lost band and rolled my eyes, thinking it couldn't possibly work. So then In January, I'm watching the Helping Haiti Heal thing from the HPA, and I was like "Well, go figure" because of course the Oceanic Six were wizard rock singers. So I blame my sister, Andrew Sims, and Melissa Annelli :) You are all awesome though

Ellen B said...

This is awesome. Thanks for being so candid. And you deserve every bit of success you've been given. You work hard and you reap the rewards of that...and all the while, you enjoy what you do. Isn't that what we're all striving for? To be successful doing what we love? Keep it up, Kristina, and I truly wish you continued success in everything you pursue!

anna said...

Well, I loved reading this. You successfully got me away from packing for college thanks to getting your tweets sent to my phone. It was time well spent.

Amanda Rumm said...

This has been such an amazing insight. It's really interesting to see how things have snowballed for you. It's strange how things happen when you don't expect them to. I'm really glad you've made the choices that led you here, whether it was FELIX FELICIS (cough), or just good judgement, I'm glad you are who you are. I'm very happy to know you, because - contrary to what those jerks over at you-know-where might say - you are an amazing person.
Keep doing what you're doing, Kristina. DFTBA :]

Alissa said...

I loved reading your story, and I hope you are still around for a long time!

I have to admit though, my DAD STILL plays Neopets!

He is a hard-core stamp collector, one of the important people in Coin World, and a multi-billionaire... If only he could bring his Neopoint wealth to the real world *sigh*...

Keeping being awesome! (I'm not going to correct your potions lore, because I think a few people already have :P )

Andrew said...

I hope you mean Felix Felicis as Elfarmy said lol.

Anyways, I think the reason you did make it successfully in all these places is because as you said you were doing them for the fun of it, when you do things just for the subscribers or the views you just aren't as motivated to do them and people see right through it.

Emma said...

that's awesome!(: i know what you mean about being obsessed with social media! I have only really started to get into it though, mainly due to my young age! But you do deserve it, you are really talented :D

Anonymous said...

I've only been following you and your videos and blog for just over a year now (although I've gone back and watched most of the older ones aswell) so I found it fascinating reading your story, and how you got started.

You are such an inspiration to me.
Its because of you that I wrote a 50'000 word novel last November, something I never thought I would ever have the discipline to do. I desperately want to start doing videos like you, if only could find the topic that I can talk confidently and passionately about.

Elle Viane Sonnet said...

It's been a journey for sure!

Kacie said...

"We got our family computer when I was a child. I don't remember exactly when that was, but I'm assuming it was something like age 8 or 9. When my parents first hooked it up, I was pretty apathetic. I played Ski Free, I drew things in paint, I had my Barbie Fashion Show computer game, but beyond that, I preferred a good Babysitter's Club book over the computer any day.

As more and more of my friends at school starting using computers, I remember some time in 6th grade, when I was 11 years old, we all found out about Neopets. Each one of us made an account, and we'd play - during lunch, after school, at home on our family computers. We made guilds, we played games, we competed over who could earn more neopoints - all the while beginning to develop a sort of online community, even though we saw each other every day at school."


It's scary how familiar these two paragraphs are to me. How I had to do a double-read as to make sure I didn't write this. I remember these things exactly - Ski Free, Barbie Fashion Show (I think mine was Hairstyler) and was often unimpressed and would go read Babysitters Club or Nancy Drew ... that is until I found Neopets in junior high.

Wonderful story. Thank you for sharing and giving me a scary deja vu moment! :)

Anonymous said...

You really made it on the Internet, Kristina and thank you for ralizing me that you don't get anything without hard work. An universal truth has once again proved to be true.
elfarmy17- I wouldn't worry about that - every age has its awesome moments. And by the way, nerdfighters are different age and that's so cool, they can communicate so well.

Sarah said...

Wow, that is one impressive resume, Kristina. I barely know what to say in response to this. I found out about you at first through the wizard rockumentary when I saw you on it when it was screened at a wrock concert I went to after Portus. After that, I honestly have no idea what I did because I didn't start watching you until around January when I found 5AG through Lauren. After that everything feels like one big whirlwind. My life revolved around Kelly Clarkson and suddenly it changed to annual HP conferences, the vlogbrothers, 5AG, etc. I'm very glad that I found out about you though because these past few years following you and everyone else (not in a creepy way) have been some of my best Internet years and IRL years. Seeing people I look up to expressing themselves freely online and just being nerdy has given me so much confidence and I honestly have no idea what kind of person I'd be if I never started watching you all on YouTube. Thanks for posting this, it's nice to know how far you've come and how hard you've worked. :)

Stefan said...

