If h2g2 Never Existed (IV)
Created | Updated May 19, 2019
If h2g2 Never Existed (IV)
Back in January, I somehow got to thinking of some what–ifs in my life, including what if I'd not found h2g2, which morphed into what if h2g2 didn't exist at all? Then I started wondering who else had lives that would've been different. And then, the dangerous part –I decided to ask1.
If h2g2 never existed...
If h2g2 had never existed, I'm sure I'd be much less happy, much less informed and less engaged in the world. I discovered h2g2 in June 99, had a stroke, broke an ankle are found you all again. You are all the hoopiest froods ever.
Spaceechik
Asteroid Lil sent Your Compiler some of the artwork she had done for h2g2. While I found that I couldn't use the easy transition of h2g2 leading her into digital art, as she has been making digital art since 1987, h2g2 definitely built up her portfolio! Some of these works may already be familiar to you...
I had the handle before h2g2 (anyone remember Compuserve on DOS?), but it was only after I joined h2g2 that she stepped forward, putting out a persona that I had to practically run to keep up with. Being Lil, I became more self-assertive in real life, more inclined to engage with strangers, less willing to be taken hostage by social engineers. The Lil persona helped me define my own edges.
And then there was the art of playing, having it affirmed that even as an adult, not only is it okay to be silly, but there is intellectual and emotional reward in learning to play together with spontaneity, creativity, and humor. Why have we stopped doing that? Was the BBC to blame? Was it because we couldn't airlock the trolls the way we did in the TDV days?
Well, I have to ration my energy pretty carefully these days, which is why I regretfully Elvised from the Atelier. But if h2g2 had never existed, Your Hostess would be less of a real person today.
And what everyone said about the amazing people I gained as lifelong friends!
These images were created 20 years ago and look primitive compared to today.
The float for the
h2g2 parade
that Irv organized
for the 1st anniversary in 2000
Irv, a portrait Munchkin's
(waist)coat of armsPeta's Italian restaurant Remember the IIEM
(infinite improbability espresso machine)?Garius Lupus and Affy
at Crater Labs, Inc.
The robot's name was Ampton. Affy was scandalized to discover that he smoked.
Asteroid Lil
If h2g2 never existed...
I never would have gone 'slightly mad' over it a few times, but on the other hand I would have gone 'slightly mad' more often because h2g2 and h2g2ers have saved me from that on innumerable occasions...
I never would have learned html, or written factual and fictional articles for a public audience, or been an Editor. And there are so many people that I never would have had the opportunity to learn from, whether through meeting them in real life, having conversations with them online, or reading their writings that have been preserved in the archives of h2g2.
Sasha
If h2g2 never existed... I would have never have created h2g2life, a comic strip I attribute as the start of so many of my comic endeavours since, especially the comic strip Liff, (which, keen DA fans would realise, is a play on the title of one of his books).
Also, h2g2 (and h2g2life) wouldn't have given me a public forum to express my grief of his passing.
Wowbagger
I wouldn't know so many amazing people with such varying life stories. I don't know what most of them look like, in some cases not even how they identify themselves in terms of race / gender etc.
I used to have a lot of black/white fixed ideas, but having been part of discussions on h2g2 (and getting older and wiser) some of those ideas have been refined and are now much more nuanced.
One of the biggest things is that knowing so many people on h2g2 who studied at the OU it gave me my final push to sign up myself and get my degree a couple of years ago.
Finally: mostly thanks to Ferredbadger and his writings about his activities I got my backside into gear and joined a union.
Sho
I really enjoyed putting so many faces to long-known names during your 2017 jaunt and am sorry I never got to meet ~jwf~ or Alsoran who entertained me in the long nights years ago.
(sorry that wasn't finished - I keep forgetting that this isn't h2g2 and I don't know how to do paragraphs2) Going to meets has been the icing on the cake and thanks to Frenchie I knew what champagne to get the Spearcarrier and his lady for a special present this Christmas.
Wand'rin Star
Stay tuned for Part Five!
1Order doesn't matter for this series, so you can read this first, then go to PartOne, Two, or Three.2I told her that if just hold "shift" while you hit "enter", you can have proper paragraphs in FB comments.
