Entering quarantine, I expected everything to blow by real quick. I was just coming out of my first semesters of college and going out almost every day, and I thought that in a matter of no time I was able to enter this kind of life again. However, this didn’t happen and for almost an entire month I was waiting for each day to pass by without doing anything. I then quickly realized that I was wrong and I couldn’t live like this anymore. I hopped onto my computer and opened discord for the first time, browsing through all the past servers I have been on. There it was–I saw one of my high school friends by himself in an old discord server. I decided to join and we caught up after not talking for almost the entire school year. Then, little by little more people began to join and in about half an hour we had an entire voice call of 10 people.
After not talking to each other for so long, we all decided to get into a 5v5 game of League of Legends and I felt so relieved to be able to have fun with my friends again. I suddenly had the idea to create a server where I could invite many of my friends and who they could invite their own. Our community began to get larger and larger, and each day we would meet someone new! Although it wasn’t the same kind of experience, it felt like we were there in real life talking to one another. Ever since that day, many of us met each day and continued to play video games such as Valorant, League of Legends, Minecraft, Deep Rock Galactic, and Among Us! Never have I had such an enjoyable experience being able to connect with both my favorite people and new friends through video games! I’ve always grown up talking to my friends and gaming, but I didn’t think that this could actually come in handy for the future. College kept me out of gaming and prevented me from contacting old friends since I was too busy making new ones. However, now I was able to keep in contact with old friends and meet exciting new people on the same program!
Nevertheless, the past memories of coming together as a community online were finally back and we all were excited to see each other the next night. However, when school was approaching, many of us were afraid that this would all come to an end. We would have classes and projects to deal with, and we would have no time for each other. This was true for the beginning, as I found myself joining discord sometimes for nobody to come. Then again, I realized we didn’t need to always be gaming to enjoy each other’s presence. I started to host study sessions over the call and once again we came together to study and even ask each other for study advice and help! Even as I am writing this right now, I am in the company of others who are asking each other for essay advice and physics help! It is amazing how we have rarely taken the advantage of online technology to bring us together before, but now it is an essential staple of my life!