This post is amazing. I've been following you since 5AG started. You're successful in a lot of ways just cause you do stuff while other, like myself, hem and haw and talk ourselves out of it.

This post is totally a historical document. And not of just you but the web in general. You've helped shape the web in so many ways. The crazy thing is that you're just starting. Think (I'm sure you are) of what you can do without school in the way.

I know a lot of people don't like this but I wish you would talk about money a bit more. I'm not angry if you make money. I want to hear all the ways that you found to fund your self. I think so many people don't know how rich or poor youtubers are. Money is an important part of life and I wish we could all make money doing what we love.

J said...

I agree wholeheartedly with Stefan's comment.

I really like learning about the time before I discovered your presence on here; about how you did SO MUCH before the 5AG and how you've still come such a long way from January of 2008.


It's also funny how history kind of repeats itself.

When you mention websites like "Xanga" it's just evidence about the average lifespan of a social network's popularity (which is only a couple of years, at most).

New sites pop up and fade so quickly: Friendster, Bebo, Xanga, Plurk, Friend Feed...even things like Formspring.

It'd be interesting to discover why certain sites have holding power and other, similar sites are used much less.

storminmay said...

Fighting with friends over stuff written at Diaryland? Collecting NP on Neopets? Fanfiction browsing? Communities on LiveJournal?

ARE YOU ME?! xD

You have a gift for both knowledge and creativity, and I want to thank you for sharing it with the world. Enjoy everything that's happening and embrace all of the amazing things you've been able to do, because you deserve it. :D

Holly said...

Ah, I'll admit it; I shed a few tears when I reached the end of this post and thought about your growth and how far you've come.
You're like the Cinderella of the internet.
And pretty much a role model to most of your followers.

Crystal said...

I'm glad you were so damn lucky, because you've influenced my life in so many ways, and I'm eternally grateful for that. <3

Manuel said...

Great post! It's amazing how it all worked out for you. :)

Anonymous said...

I can totally relate to the first part of this post, but I have never started making videos on youtube, because I am too shy to do it.
But maybe one day... I will do it. :D

You're the first person I subscribed on youtube. And I still love your videos. :D

Sammie said...

Wow Kristina, thanks for that! That was super interesting, I really enjoyed reading all of that. I don't think you have necessarily been lucky, just super hard working, so you deserve it!
Sidenote---i used to be obsessed with TOD and then FOD....haha...oh those were the days...

Kai said...

That was a lot of fun to read, and is similar to my story on the internet.

I remember being obsessed with Barbie games as a kid, particularly Secret Agent Barbie (which I replayed around five thousand times!) and Ice Skating Barbie, which I was never that good at, but played nonetheless. I also played a Bugs Life game and MANY others.

It's funny because even as a small child I was helping my parents with the computer. When I started at a Magnet School in 2nd grade, they started teaching us Excel and Powerpoint, and the rest of Microsoft Office. I made my first webpage in 2nd grade for class.

Around that same time was neopets, which I spent so much time on it's ridiculous. On neopets, I became a very active member of a guild called Moonclan, which was a role play for the book series Warriors, by Erin Hunter. I became a moderator or whatever it was called there.

Then as I segued out of that I joined a few message boards for Japanese Kawaii, and it was a pixeling and graphic design by way of cute japanese characters, and also other topics, and it was there that I formed a lot of opinions about the world.

And then I discovered vlogging while watching some ABC family show online. They had Brigitte Dale (daisytree1) as the abcfamily blogger, and I started to watch her, and really enjoyed it! Then, she was a part of the Fiesta Movement, where I looked for other agents, and coincidentally found you!

I hope that wasn't too long or boring, not totally sure why you'd care but I thought it might be interesting!

Thanks for putting yourself out there on the internet for us to watch/read!

Kara said...

This is amazing. I don't think I've ever seen anyone's entire Internet involvement summed up in quite this much detail, and I feel like that's a bit of a shame, because your Internet story is so fascinating!

It's really great to see how you just followed the things that interested you and ended up here. I feel you WERE lucky in some ways, ie: Nowadays lots of people who start blogs or vlogs or music or whatever are very concerned about getting people to follow them and getting fans. You, however, (maybe because you started earlier, before there were as many huge Internet 'celebrities' or maybe just because you did what you loved for your own enjoyment) haven't gotten caught up in that. Now you still do whatever piques your interest, but with a great following of people who are interested in the same things, and love what you make. V. cool. :)

ANYWAY, my point: thank you for taking the time to make this; it was very interesting and inspiring, and I am about to run out the door in pursuit of my Bliss so that I can become awesome and famous like you... Wait, that wasn't the moral of the story? ;)

<3

deeplikethesea said...

