Interacting with the internet crowd

I'm currently leading a truly geeky lifestyle. Lots of time on the internet, as well as meeting people through it.

One typical example of this occurred last weekend. I dragged Linda along to my first Flickr meet-up in Shanghai at the La Bella Cafe on Saturday night.

I have found that reconciling with my geeky ways has always been difficult proposition. I grew up surrounded by sport-dominated society, which bred the stereotype of computer users as nerds. Then there was the 90's, which was a little more favourable to the average computer user, but socialising through the net? Only losers did this. So, an escapade like joining up with a bunch of photo enthusiasts through essentially a web-bulletin board is instantly tainted by these formative-year stereotypes. I admit I'm far more comfortable with the idea of a web-society meetup since the last few years, in particular due to my move to Shanghai. The web is usually the first medium that many expats like myself socialise through. If you take my current lifestyle as an example, over the past few years, I am seeing more and more of my life dominated by people I meet online through online-advertised events or organising sporting sides, or by keeping in contact with my older friends through emails or blogging.

So, I started with some simple socialising, and now it appears I'm potentially going to start making some income through the online world. I'm spending more and more of my day online, chatting using Skype or GChat, email-tagging support or friends, or cruising around looking for information.

So, getting back to the Flickr meetup topic. Despite my growing ease with my internet socialisation, jumping into the Shanghai Flickr fold is a little more intimidating due to the fact that I'm a hack photographer surrounded by some truly talented people. Absolutely brilliant in fact. This was evidenced by the contributor slideshow presentation by the Shanghai Flickr group. There were indeed some excellent photographs on display and almost everyone was transfixed by the presentations. I've now found a few more photographers who's work I can browse at my leisure.

While my stay was short there due to other events on that evening, we did have fun bumping into a few other Shanghai souls (both old & new), and we certainly will try to attend the next event as well.

If you want to see the quality of the photographs contributed to the evening, go and check out this link.