r a n d o m t r a s h

My Internet Fren - Alyssa

So this is a story about someone I met on Wattpad that I now have a streak with on Snapchat after we bonded over both of us being Michigan phans. Idk if she'll read this, but I'll just call her Linda. (You know who you are)

Btw her name isn't actually Linda.

*

So today my mum was asking me how to use Snapchat and do streaks and stuff. While I was showing her, she asked if I had any streaks. I said yes and when she asked who they were, I mentioned some of my friends that she knew, along with Linda.

She asked how I knew her and I said that we met on Wattpad. When my mum asked what Wattpad was, I explained it as a social-media-ish platform where people can write stories/fan fiction/read others' work.

Then she said "well have you ever met Linda personally?" I said no and she flipped out. According to my parents, anyone I talk to online-that I haven't met in person-is a 50 year old man that stalks teenage girls on the internet.

I tried to explain that 1) that's not really how the Phandom is (idk it's hard to explain), 2) I've seen pictures of Linda and her TEENAGE FRIENDS, and 3) you can't rly fake pictures on snapchat.

I mean, it's not like instagram or tinder where you can just pick an picture off the internet and pretend to be that person; with Snapchat, if you don't send the picture right after you take it then ppl will know. Also, that's only on stories, you can't send streaks or something of a picture that's been previously taken or it would show up in chat form. It's kind of hard to explain these things to her when she just found the app a month ago.

Also, Linda and I have more in common than I do with the friends that I know personally. We're both in the phandom, we like a lot of the same youtubers, and generally the same type of music.

A while ago, I did a "social experiment" I guess. Although I felt bad about it at the time in case I made anyone worry, I sent out:

"I wanna die // streaks"

I don't know what I expected, but most everyone else replied with "lol" or "haha same" or "lmao". But guess who didn't. Yep, Linda. I don't remember exactly what she said, but she said "are you okay?"

Now, keep in mind that I do love my school friends and they probably thought it was a joke because of my dark humour and the fact that I talk about death a lot, but the only person that asked if I was okay and seemed genuinely concerned in any way, was Linda.

So tell me, what do you think? Am I stupid for talking to people online and? Should I have ever started talking to Linda? Or should I just assume that everyone is a predator, and that I should always be paranoid that some creepy old guy is stalking me from behind a stock photo image of a teenage girl?

~Alyssa