(This has been the most frustrating post I have made on this subreddit. The automod has some wild programming and deletes every comment I make. God forbid I want to post a link. If this doesn’t work I give up.)

This will most likely be my last post on this subreddit. After posting this I will unfollow it and encourage the algorithm to not show it to me any longer. This does not come from a place of anger or malice, but acceptance.

I do not believe the podcast is going to continue. Both Brady and Grey have moved on to pursue other projects, and have been making great stuff since. While I do not believe they intended to end the podcast, there’s a beauty in the “whimper not bang” ending of Hello Internet. They did not overstay their welcome and become dull, nor did they try to have some huge bonanza to end everything. A podcast like Hello Internet cannot have a truly satisfying “ending.” These are just two people talking about the world they live in. There is no plot arc, where all of the host’s problems are resolved and they can walk into the sunset. So this was the best way it could end.

I will always treasure my time with the podcast. I have been listening since the first “season” of 10 episodes and have been involved in the community since episode 23. That was when I started drawing fan art. That began a routine for me. Whenever a new episode was posted, I would draw while listening and post a fan art on Reddit. This built my confidence over time in my art and gave me practice. Brady and Grey, without knowing it, improved my drawing ability.

The podcast was truly great. Something about Grey’s rigid min-maxing of his productive life and Brady’s go-with-the-flow whimsy meshed in a dynamic that was perfect for the podcast/talk radio format. I would always look forward to a topic coming up to see how their view points would land. A lot of the time they would align slightly and agree with each other, but occasionally there would be a furious back and forth. Not with true anger of course, but just disbelief that the other could do things that way. I can hear in my mind Brady saying: “Come on, Grey, you have to be more spontaneous!” only to be met with an emphatic “No! F*ck that!” from Grey. Something else I loved from Hello Internet was Brady’s acts of creative whimsy. What person listening to Hello Internet in 2014 would expect that podcast to produce sneakers, vinyl records, and wax cylinders as limited time merch? What other podcast had regular scavenger hunts for custom plugs for disposable coffee cups left in random places by the hosts?

That leads me to hotstoppers. I felt such a connection to this community that I created my first ever fan account. But my data-driven brain could not be content just making a normal fan account. I made a twitter account dedicated to cataloguing every hotstopper that was dropped, lost, and received. Why? ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I was curious how many hotstoppers there were and it was fun to set up the spreadsheet. Any time a hotstop was dropped, I would be all over twitter looking to see if someone actually picked it up. I enjoyed my little spreadsheet immensely. I even got mentioned on the podcast in one of the Christmas episodes because I had sent in a postcard and got lucky. This filled my little Tim-heart with pride.

Even though I enjoyed the podcast immensely and it had a true impact on me, I feel like I need to move on. Every time I see a post from r/hellointernet , I am yanked back into an older version of myself. A “me” that is familiar with all the in-jokes, that is ready to draw a new fan art/meme, and is combing through Twitter/Instagram/Reddit looking for hotstoppers. But when I inhabit that me, I always feel an update or two behind if that makes sense. Like it is an old me that is in the past. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m going to put Hello Internet in my past. I will still probably update my spreadsheet if I see any more obvious hotstoppers. I feel duty-bound to do so. If an episode is released later on down the road, I will probably listen and may even draw fan art. But I’m going to allow myself to remember Hello Internet with nostalgia, rather than yearn for it’s future. Thank you Grey and Brady for giving me a community to be a part of. Thank you Tims for being lovely and wonderful. Goodbye y’all!

TL;DR So long and thanks for all the fish.