Growing Up Online, Finding My People Through Music

In this solo episode of From URL to IRL, host I open up about growing up feeling socially disconnected, later realizing in my 30s that I am autistic and have ADHD, and how music became my bridge to other people. I trace this thread from early message boards, MySpace, and Tumblr fandoms through to real friendships, relationships, and even my marriage, all sparked by shared musical interests. I share stories about lifelong friends made through fan communities (Terri Clark, Seether, Taylor Swift), family bonding over songs like Shania Twain's "Man I Feel Like a Woman," and more recent adventures at concerts and festivals like Coachella with friends met online. The episode explains the podcast's title: relationships that start online ("URL") and become genuine, lasting connections in real life ("IRL"), with music as the common thread throughout.

Episode Credits:

Produced, and edited by Full and Thriving Media

Find me on IG and Tiktok @fromurltoirlpodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, you're listening to From URL to IRL, the podcast of where online connections, music, and real life collide. I'm your host, Valerie, and music has always been a huge part of my life, from growing up, going to concerts to finding comfort and community through artists and songs that I love. Every week I'll sit down with artists, fans, creators, and music lovers from all walks of life to have real conversations about identity, creativity, and experiences that bring us together. Whether you're here for the music, the stories, or just to feel a little less alone, I'm happy you're here. Hello and welcome to another episode of From URL to IRL. I'm your host, Fowlery, and today we are gonna have another solo episode. Since we are still fairly early in the season, I really want to let you guys kind of get to know me a little bit more and also why I decided to do this podcast. I mean, we talked a little bit about it in my first solo episode, but I really want to just kind of give you guys an idea of who I am, what music really means to me, and why this podcast is in existence. So we're gonna be talking about how music has really helped me to connect with people. I was a weird kid. Like I know people say that all the time. They're always like, I was a weird kid. No, no, I was a weird kid. Like, I didn't like to talk to people, I didn't know how to talk to people. I did not make friends in school, and it wasn't for lack of trying. I didn't really try. That's the thing, though, is I didn't really try to make friends. Like I never sought out people, it was just not something I did. My mom always joked that I marched to the beat of my own drum because I was perfectly fine being alone, even though I was not an only child, I was until I was five. But before that, like I was too young to really know that I was an only child. I just didn't care to have friends. I got lucky that my mom became friends with somebody, and through osmosis and by proxy, I became friends with her daughter, and so we've been friends for pretty much our entire lives. But I did not try to make friends because I'm terrible at small talk. If I don't have a subject that I'm specifically wanting to talk about, good luck. My brain goes blank. I have nothing, I don't know how to compute sentences if I don't know specifically what I'm gonna talk about. I did find out when I was in my 30s that I am autistic as well as have ADHD, which explains so much. Like it was like a light bulb went off because social norms have just not been something that I have done well with. I've always had issues with like bosses not liking me for reasons I did not know. I'm a hard worker, I'm a good worker, I am consistent, but yet somehow bosses always just didn't like me, especially if they were women. If they were men, perfectly fine. Great, got along good. But especially women bosses just did not like me. And now that I know that I'm autistic, it makes so much sense because I can't do it. So mostly the biggest thing that music gave me was it wasn't just concerts and favorite artists, it gave me a way to connect with people. So, like I mentioned, you know, small talk was unnatural. So I would say as soon as the internet really became a thing, I found message boards. And those were amazing because they gave me a way to talk about things that I like to talk about. And then that kind of segued into conversations with people where we became friends. And I 100% believe that's why I've also been able to make these friends and keep them. Like my friend Donna that I met on the Terry Clark message board. We still talk today, now in our 30s, because we still have Terry Clark to talk about, even if it's just a check-in, or we'll send messages to each other, like she'll send me something and it's just something that reminded her of when we were kids. Or I'll check in because we both lived in Texas growing up, and I moved, I've moved away and come back and moved away and come back. And the last time that I came back, we just started talking because we were planned on hanging out, but we never really got to because busy. But it gave me something to talk about with other people in a way that I was comfortable without feeling like I was forced to, because that's another thing, is my whole life I felt like I was being forced to do things because nothing felt natural. I always just kind of felt off, and so having places that I could go where I could be myself was life-changing. And so also going to concerts, like I would make friends at concerts that I would go to because we were all there for the same person, so that meant that automatically subjects talk about. Even if I didn't know what the fuck else to talk about, I could be like, Oh, I'm so excited for this show. What song are you excited to hear? I love this new album that they have, I love this song, and that would just start conversations with people naturally. So I've never been the person who walks into a room and like starts talking to strangers, but put me in a concert line though, social butterfly. You would think that I'm the most outgoing person there ever was because I could talk for hours about subjects that I like. So yeah, that was incredibly helpful was finding message boards, and