If you’re like me, making friends is an awkward, time-taking process. However, it’s much easier online than it is in real life. As an owner of a K-Pop meme account, I interact with many fans with the same interests and opinions. It has been about six months since I started my account, and I’m proud to say that I have over 1,630 followers. More importantly, I have made about a dozen new friends from various countries like Europe, Australia, Spain, Japan, Pakistan, and of course, the U.S.

Making these friends has made me more confident in myself (and my memes), helped me broaden my horizons, and allowed me to learn more about life in other countries. They also caused me to become more immersed in a fandom when I meet a sweet fan. For example, I started talking to this girl named Grace about EXO, and she seemed really sweet and funny. I later found out she was also a fan of NCT, a K-Pop boy group with 18 members. I had been interested in the group for a while, but I was daunted by the task of learning about 18 new people, and the fandom also had a bad reputation for being rude at the time. However, Grace helped me learn about the members and showed me that the fandom was much better than what some others said.

Grace is only one of the many people whom I’ve been able to befriend. My online friends are just perfect to fangirl with, complain to, and waste time with. We have group chats in which we are constantly complimenting each other, whining about how we can’t afford any merchandise or concert tickets, and talking about that one special boy or girl.

I especially love when I’m able to cheer someone up even though we’re on different continents and time zones. It’s also really easy to be a better person online because I feel more confident, as if I have a new identity.

In conclusion, starting up my meme account is one of the best decisions I’ve made recently because the people I met online are simply amazing. Of course, it’s still necessary to stay safe on the Internet, so I go by a different name and don’t reveal the state in which I live, but it still feels like some of my Internet friends know me better than some of my “friends” in real life.