Excluding, say, here or the fediverse more broadly.
There have been some nice corners of the internet that have somehow kept going along their way that I’ve enjoyed lurking around like some alien observer. They are the few spaces I dare not pop in and ask, out of fear it would somehow break things.
All the Chaos Computer Events are like a different dimension. You can leave your laptop somewhere unattended and the worst thing that may happen to it, is that someone plugs it in to charge.
I heard about CCC all the way in my UK university! Wish we had something that big in the UK. I remember beards, lots of beards!
GeoCaching for offline (semi-online). When I learnt about it, it blew my mind. There’s literally trillions of hidden ‘stashes’ all around the world that people have hidden. In bushes, up poles, behind signs, etc. Every city. Fields, forests, everywhere!
In the stashes you’d find anything from a piece of paper to mini figures or a bullet! You write your name on the paper and date it. Then you hide it and go hunting for more using the Geocaching app.
When you say hide it, do you mean back where you found it or elsewhere? Are there some that encourage you to add/move parts of the caches around from one to another?
Makerspaces/hackerspaces
Basically a bunch of fellow geeks nerds and makers. A few joking comments can spiral into awesome discussions or insane projects.
The biggest bit is just having somewhere you can geek out and have people’s eyes light up, rather than glaze over.
On top of this, you gain access to a bunch of awesome tools, as well as people who know how to use them, and often want to teach and share. It varies a lot from space to space, but most have a laser cutter and 3D printers at least.
Shout-out to r/TESLore. I remember the exact moment I was hooked: Someone started her comment with the phrase: “We all know what the enatiomorph is, where it comes from, and how it’s formed, but…” and I’ve gleefully been indulging with those other weirdos ever since.
I’ll put my vote to Deep Rock Galactic for online. It’s a game (that you MUST check out) with one of the most wholesome communities ever. Most people are super nice in the chat and I’ve made a friend or two (for me that’s a lot - I’m extremely picky cause I feel very nice with the amount of friends I have already)
Is it mainly voice chat? I tend to prefer text chat as I don’t like fussing with audio settings nor hearing roughly handled mics (albeit I know you can often mute those players).
I mostly play with text chat. Although There’s a “for Rock and Stone!” Emote which seems to be how most people communicate