those were like the internet in general, really, just because there was chat rooms, there was MySpace, there was Tumblr, there was the message boards that I mentioned, those gave me multiple avenues to talk to people. And, you know, I've met my significant others, every single one. I've never met a person in person that I've dated. I've always met them either on like an app. I used okay Cupid back in the day. I've met a couple people on Tumblr when I used it. Mm-hmm. I met a couple, I made friends and people that I've talked to and dated on Tumblr. MySpace was a big thing. I talked a little bit about that in my first episode and how I found Taylor Swift on there. Technically it was Molly that found Taylor Swift because she had Tim McGraw on her profile. But I remember like going to Taylor's page and commenting and having little conversations with other fans that had found her on there. And now, you know, there's Facebook groups, there's Tumblr pages still. Oh my God, peak Tumblr 2014 when Taylor was on there. That was so freaking cool. Having whole conversations about Taylor Swift and Taylor also being on there and commenting on people's posts and re-blocking things. That was like peak Taylor Swift fan time. And I just remember like having so many cool conversations and meeting so many people. And a lot of them I still talk to because I'm still a fan of Taylor Swift. I'm still a fan of Cedar. I'm still a fan of Terry Clark. I still do things. I saw her back in 2024. And it's so funny. I mean, I found Terry when I was, you know, a little kid before I knew that I liked women. Yet somehow I was drawn to this country artist who draws people that like women. It was so cool being at a concert with my wife. And happy Pride Month, by the way. And being at a concert with my wife with other queer women and getting to talk about this artist that I've been a fan of since I was a kid. And we got to meet her. And Tracy, my wife, got to meet her. And it was just such a cool, like, that's such a cool thing to be able to do is to go to a concert and meet people with your wife, with an artist that also helped other people. I love music. And I love talking about music. And that's just why I made this podcast. So the internet really changed everything in terms of how I could make friends. And that has been an incredibly big part of my development and my life. I remember on the Steeler Message Board, I met this guy. His name was Sergio. And he lived in California, and I still lived in Texas at the time. And we used to talk all the time. He became like one of my best friends. Like we talked about meeting one day. I was 17 at the time, and I think he was, I don't know, maybe I was 16 when we met. I was still pretty young. He was a year or two older than me. So he was like 18 or 19. But I remember we had MySpaces at the time. And so we would comment on each other's MySpaces and we would talk about Cether all the time and Evanescence all the time. And then like those worlds combined because Amy Lee from Evanescence and Sean Morgan from Cether started dating. And that was like the most amazing thing ever, because now we had both of these things that we could talk about all the time. And we also talked about other things and our lives. And we talked about meeting one day and hanging out. We never did, though. Sergio, if you happen to hear this, I still want to meet you. I'm moving to California. I will be close by. But yeah. And then also when I became a fan of Caether, I met other people. Like I had this friend, they were adults and they were a couple. And we went to BuzzFest in Houston together. And that ended up being kind of how I met my boyfriend Michael. They had actually been talking about this kid that they were friends with, and there had been a hurricane recently, and they were talking about how they hadn't heard from him since the hurricane. And lo and behold, who was at this show? The kid that they were talking about, Michael. And that was crazy. I remember standing there talking to him and him not saying a word. And I just remember being like, okay, what the fuck am I? So he was cheese. Like, am I that ugly? You can't talk to me? Like, what's going on? And a couple weeks later, maybe it was a week later, I don't know, maybe it's a couple days, I don't remember. I got a message from him on the message board, on the Cether message board, that he had thought that I was pretty and he wasn't able to talk to me because of that, because he was shy. So music has also really just been like something that has connected me with everybody, even my family. Like growing up, my brother and I, I was a really big fan of the Spice Girls when I was younger. And he was little when I started liking them. But I remember when the Spice World movie came out, I went to go see it with my friend and her little sister. And then when it fully like launched and it was on video, I of course had it, and I would watch it all the time. So much so that my brother, who was always around, obviously, would also start to like it. And we would sing Spice Girl songs together. My mom called him a Spice Boy. Also, like when I was in elementary school, I went to a private school, and so my dad would drop me off, and him and I didn't really have that great of a relationship when I was a kid. I don't know, we just never really connected. He's not my biological father, but he is my little brother's dad. He ended up adopting me when I was 13, but we never really had much of a relationship, but we did talk about music. And so in the morning, on my way to school, he would drop me off and my brother at school, and we would listen to Shania Twain. Like it's really funny to think of my dad and my brother and me all sitting there screaming, Man, I feel like a woman, where I'm the only woman in the car. Well, girl at the time. But we also loved a single Toby Keith, How Do You Like Me Now was a big one that we would listen to. And he also has this song that it's so funny. Everybody that knows me has pretty much been around him, obviously, because he's my dad. And so at some point in my life, and then in their life, they have heard him talk about or listen to his favorite song, which is trailers for Sailor Rent. I think it's by Randy Travis. I actually don't know. I've