It's really funny because even though I'm younger, alot of this went the same way for me, except the being famous and in bands and stuff. I just started on fanfiction earlier, but it sucks, because even though I was on it for a while, my parents had always told me never to talk to strangers, especially on the internet, so I don't have that many online friends because I didn't want to disobey my parents..oh well.

nicole. said...

wow. have you EVER taken a break? haha.
and to know you're so grateful for everything, and still pinch yourself after 10 years to see if it's all real, that is the most humbling and lovely thing i've seen. you deserve it.

Ariel said...

This was really interesting for me to read, seeing as you're pretty much the reason that I've become so interested in social media and such.
I mean, I did a bunch internet stuff before, but I started watching you on youtube at the end of 2007. You introduced me to the vlogbrothers, made me feel a lot better about my (at the time) mostly hidden Harry Potter obsession, and helped me realize that social media can be a lot more than just a one-off chat with someone in a random thread.
So we seem to have a mutual appreciation sort of thing going on.
I hope to keep hearing about how things are with you for as long as you're willing to share it. =]

Unknown said...

At first I looked at this and thought it was really long, but it was so interesting. I love finally hearing your WHOLE story on the internet. Thank you and keep doing what you do best! DFTBA :D

TonksftMemories said...

Wow, thanks for writing that, it's pretty fascinating. I've been reflecting a lot as to how I got here, though my "here" is a lot less climbing the charts and being popular.

Margaret Ann said...

This was awesome. It's so cool how you can pretty much map out your life and how it has changed all from turning on a computer and diving in. And, thus has inspired me to start my own blog. I fear it will take a while for me to fully get the blogging way, but for now, any tips?

GlassLine said...

This makes me so happy. Thanks for sharing. Harry and the Potters were my first live wizrock concert which sadly only happened this year, but your band was the band that introduced me to wizrock!

Niki. said...

Wow, this is amazing and really interesting. I'm really glad you did get so involved in social media, though.

Also, I realized that I've been involved or at least interesting in most of the websites/communities you mentioned in this blog. Each one brings back a lot of memories. Wow.

Elisabeth said...

I liked reading this. You have been lucky in some ways, but mostly you've gotten to be where you are now through talent, a winning personality and sheer hard work. So give yourself some credit :)

Alex Dahlberry said...

I guess it's still too early to tell if I had some of that Felix Felicis as a child. Well, I've met amazing people online and nerdfighteria has made me happier than I ever was before, so I guess that's a positive consequence of using the internet way too much.

I've always found it difficult trying to balance IRL and internet life. Like, you know how Alex (Day) had that whole stage where he deleted his blog, and facebook and twitter and wanted YouTube to be his only site, because he felt he wasn't living enough in the /now/, or whatever?
I would never be able to do that. But sometimes I wonder if I should begin prying myself away from all these sites. Stop letting it be my life.
But now this blog kind of made me feel less worried about the fact that I spend so much time tweeting and on youtube, etc. Maybe it's not all for naught. I don't think it is, anyway.

Okay, sorry for this crazy long comment. You just made me think. :)

-alex

p.s. I've always wondered if you read comments posted on your blogs/videos that are a few days old, or if you stick mostly to comments on new blogs. Huh.

appletrain said...

wow. just wow. you truly amaze me. and the one thing that always impresses me about people like you is how passionately and wholeheartedly you throw yourself into your interests and projects. in all my 20 years, i think that has been my greatest failure, so to speak. i don't think i commit the way really truly passionate people like you do! i wish i knew how. or i wish i could find that one thing that unconsciously motivates me to do that. you're only a couple years older and yet it's practically SHAMEFUL, my accomplishments, in comparison. i need to crack a whip in my life XD

Corinne said...

And I hope that in a few years, you'll post one of this Kristina history's again and your list will be endless, because you better not stop young lady ;), you've got some faithful followers, like myself, that have been following you since the beginning of your YouTube days. And although I am not an active YouTube watcher anymore, you're blog is something I have a look on every other day, just to see what interesting things you might have been up to.
It must be hard sometimes, posting your life on the web and because of that, people commenting on your life. But as you can see, the good comments defo overrule the bad ones so I'd say: keep the good work coming!

Tanna said...

Sorry for the following HP nerd moment, but if you had drank that much Felix Felicis you would've died as it is toxic in large quantities XD

But anyways, just wanted to say that it's really cool how far you've come, and I can't wait to see where you go next! I wish we had known each other better in high school because I feel like we had a lot of the same interests, altho to be honest I was kind of scared of you for some reason in Journalism haha....best of wishes!

Ruby said...

Hi Kristina,
Is there any chance you could mention some of your favourite draco/ginny fanfics?
Thanks so much, keep being lovely!