Friday, December 31, 2010

My Latest Favorite Thing: Experience Project

Earlier in the semester when I was taking some time to look further an identity of mine, I was doing my usual internet surfing when I had come across this website, Experienceproject.com. While I didn't have a chance to create an account at the time, I promised that I would come back and sign up as soon as I got the chance. And so I did, earlier this week, and now Experience Project has become by far one of my favorite things on the world wide web.


Allow me to elaborate.

 I am all about identity (which if you don't know already, I'm sure you will come to know soon enough). Once I learned that you can have more than one, it's like my world totally opened up and now I am always eager to explore another trait or quality that makes me. And this is just one of the great things that Experience Project provides. The website lets you delve in and browse through a massive amount of experiences to find whatever it is you identify with so that you can emerge saying: "I sleep with a stuffed animal" or something of the sort. There's a group for someone who says, "I love British comedy," "I am an insomniac," "I have an accent," "I am a Pagan," "I am married but lonely," you name it, it's there. If you're the first who thought of it, you can always add the experience on to the site and type in, "I..." Can't speak Japanese fluently yet? No worries, you can always click the "plan to" button and add it to your goals.

And the beauty of it is that you're not limited as to the number of groups you can be a part of.

I am personally a fan of this website because, while I actively reject labels, particularly in cases where one person takes it upon themselves to bestow a label on another, I do enjoy a sense of order that allows to list all that I am for myself to see. I love the anonymity of it all, which gives me the chance to claim identities that I'm still too nervous to speak of aloud or come out about. And above all I love the sense of community that the site provides. Knowing that you are not alone in an identity, feeling, or experience, was not always a comfort we could secure for one another before the days of the internet, but now with sites like these you can know for certain, that while you may stand out from the crowd, there's always another freak right there with you.



Try it out. Agree? Disagree? Is there something I forgot to mention or another side that I hadn't acknowledged? Please share and let me know what you think!

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