never looked into it, I've just only heard it a thousand times growing up. But Molly and I were actually talking the other day, and she was saying that her mom heard it while they were out, and it immediately reminded them of my dad because they've just heard him play this song so many times in the 30 plus years that we've known each other that that song automatically is just associated with my dad. And it doesn't matter if it's my family, it's clearly it has transcended our family and gone into our family friends because that song has just been so prevalent in our lives. We went camping a lot when we were kids, and our families would go together. In fact, we were so close that we would go on vacations. Our families almost moved to Tennessee together, which, by the way, is like the biggest like miss of my life. I think about that and talk about it all the time. How we were supposed to move to Tennessee. My family was gonna move to Nashville, and I believe Molly's family was gonna move to Knoxville. But like we had sold our house. My mom made us give away our dog because she didn't want to be trying to find a rental house with a hundred-pound lab. We were doing it, and then suddenly something happened and they changed their mind. I think my dad decided that he didn't want to move, which is understandable. He was born and raised in Texas, but I think about that a lot, how we were supposed to move to Tennessee. And I'm around some of my favorite artists' age who also moved to Tennessee, and so I think about all the time how we could have been friends, which I know is wild and not obviously that really that big of a possibility, but I still think about it and how you know I could have been friends with Taylor Swift because we could have ended up going to the same school because my family was moving to that area. But yeah, so like even with like my brother, we also another thing that we did is we would go to concerts together. Once he was old enough to kind of form his own likes, he was really into like emo music and he was in a band and he played the bass. And so we would go to concerts, like we went to warp tour together, we went to some other smaller shows, and music has always been something that has bonded us with me living far away. Whenever I go visit, that's always something that we end up doing is sitting there listening to music. We'll sit in his garage of his house, and he has a TV that he'll play like YouTube videos on, and we'll sit there for hours and just play songs, either that we listened to growing up, songs that are nostalgic, songs that we love now, and we'll just sit there and play YouTube videos, and he'll show me his new favorite artists, or we'll sit there and reminisce over an asking Alexandria song that we loved back in 2010. So that has just always been something, too, that my family and friends have shared. Molly and I, especially. She's actually gonna be my next guest. I'm recording an episode with her tomorrow. Today is Wednesday, the 17th of June, and tomorrow, the 18th of June. Molly and I are gonna be recording. So I don't want to get too much into it because there's gonna be a lot that we're gonna talk about. But Molly and I especially like also shared a lot of music. When MySpace became a thing, she would put music on her thing, and she has a knack for finding new artists before they become big. She's just always been really good at it, and that kind of rubbed off on me a little bit, but still mostly it's her. So she and I have always shared music. We've gone to I don't even know how many concerts together. The Houston rodeo is humongous, and our families would always go, and so we would have so much fun. We would go to the carnival and we would do some shopping, and then we'd watch the rodeo, and then we'd watch the performers. Like I think we've seen Jodie Messina, Rascal Flats, Tim McGraw, Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney, Terry Clark, not all at the rodeo, but those are some of the artists that we've seen. Taylor Swift. We saw Taylor Swift together in 2007. Actually, the anniversary of that, the 19-year anniversary of that, just passed on the 15th. I have this app on my phone called Concert Archives, and you put a log of all the concerts you've ever been to, and then every year on the anniversary, it comes up and tells you, like, you went to this show in June of 2007. And so that was cool. But yeah, Molly and I went to a lot of shows together, and music has always been something that we shared. I have an iPhone and she has an Android, so we can't send each other music via the same music sharing platform. But occasionally I'll get a video that she'll send me from YouTube, and she'll be like, hey, I love the song, you should listen to it, or I'll do the same thing. I'll be like, Oh my god, I found this artist, you'll love them. And that's just something that we've always done. When I started to drive, I hate driving, I've always hate driving. And I am older than Molly, so I got my license first. And I remember even before she had her license, we'd be driving down the road, and I would have her drive, actually. She had her permit, so she didn't get her license that much longer after me. But I would have her driving and we'd be listening to Taylor Swift, or we would listen to something else that she liked, or that she had found, or that I had found, or that I liked. And so music has just it's it really is just like my way of life. It's my way of bonding with the people that I love. It's funny because I didn't realize how prevalent music was in my life until probably, I don't know, maybe a year or so ago. I started going to concerts about two years ago, actually. I really started going to concerts again after COVID. Obviously, you know, that really threw a wrench in things. And I worked with seniors, so I was really worried for a long time about going to things like that because of me going to work and having to protect my residents because I didn't want to worry about them getting COVID from me because I was irresponsible and went to a concert. And because, you know, even with wearing a mask, there's still things that can happen. And so I didn't really start going to concerts again until probably I think 2022. I went to a few, but 2023 is really when