I want to say a huge thank you to myself, Don Aapo. A thank you for your contribution to the world of digital art.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a friend of many in the internet. My first internet friend was a 40 something man whom I played World of Warcraft with. I played that game for thousands of hours from age 7 to age 16. Most of my free time I was logged in and playing, and I became quite a competitive player as a result.
I became a fan of music back then and have listened to over 10 000 hours of music since 2010 or so. My favorites playlist has 9000 songs in it and is 600 hours long. I’ve heard every single song at least once, more like 10 times each.
I always loved visual digital art too and became a creator in that industry as an adult. In my career, I’ve produced mostly free work which includes;
1200 original YouTube videos
200 pieces of original music
Hundreds of pieces of original visual art
Millions of words which is the equivalent to 2 to 3 times the Lord of the Rings trilogy - perhaps more than that even
Listened to 10k hours of music whilst doing the work
Just alone in Instagram over 2400 posts (all with an image and some text in there)
Left 10 000 comments or so
Given perhaps 100k likes in social media
Followed around 4000 people probably
Amassed around 3000 followers
Got to top 5% in 3 video games
Got around 2 to 3 million views
Watched thousands of hours of content and 100 audiobooks
Can name almost every trance music act out there and a ton of artists and musicians and writers and bloggers, just from using the internet
Wrote in my journal maybe 5000 entries
That’s what it took me and I only have a Yellow Belt at the moment. So a huge shout out to myself for doing the work.
I would love to see this become a meme - a letter of gratitude to yourself. If you ever write one, be sure to email it to me, I’d love to see it.
That’s what being a Netizen is about for me.