Click the link in your email to set a password. Then close the page and go to abnormalways.com/login to log in.
Long Explanation of What is this?
I am so happy to introduce this special gift for you. I see it as a free service to the “community” providing solace and evolution.
When I first got back on social media a few years ago, I was excited to see what counter-cultures were lurking in the shadows, on the cutting edge. I love to see Those who both take the time to truly educate themselves, and also go through the effort of developing and listening to the intuition. To me these are both vital. I need both.
Those in the psychedelic community might remember reading “trip reports” on erowid. You could go read detailed reports of different experiences with substances, combinations of substances, including body weight, dosage, and timestamps. Don’t worry, my project is not drug related. The community that I love online is the open minded among the cutting edge wellness and esoteric community.
For example, reading people’s experiences with fasting, breathing practices, or trying new ritual whether that includes artifacts like herbs and crystals or not. Everyone has a different story to tell, everyone is valid, and we all grow when we can show our true selves.
The problem with what I wanted to create and the existing platforms are many. First of all, IG has many fantastic features, and we’re very used to it, but it inherently is “person” centric. Someone’s page is the hub of THEM. I wanted a hub of everyone together sharing experiences, without relying on someone in particular to facilitate it. Comments sections on posts do not provide the same flexibility as say, Reddit does. It’s more info centric. Also on IG the owner of the page can restrict comments, make private, and delete anything they don’t agree with. This creates the echo-chamber effect. Anyone can contribute, anything. We can have a better standard of moderation, if any at all if required.
Abnormal Ways is not supposed to be me-centric, though for the time being it’s a one-woman show and trying to act like some “brand” is a real turn-off. So yes this is me, Abby, but the forums belong to everyone.
Okay, you get what I’m going for. Now let me tell you what I made. I made a forum. It’s intended to be super fast to load, bare bones and mobile friendly, organized into categories of interest. If you were on the web 10-20 years ago, it will remind you of those forums. But you can upload photos, add links, embed youtube or your own videos, which already is way more flexible than IG.
You can create a topic and ask a question. You can do it anonymously. You can put an experience out into the void for others to remark on. You can browse others’ stories and knowledge (once some posts are built up). Now the super important part.
This website will be free for everyone forever. It costs less than $100/yr to keep up, and if we ever get to the volume of needing paid moderators (only for serious issues, not for any kind of censorship) then I will run some sidebar ads.
But seriously I want this to be a free resource for the community and that’s what I want out of it. Like I actively don’t want to individually benefit in any way because thats not the point.
I’m considering this the Beta phase and am open to suggestions. There is a suggestions category where you can put your thoughts/observations.
Basically the idea as that as posts accumulate and people talk to each other, sub categories will start to form, and other data structures. Maybe one day we can add a Wiki component highlighting the best of collective experiences.
-Selmbrinka