A thought occurred the other day, that I’ve been online for so long — by which I mean, working online for such an extended period, as opposed to “I have been sitting in front of my laptop all this time, oh no what have I done with my life” (but also, that) — that I’ve passed through multiple incarnations of who and what my peers are.
I came up with the first wave of what we called the comics blogosphere, and there are names from that period of time, almost 20 years ago, that I still see and have such affinity and affection for that I think of them as smarter and more on top of shit than me on almost every topic. I was part of the launch team for io9, which meant I was a professional blogger and a Gawker Media employee, so my peer group shifted to something more professional, which continued and expanded as I worked through Time, Wired, Playboy, The Hollywood Reporter and so on. And the people I worked beside each time because peers and other people who I feel on the same level as, except when they go on to do something more amazing altogether.
(A lot of people I’ve worked with on those outlets have gone on to write books, video games, TV shows, and the like; others have gone on to found tech start-ups or journalism groups, or edit big magazines or whatever. I feel like a kid compared with them, but I still think of them as peers in some way, somewhat selfishly.)
There are hordes, hosts, of people who have disappeared from the fields that I’ve worked and still work in — people whose losses I feel on a near-atomic level. (I could name names, but that might be embarrassing for everyone involved.) I feel very lucky to still be able to do what I do, and even more so when I think about some of the people who aren’t still doing it beside me on a regular basis.