I went back into concert mode, and I realized just how much it is woven into my life that I love music. And I saw Billy Eilish, I saw Taylor Swift, I saw my favorite queer artist Fletcher, I saw my man Dallas Green with City in Color. I saw Terry Clark, I saw Hayley Williams, and it's just there's been so many good shows that I've gone to, and I'm pretty sure there's more. Oh, I went to Coachella for the first time. That could be a whole story in and of itself. I went to Coachella this year for the first time, and yeah, I feel like I'm living my best life. I've even traveled. Like my friend Sarah and I went to see Taylor in Vancouver. So we actually met on a Taylor Swift message board. And within 24 hours of meeting, we hadn't even met in person yet. We were still just texting. We had booked flights to Vancouver to go see Taylor. And within, I don't know, a few weeks, we'd paid for our hotel. And by the time the concert came, we'd only been friends for five months and we traveled to a whole different country together. Now, since we have gone to Europe together, we went to Coachella together. By the time this comes out, she will have announced it so I can say something. She's pregnant now. And we so we got to do Coachella together with her little baby growing in there, and that was so much fun, especially because she's way more high energy than I am. And so normally when we travel together, I'm like, I dude, I gotta sit down. And she's like, I'm off. I'm gonna go walk another 12,000 steps. And I'm like, have fun with that. But this time, like we took little siestas in the grass while we were waiting for artists to come on, and we went inside and watched the Yuma stage and enjoyed the AC for a little bit, and it was so much fun, and it's crazy to think that I met her on Taylor Swift message, I don't know, fan group on Facebook. Like, I don't even really use Facebook like that, but every significant relationship I've had has been formed by usually some kind of music relation, but also online, and it's so funny because I decided to call this podcast from URL to IRL because originally I was gonna be doing the podcast with Sarah. That didn't work out, which I'm totally fine with. I'm fine with having complete control of this, but I called it from URL to IRL because we met online and then it became a real life friendship. But then I realized after calling it that, how many of my friendships have formed online and become real life because of how I use music to connect. And it's not even just music online. I would say in general, like my friend, I have another friend, Sarah. I met her on Reddit randomly. We were in a makeup sub and she made a post and we just hit it off. We also just happened to live 30 minutes from each other, even though we met on Reddit, and it was not a regional sub that we met on. It just happened to be that we lived so close together and we found each other on Reddit. My wife, I met on an app, plenty of fish. I think the only friend that I can think of other than Molly that I didn't meet online is my friend Julie that I've been friends with since high school. Oh, and my friend Faith. But funny enough, Faith and I connected because of our love of music. But Julie and I, we met because we were sitting there talking shit together in our homeroom class in high school. But other than that, the bulk of my friends I have met online. So from URL to IRL ended up just being perfect, and then interweaving my love of music also just seemed to work so well. And the biggest thing that I've learned from being a fan of things is that things we love become even more meaningful when we get to share them with people. And I have just really lived my life through music, and that is my favorite way of connecting with people is going to concerts and bringing people I love and meeting people at concerts. Like, like I said, I went to see Hayley Williams, and I still think about those shows. It was almost two months ago now, but I met some really freaking cool people at those shows while I was waiting in line because I decided to camp for both nights. Sue me, whatever. I don't care. Thankfully, I had a friend that camped the first night, and then I flew in that day. But the next night, because there were two shows that I went to, the next night I camped for. That was my first time. We ended up instacarting a tent at like midnight so that we could sleep in the tent and have somewhere safe to go. But like there was these girls and there was other queer women couples, and we all just sat and talked all throughout the night and kind of like kept each other company. And one of the women had a hotel room that was really close, so like we could use the bathroom and we could go over there when we needed to pee, and that was so amazing. And that was my first time sleeping on the ground, pretty much, which was an interesting experience. I had a sleeping bag, thank God I was able to shove in my carry-on bag that I brought with me and a comfy chair that my friend's friend brought, but yeah, that was interesting. But having all those people around was so much fun, and then like throughout the day, I went and I showered and I went back to my hostel and took a nap, and even the people I met at the hostel were so freaking cool. And we talked about the concert, but yeah, so it's been a super big part of my life. I think I've probably said that like 10 times throughout this podcast. I'm sorry. I'm not good at this yet, but we'll see how it goes. I'm gonna keep doing a few solo episodes every so often just to kind of mix things up until you guys can get to know me a little bit more because mostly when I'm talking to people and I'm doing my conversational style with guests, I don't want to talk about myself that much. So I'm gonna try to keep the talking about myself in bulk to the solo episodes. So just kind of let me know what you think. Thanks for being here. I really appreciate it. Maybe I'll see you in the crowd someday. Bye. Thank you for listening to this episode of From URL to IRL. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to follow along for more stories about music, connection, and the people who bring us together. You can find me on social media at from URL to IRL podcast. Maybe I'll see you in the crowd someday.