the first meeting of the convocation of historians
saturday, march 1st, 7pm PST
i’m in a discord voice chat meeting with four others: 2 from japan, 1 from Connecticut, 1 from Texas, and there’s me from California. i’m not sure how old everyone is exactly but i’m guessing we cover early 30s to mid 40s.
aside from two people who are brothers, we have never met in real life. we were brought together through my youtube channel, HeatherJustPlay (HJP).
we’re meeting tonight because these four people have volunteered to be the inaugural historians of the HJP community. their goal is to archive, document, and share all of the incredible stories happening in our 135 member discord server and 2000+ subscriber youtube channel.
as they discuss their ideas, i am sitting here giddy with excitement. it’s such a great energy to be around: people who would’ve otherwise never crossed paths brainstorming ideas to share the magic of this community with the world.
i think there’s a saying that goes something like, “if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did it actually fall?” there’s no real need for this meeting. there’s no need for us to put in the work to document, share, write, edit, and post. no one here is getting paid to do this so it’s all on everyone’s free time.
yet, here we are, finding time in our lives that spans multiple timezones to meet and figure this out together. everyone here believes that, especially in today’s world, the stories of fun, adventure, collaboration, and positivity that happen in the HJP community can bring joy to people and make the world a little brighter.
and with that goal in mind, we’re all spending our saturday night/sunday morning thinking about a website, blog posts, instagram, photos, and a potential podcast.
it will never cease to amaze me how many people want to help, want to do SOMETHING, want to do something that MATTERS. and THEY DO. i have SEEN it. when people have the opportunity to do something, THEY DO. and the crazy part is that this has become my every day. every single day, there is a remarkable story worth sharing from this incredible group of people.
sure this is just “video games.” FFXIV happens to be the main vehicle we use to connect but there is a real impact happening here that translates into real life. it’s a truly wonderful thing to see someone feel like their voice matters, to see someone feel like who they are as they are is good enough, more than good enough. your ideas are good enough. your perspective is good enough. you are enough to make someone laugh or to help someone do something they didn’t think they could.
i’m grateful. i’m proud. i’m inspired and happy. to put it simply, YOU ARE ALL SO COOL! 🤩
-heather
