8-2-2025: i accidentally started a reddit revolution

and im not even done building my website yet...
the drama itself is a long story and i plan on making a youtube video to spread further awareness about it (which will be posted on my site for you to see as well) so i'm not going to get into that here, i am more about looking into how i feel about the whole affair and how it fits into the narrative of my life. it feels significant to me in more ways than one. warning for some woowoo spiritual stuff if you're not into that

im gonna start this with a story about the time i went to the renn faire with my friends when i was... 18 or 19 i think?
there was a woman there doing crystal readings whom i had encountered at another renn faire years before. the reading she did for me back then was really profound and powerful, so i was adamant about visiting her again (and i convinced both my friends to get readings too lol). i don't remember much of it, except for one specific thing she said that stuck out to me: my 26th year is going to be extremely significant for me.
i'm 26 now. my birthday is in just a few months, and i've had this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that was telling me i was failing to do something, there was something i was forgetting about. I still hadn't fulfilled or found this fabled significance, despite the message being powerful enough that it was practically burned into my brain matter. I was sort of just waiting, not sure if I was supposed to do something or if something was supposed to happen to me.
this whole drama, this event, was so random and so sudden, and i honestly have absolutely no business doing anything about it. It had nothing to do with me (until it did). it happened to a complete stranger. and I think that to a lot of people it might seem bizarre to put so much passion and energy into standing up for a total stranger over something as trivial as an internet ban. I guess I also feel like it is a little bizarre. but it burns in me so hot, i have to do something about the injustice i witnessed, and i have to speak up for the people who have been silenced, and i have to act. i have never been more motivated in my life, or more sure that what i am doing is important. so to me i think that this is the moment that turned 26 significant.

to sort of pivot away from the drama and the politics behind it, there's another angle to it all that is very interesting for me to see playing out. i've wanted to make youtube videos since i was a kid. it was before the phenomenon of "being a youtuber" happened. it was just a creative itch, this feeling that i wanted to join the regular people on youtube who were sharing their lives (RIP old youtube you are forever missed). I've posted a few random scattered videos throughout my life. but i think that the aforementioned "being a youtuber" phenomenon complicated this creative drive in a lot of ways. i've pretty much been on and off waffling about making videos of various different types since tweenhood. even pretty recently when i mentally committed that i would start "putting myself out there" and actually start the thing for once, i still just put it off and put it off and put it off. it was easier to not think about it. youtube becomes more and more of a social media-coded website as time goes on, and that adds an inherent stupid mental pressure to it (at least for me). i would think about it too much and just end up getting overwhelmed and giving up. so this is a good thing i think.
it popped into my head with such ferocity when i was in the middle of the drama: you should make a youtube video about this. and i'm about halfway done scripting said video (it will be a presentation of the reddit drama as it happened, the facts behind it, as well as a commentary/essay on neo-orientalism and islamophobia, and the importance of taking action against oppressors when you can) now. I'm actually in it now, and starting it. Starting it with something meaningful that is important for people to see.

i do have this weird nervous feeling. this is not necessarily the type/genre of video that i want to make long-term or like, gain any sort of reputation for. but i've also realized/decided that i can just decentralize the video-making from youtube. it's important for THIS video to go on youtube, because the whole purpose of it is to reach as many people as i possibly can. but after that i have no obligation to post my videos on youtube. i can use some other video host and just make the videos for my website. bc like i don't think i really want to "be a youtuber". i just want to make videos. (maybe i can put them on youtube too for ease of access or whatever but that would just be as an archive space and not the primary platform i use to communicate).

so yeah. i am a little bit overwhelmed, even though all of this is self-inflicted lol