I'd never done anything in a chat room before except laugh at people's comments, but I noticed that these people were different from the usual jokers. They were not only a lot smarter than me but they also seemed like really good people, and one day I saw a name I knew from a vid they'd done and I commented that I liked it. Next thing I knew I was talking to all these cool people and I started doing content on my channel. It's just amazing how much I've learned just by hanging out a bit in a meteor chat room.
What's fantastic about the people in the chat in general was the way they handled not only people who stumbled onto the site and wanted to know what they were seeing, but just plain assholes (trolls) too. The best thing to do is to not feed the trolls; i.e do not engage them, but most times it's hard to resist and I get it. People will often slam them back, which is exactly what they want. The people on the meteor site though would do everything they could to try to ignore their shitty attitude and get them interested, and a few of those former trolls are now enthusiastic sky-watchers, and the rest of them at least got a taste of that huge world out there called the Universe. In other words something besides their cellphones and their crotches. Nothing puts things into perspective quite like looking up into the sky.
What's known as "The heart of a teacher" is all over that chat. It's truly inspiring. I've met some really cool people and I've talked to several on the phone or video chats. I hope to get to meet a few of them one day but for now I'm happy to call them my digital friends. I was also pleasantly surprised at how many young people were into it. If it's still acceptable in this day and age, I'm a biological male who likes women, and to meet a young hottie who happens to be into meteors and stuff is a turn-on. One gal I met made her own observatory out of an old dog house. She found this huge dog house that fit her telescope perfectly, and allowed room for it, her, her gear and a friend. Sigh...how I wish 'twere I. She even managed to rig a circular track so it revolves and she can get a 360-degree view of the sky. That rocks.
If a newbie comes on with questions and if there's someone on who's been there a while, they'll try to answer any questions or point them to other sites and such to get them started. Sometimes people will drop by from other countries and they can't speak English. They'll leave a comment or question in their native language, and I'll translate it and reply as best I can. I've done that for quite a few different languages. I wouldn't be able to tell anyway, but apparently Google Translate is good enough that I haven't accidentally insulted someone's mama or whatever because of translation errors. There's Michelle from Russia, C.D. from Italy, Todd from Germany, Chill from Japan and the rest of the international gang.
The other day someone said something in Korean. Korean writing is similar to Chinese or Japanese but it looks a little different. I copied the Korean text and entered it straight into the window instead of taking extra steps to go to the Translate and enter 'Korean to English.' You don't need to do that any more because now Google knows everything. I hit Enter and the above window popped up, like when you misspell something and it offers a correction. It said "Did you mean ____?" and it had a slightly-different version of what I'd entered. I cracked up because like I said I wouldn't know the difference anyway, but Google was treating the matter as if I could write fluently in Korean. I thought it was hilarious, but to think it's funny at all I guess you have to be a little bit twisted. I'm raising my hand yo.
좋은 하루 되세요.
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