Recently, a friend of mine died.
Was he a close friend? No. Was he a good friend? Yes. What’s the difference? Well, I guess that’s what I’m trying to suss out here.
I know Draculaic was my friend. I had never met Drac and I didn’t even know his real name (I asked someone recently). But I interacted him with more than most of my friends and family, simply by virtue of us always being online. Specifically on Twitter (I’ll never call it X). I think he’d be ok with me writing about this for that reason: he also worked shit out by posting about it. That’s honestly my goal: to understand this through the process of posting.
It’s a strange tic to possess; the need to process trauma via art. None of us asked for this combo burden/gift, but it’s as natural to me as breathing. My feelings push me to write. I’ve learned to be grateful for it.
Drac was the same way, I think. I honestly didn’t know him well enough to say. But he wrote for publication and posted for validation, just like me. And we teased each other with our words on Twitter, my favorite form of banter.
That was the extent of our relationship: Twitter banter. But it’s banter that I still miss. I think about Drac whenever I interact with fellow Calgorithm shitposters; I miss his voice in the scrum of nonsense, puns and my calls to have Twist suspended from Twitter permanently. One day, Twist will pay for his crimes (wearing red Cal gear).
In our digital world, online friends have regularly been considered real friends, even close friends. I have met many people IRL that were first only a screen name and an avatar on a digital platform. The online avatars are just an extension of ourselves; often a very accurate extension. Sometimes that avatar is an even truer version of ourselves – or the person we want to be in public.
Drac was a person that seemed true to his posts – I think most of the Calgorithm patriots have that in common. There isn’t much difference between what you see online and what you encounter in person. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet several members of the Calgorithm at Cal football tailgates and that’s been my experience. I assumed I’d meet Drac at a tailgate soon enough. I really wanted to ask him about Shakespeare (he was a published expert).
Drac wasn’t just my friend, he was a person I would have wanted to be friends with, regardless. The world is a little darker without him in it.
So why isn’t he a close friend? I guess the lack of true closeness. We never sent each other a DM or had a private chat; just a lot of back and forth in the public square. I don’t know what his face looked like or how he took his coffee – did he even drink coffee?
And yet, there is a Drac-sized hole in my life now. I still think about him and I wish he could chime in on the latest season of Cal football nonsense. How soon in the season would he have been calling for Wilcox to be fired? Would he have eventually left Twitter for more liberal pastures (Blue Sky)?
In fact, when his posts stopped, that was my assumption: he finally had enough of the Nazis on Twitter and was now bantering with fellow Blue Sky refugees. But one day, I saw a different Calgorithm friend talk about a funeral in a reply to an unrelated tweet, and after a little Twitter-sleuthing I realized the funeral had been for Drac. I felt bad for missing the funeral, but who would have invited me? Like I said, we weren’t really close.
I definitely would have gone and I hope Drac knows that. I think he would have been glad for me to be there. But ultimately, I don’t really know. It feels so indicative of our digital lives these days: someone I talked to every day, but wasn’t close enough to know when he was gone. The only hint was a lack of posts.
And yet, I saw his stream of consciousness thoughts on Twitter daily – as he saw mine. We had more conversations (online) that I’ve had with some of my closest friends in years. In 2025, does that make us close? Maybe. But would you miss a close friends’ funeral?
Like so many things in our digital world, I won’t get any answers – there is no going back to a pre-digital world where IRL connections matter most of all. Our lives are filled with these quirky little online interactions, especially for those of us who can’t stop posting (or Tweeting). Whether or not they’re good for us, they’re not going anywhere. So in that respect, it makes no difference what the answer is. It simply is.
Was Drac a close friend? As close as most internet friends get. It’s a strange new category that truly began existing only recently: internet friend. Mutual (or moot). oomf or One Of My Friends. But when people type “oomf” these days, nobody assumes the f in oomf is an IRL friend; in fact, they probably expect the opposite. Does it make a difference? I suppose. But it’s hard to say what that difference is, aside from actual physical proximity to each other.
This is just how things are now. So I guess the only response is to be grateful for this weird life we have, regardless of what it means these days.
Rest in peace, Drac.