In the archives of the social web (c. 2004-2012), the most human stories are not found in the platform's official verbs—share, post, like—but in the gerunds the community created to describe its own rituals.
Friending. Poking. Tagging. These are not just actions; they are the ghosts of a billion tiny, tentative reach-outs across the digital void. They are the messy, human evidence of a generation learning to connect through a screen.
This artifact, friending.im, is an interactive monument to that process. It visualizes our digital lives as solitary nodes, drifting in the dark until we perform the ritual. By clicking and dragging from one point of light to another, you are not just connecting two dots—you are re-enacting the simple, profound act of friending, and for a moment, making the constellation a little brighter.
(click anywhere to close)