This post has been brought to you by my sudden urge to archive everything on my now-defunct Tumblr, with the intention to use on this site because the aesthetic matches.

It’s interesting, growing up on the internet. I didn’t even fully grow up on it—I didn’t do much but hamsterdance.com and chain emails until I left for college—but it’s funny to know that there are different bits and pieces of my life on various social media sites.

A different persona portrayed on each site, as befitted its mechanism and branding. What goes on Facebook is not what goes on Tumblr is not what goes on Instagram is not what goes on Livejournal is not what goes on Twitter is not what went on Myspace.

And so tiny pieces of me are scattered across the internet like horcruxes, if we want to use a Harry Potter reference to honor one of those tiny pieces.

Because of this fragmentation, I’ve always assumed that there are wildly different parts of me in each place, or that different facets of my personality develop different aesthetic styles. The fandom bits that morphed into k-pop. The love of The Lord of the Rings that got distracted by Harry Potter and Game of Thrones. The internet drama precursor to politics.

 

You’d think it would be true. That me in 2013 was so vastly different from me in 2018 that we would like and save different photos and memes.

And in one sense, it is true. I’m a completely different person than I was in 2013. I’m more mature, more sure of what I believe in, and there are a few major issues that I’ve done an about-face on. I’ve grown as a person, and developed new and greater insight into the world.

And yet I have a photo from the exact same photoset saved currently on my phone that I first found in 2015. I follow the same artists on YouTube now that I reblogged in my old Tumblr, without realizing it—because I was drawn to her work.

The medium may change. The frequency may change. The year may change.

But the soul doesn’t.