The Neopets Couple’s Love is a Sad Reminder of the Failures of Love in Social Media

By:  H.T., Website:  Rogue Black Nerd

Kristin and Michael Andrews-Carr met a decade ago on Neopets and at 29 and 27, are now married.  I write this article because when you put things into perspective, it raises the question of what did social media turn us into as it relates to love?

Think about it, this is a couple that stayed in regular communication online since at least 2001.  This meant they lasted through MySpace, Xanga, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.  This is a couple that never got caught up in likes, DMs, clout, or any of the usual trappings of love in the age of social media.  I should also add that they were also in different time zones.  He was in Ohio, she Arkansas.

So I ask the question:  why is it that stories like this became viral not because they were touching or sweet, but because it’s become such a rarity for men and women to connect on several platforms and find that special someone?

The reality is that for as non-religious as I am, the fact is the 7 deadly sins appear in social media and shockingly, these two were not victims.

Gluttony:  We overindulge in memes and discussions about things that really don’t matter at the end of the day but make us feel better and distract us from issues that affect our daily life.

Lust:  Instagram is proof of this in spades as there are literally thousands of women on there making a literal living off men’s lust.  Pinup models, cosplayers, fitness models, even ex porn stars like Mia Khalifa make bank and even have full on careers on a platform that bans nudity.  The first sign as I mentioned before was when Tila Tequila went from the most popular person on Myspace to alt-right darling over the course of a decade simply because enough men found her attractive.  Fact is, these two either were never on these platforms or neither of them either had their sexual tastes shaped by it or began to be drawn physically to a different type of man or woman that the other wasn’t.

Greed:  Instagram and Facebook are full of people who will literally say or do anything on camera for a check.  Fact is, with lust, it’s understandable why men would spend money on the woman of their carnal desires, but there are entire pages, groups, even ideologies built online that exist in some capacity to make money.

Sloth:  Do I really need to explain this one?

Wrath:  In the age of social media, it’s become a war zone where even the most benign political opinion is deemed deplorable and now the truly awful is accepted more than what the censors want as while it’s wrong, it’s also less restrictive than being pc.  In retaliation, many figureheads online have resorted to striking against anyone that says what they don’t like.  In one case I can remember when one pretentious podcaster labeled and blackballed another podcaster because he wanted to get clout and possibly throw off the scent that he’s a creep.  So it’s shocking to know that both of them went well into adulthood and either shared the same political beliefs or were able to disagree like adults.

Envy:  Again, tying back to lust, the reason so many men lack confidence in the age of social media is that we base our worth off of what other men have or don’t have.  So again, it’s shocking when you realize that this guy never got jealous if he knew she had regular contact with another guy or her to him.  No haters, no nothing…

Pride:  I won’t say that either of them are unattractive people.  What I will say is that if enough people find anyone attractive in this day and age, they can gain an ego.  Seriously, I know women from my hometown who just managed to keep their looks well into their late 20s yet did little with their lives.  To be fair, I could say the same of many, if not more, men from there as I can think of many attractive women from Lansing who at the very least became a nurse or some other career that pays very well.  But I know A LOT of men who women lust after on there who barely have a job, if at all, and/or are still trying to be a rapper at 27, have kids they don’t take care of and still live with their momma.  But again, this is what social media breeds.

I say all this to say that it’s a modern miracle that these two not only held a relationship for almost 2 decades while living on different ends of the country, but it survived what social media turned modern love into.  And by that I mean a sea of men being filtered out of the dating pool entirely based off not even just appearance but the things they enjoy knowing about, women who are expected to compete beauty wise with women who essentially bought their entire body, and people who believe everything they’re told and nothing they see.

Do I sound bitter?  Yes.  But not because someone found love and I haven’t had sex since July and this New Year’s resolution of no sex has actually been going on since Christmas.  I’m bitter because I and a lot of people are sad because for many of us, we can’t find love this genuine online anymore.  Dating sites provide an outlet to meet romantic partners, but the nature of humans is causing many of them to essentially reform and restrict contact between users as we simply can’t be trusted to talk to the opposite sex without being weird.  Fact is, I wish these two the best.  I hope they stay together forever, have children, build a life together and have the kind of love that many of us only dream of and that I wish I could find as I swipe through OKCupid and only get matches from women looking for weed.