sandshrewz
POTATO
It's been ~2 years+ since I've been active on Smogon and this question has kind of been bugging me for a while now. From these 2 years I've also learnt plenty of stuff from being here too. I came to IRC not really knowing what to expect and Smogon was the first actual forum that I ever used. I also made friends whom I can trust from Smogon / IRC quite surprisingly to myself?? I never considered the possibility of making friends via the internet before lol. GPing was also a learning experience for me and helped improved my grammar. I never really cared about grammar previously and just wrote whatever sounded right for essays etc. (still don't know what is subject verb agreement etc though 6.6)
Smogon also helped me learn more about myself in that I tend to procrastinate very easily. And the source of procrastination can be from anywhere and not just Smogon lol, which is very bad during exams .-. I hoped that by switching off from Smogon would make me more productive for awhile but guess I was wrong and turned to elsewhere like youtube to procrastinate xd I also picked up interest in javascript and being a noob programmer to kill some time. It's kinda fun and probably most people where I live wouldn't even touch this kind of stuff unless it's for their studies. Also Smogon just made me more interesting in drawing and kept me doodling on notes more than ever lol. There probably isn't a day I don't draw stuff in school, and I usually just draw mons cos they're the easiest to haha. Anyway, interests in Pokemon and programming made common interests between my friend and I too so that's a plus. From a combination of both irl and Smogon views, I realized that most arguments are futile. Most of the time, parties will never come into an agreement and just continue arguing and throw in whatever points that support their stance to protect their ego, even when they sort of realize they might be wrong as well. Arguments are generally pointless both irl and on the internet I guess so I just tend to avoid them. Somewhat related but similarly I learnt to just keep opinions to myself mostly and know that most of the time you or other people aren't getting the full picture about whatever happens (not just arguments but just generally stuff that happens ?_?) and just wait for a fuller picture to understand. It's kind of conservative I guess ? :o!
Anyway, most importantly I think, Smogon has widened my views quite considerably. Before Smogon, I only had my tiny Asian perspective lol. And Smogon is mainly made up of Westerners etc etc. If not for Smogon, I probably wouldn't have paid much notice to Hurricane Sandy and realized how much devastation it actually caused and how it directly affected people. I also never really thought I'd actually meet people who are gay and even more so, openly gay. It just didn't come across to me that there are more gays than I thought there were that the chance of meeting one here isn't very close to zero lol. Hence, I actually never knew Oglemi was gay until his well thread with Jellicent xD and that was despite all the references he has dropped and many people / threads saying he was the gay UU guy in gen 4 lol. Even his Smog article about the fabulous mons didn't make me think he was actually gay haha. I thought it was him just being as funny as he usually was xD so reading his well thread was some realization for me too lol! There was also the Boston marathon bombings and some other incidents that I was informed more via Smogon too. If not for Smogon I wouldn't know that much or paid as much attention to such wordly events. Smogon has also consistently reminded me that I'm a pretty fortunate guy with no major illness or issues in life and I'm pretty contend with my life right now.
There's probably some other stuff I missed out but enough about me haha. Also this post has very little smileys ?_! I've also heard of how Smogon has impacted people that much to change their lives to some extent. Some of them has shared their own stories. More recently there's the LGBT thread which I think has benefitted some people as well which I'm really happy of. Like who has ever though such positive impact can be made by a site, and a Pokemon site at that lol! So how has Smogon affected your life and how big of a impact has it made? Personally for me it's not the life changing-size kind of impact but I'm glad I've been on Smogon and don't regret having made the decision to be here. Do share your experiences here and I'm (and probably many others?) interested in hearing how it has shaped you one way or another, be it to a small or large extent. Thank you, Smogon~ :)
Smogon also helped me learn more about myself in that I tend to procrastinate very easily. And the source of procrastination can be from anywhere and not just Smogon lol, which is very bad during exams .-. I hoped that by switching off from Smogon would make me more productive for awhile but guess I was wrong and turned to elsewhere like youtube to procrastinate xd I also picked up interest in javascript and being a noob programmer to kill some time. It's kinda fun and probably most people where I live wouldn't even touch this kind of stuff unless it's for their studies. Also Smogon just made me more interesting in drawing and kept me doodling on notes more than ever lol. There probably isn't a day I don't draw stuff in school, and I usually just draw mons cos they're the easiest to haha. Anyway, interests in Pokemon and programming made common interests between my friend and I too so that's a plus. From a combination of both irl and Smogon views, I realized that most arguments are futile. Most of the time, parties will never come into an agreement and just continue arguing and throw in whatever points that support their stance to protect their ego, even when they sort of realize they might be wrong as well. Arguments are generally pointless both irl and on the internet I guess so I just tend to avoid them. Somewhat related but similarly I learnt to just keep opinions to myself mostly and know that most of the time you or other people aren't getting the full picture about whatever happens (not just arguments but just generally stuff that happens ?_?) and just wait for a fuller picture to understand. It's kind of conservative I guess ? :o!
Anyway, most importantly I think, Smogon has widened my views quite considerably. Before Smogon, I only had my tiny Asian perspective lol. And Smogon is mainly made up of Westerners etc etc. If not for Smogon, I probably wouldn't have paid much notice to Hurricane Sandy and realized how much devastation it actually caused and how it directly affected people. I also never really thought I'd actually meet people who are gay and even more so, openly gay. It just didn't come across to me that there are more gays than I thought there were that the chance of meeting one here isn't very close to zero lol. Hence, I actually never knew Oglemi was gay until his well thread with Jellicent xD and that was despite all the references he has dropped and many people / threads saying he was the gay UU guy in gen 4 lol. Even his Smog article about the fabulous mons didn't make me think he was actually gay haha. I thought it was him just being as funny as he usually was xD so reading his well thread was some realization for me too lol! There was also the Boston marathon bombings and some other incidents that I was informed more via Smogon too. If not for Smogon I wouldn't know that much or paid as much attention to such wordly events. Smogon has also consistently reminded me that I'm a pretty fortunate guy with no major illness or issues in life and I'm pretty contend with my life right now.
There's probably some other stuff I missed out but enough about me haha. Also this post has very little smileys ?_! I've also heard of how Smogon has impacted people that much to change their lives to some extent. Some of them has shared their own stories. More recently there's the LGBT thread which I think has benefitted some people as well which I'm really happy of. Like who has ever though such positive impact can be made by a site, and a Pokemon site at that lol! So how has Smogon affected your life and how big of a impact has it made? Personally for me it's not the life changing-size kind of impact but I'm glad I've been on Smogon and don't regret having made the decision to be here. Do share your experiences here and I'm (and probably many others?) interested in hearing how it has shaped you one way or another, be it to a small or large extent. Thank you, Smogon~ :)