Change the way you connect - I have some friends I made over the last two years over... IRC. There's something personal about on-line pure text based communication (with bots/bouncers not being allowed). Like really being in a room with everyone else.

For a more modern alternative, discord in a relatively small server should work well. Especially if you connect over a shared interest.

> no string of reactions next to every statement you utter.

I always assumed reactions were meant to be analogous to people making facial expressions as you spoke.

Yes, but IRL those expressions are not persisted to Redis

Thanks, that's an important point. Potentially never being able to move on from what you said or how it was perceived is a big difference.

The Orville had an episode about that.