Steampunk Hands Around the World 2017 – The World is Smaller

Image Courtesy of Mr. XPK

Thanks to modern technology, the steampunk community can connect worldwide easier than ever. There are blogs and forums to leave messages for people halfway around the world. Video and text messaging and webcams let us communicate in real time with people in far off lands. Translation functionality enables us all to have conversations well enough to ‘talk’ with other steampunks from dozens of other countries, cultures, and languages.

While the technology is a tool, it is all that communication and connecting with others which can bring us closer together, despite the physical distance which separates us. “Pen Pals” of decades ago and now today’s social media’s friends and followers. We can share in the day to day activities and the big news events.

We can’t be everywhere, but like one of the monopolistic phone companies said forty years ago, “(Long distance calls) are the next best thing to being there.” Technology today can make it feel like we are there.

As the world seems to be smaller, we may connect with a steampunk in a city or country we’ve longed to visit. We can learn about life their through their eyes and experiences, and if someday we have the opportunity to travel, there will be a friend waiting to greet us in person.

We may not see our many steampunk friends very often in the course of a year, but we can still be part of each others life in meaningful ways.

• Texting friends before they go into surgery, and getting their crazy responses as they come down from the anesthetic.
• Celebrating friends’ growing families.
• Watching a wedding relayed through mobile apps.
• Waving to a steampunk group in a far off country via webcams (and a lot of coordination!).
• Commiserating over respective workplace challenges, and things we’d really like to say to ‘some people.’
• Sharing a cat video, and laughing like little kids for hours.

There is so much to see and do, and so many great people to meet all around the world. Steampunk, and technology, can make our lives better by helping us be closer to all of those amazing experiences.

 

Follow along each day as new entries are added to the Official Link List and join the discussions on the Facebook event page.