my first impression of spacehey

hello everyone,

i've now had my account open for almost 24 hours and thought i should gather my thoughts on my experionce on spacehey thus far. 

so, how did i find spacehey?

i heard about it first on tiktok during 2024. i had seen a couple of videos of people showing off their profiles and sharing their thoughts about the site, but it didn't really peak my interest. in the end of 2024, i joined a discord server in search for new friends. i found a user there (didn't talk to them though) that had their neopets-website linked in their profile. i clicked their link and was fascinated by the fact that someone had created their own website. this made me eventually briefly look up melonland forum and the whole web revival. then i remembered spacehey, googled "myspace copy" and found my way to spacehey. 

i decided to make a profile and as i looked through the website, i was overfilled with feelings of nostalgia and childlike joy. it brought back memories of when i started using the internet back in 2008 and just... simpler times. i was only seven then and remember finding stallet.se, a swedish horse forum. i remember asking my mom if i was allowed to make an account and through that site, i started roleplaying, exploring photography, and made my first internet friends. one of them i still have on my private social media accounts, although we don't talk much. 

back then, i found it easier to connect to people through the internet and sharing interests, culture and opinions. i have always been a curious and creative person but i feel like as soon as i started using social media a bit of that died. i became shyer and lonelier, as i find it way harder to make new friends and connections nowadays. i also feel constantly judged – scared that if i share my true art or my true opinions, i will accidentally step on someone's toes. 

i miss writing. i miss taking photographs. i miss sharing it with nice people on the internet that will comment on my things, instead of just liking the things i share. i want to know how i made people feel and what they think. and i want to share my thoughts, feelings, and opinions on what other people share, as well – without feeling too obnoxious, as i do on social media, and still being nice, of course. 

so, as soon as i joined spacehey, i quickly added people back that had sent friend requests and spent way too much time on editing my profile as well as my profile picture. i almost had an identity crisis – what do i want my online presence to look like, who do i want to be on this website? who am i, really, when my online presence isn't continously observed by people i know in real life? should i make my profile show who i used to be, who i am now, or who i want to be?

it was also really hard to write a text about myself, to introduce myself. on social media, everything is already out there. and i only add people who i already know in real life. how do i even introduce myself to new people, when there are endless possibilites?

as you obviously can guess, it definitely made me reflect on myself and reconsider things. i unadded some people that had added me because they were under the age of 18 and i didn't feel comfortable with having them as "friends", even though i never talked to them. i made my profile red and black, because red is my favorite color, and vampire themed because i secretly loved twilight as a kid. i still love twilight to this day, and vampire lore in general. 

when i find new things or interests, i easily obsess over things. i've clicked way too many times on my home page in hopes of recieving notifications. i have scrolled through multiple profiles, which made me feel somewhat jealous of how cool everyone seemed and lonely because they already had multiple friends. 

i also see that there's a lot of teenagers on this site with a romanticized picture of the 90s and 00s internet, but also who use this site just like social media (sorry teenagers, i'm trying my hardest to not generalize). it's really hard to relate to them when they post blogs just blurting things out without really trying to interact with others. i get a bit sad when i see new threads and blog posts without any comments or kudos, or commenters not getting any response in forum threads or when they comment a great blog post with their own thoughts and questions.

i've tried my best to plant a few seeds that i hope will eventually become fruitful. i give kudos to blog posts i like, i comment on forum threads and have sent some friend requests to a few people i think i have things in common with or whom i find to be interesting. i hope i can find some friends through this site, eventually.

so, my question to all of you, if you've read this far:

what was your first impression of spacehey when you first joined? what do you think of it now? pros and cons of the website?

i have some last words for you all: remember that there are people on the other side of the accounts you see and interact with. be nice and stay curious!

with lots of love,

josie

p.s. i will eventually look through this post for errors and misspellings, i'm just too lazy and tired right now. mind you, english is my 2nd language hehe.