A #MIGHTYLOVE PROJECT

i'm really excited today to announce a project i've been working on. but first, this:

i've been on the internet, in one way or another, since i was in middle school. aol, dial up style.

when i was 13, my best friend made up fake aol screen names for us that we used to talk to this one boy in school that she had a crush on. his name was mike. he was blonde and really tall. she had this genius idea to tell him that we were models who'd worked as body doubles for kate winslet on titanic. geeeeenius use of the internet, right? in real life my best friend was too nervous to ever say two words to this boy, but on the internet she was fearless. and they were friends. sort of. she and mike spent hours on aim chat that year talking about all sorts of things, but they weren't actually friends. because the whole thing was a lie . . . but except they kind of were friends.

i think a lot about how i'm using the internet these days. i mean, for mindless entertainment, usually. but i want to use it for good. especially this dumb old blog. i think about quitting it all at least once a week. all the time, really, because blogging can be the stupidest. the negative parts of blogging can really get me down. i keep at it because whenever i start to think it's time to call time of death on this thing, someone will email me out of the blue to thank me for something i'd written that made some kind of difference in their lives, or someone will post something on their blog that feels so real and so good, like it was meant just for me in that moment. like we're all part of a giant internet hug. 

i came across the quote above on maggie mason's blog a few weeks ago, and it struck me in a way that was almost piercing. blogs, instagram, twitter, they're just the carrier pigeons. you and me, we are the message. and i thought it would be fun, and really great, and really rad if we could all take a minute to do something good on the internet. something unquestionably good.

i'm partnering up with the go mighty girls to do a bit of an internet charity fundraiser. for a week and a half, i want to positively flood the internet with love. just, i want the whole wide web to be swimming in it. just for a short while. do you think you could help me?  

here's how it works: between now and april 12th (that's next friday), we'll spam the internet with compliments to all the women in our lives we are grateful for. on instagram, on twitter, on our blogs, however we feel most comfortable. we've installed a hashtag tracker, and each hashtagged post or tweet or instagram will count toward our goal. the tag is #mightylove. we'd like to get 500 hashtagged compliments by next friday, and then go mighty will make a $500 donation to a battered women's shelter here in nyc.

you can post as many compliments over the week as you'd like, there's no limit! just use the hash tag #mightylove (all big font style like it's 2005 up in here.)

and tag me too so i can follow along: @natthefatrat, across all social media platforms.

here are some examples to get your gears greased . . . coincidentally they're also our first 3 compliments. 500 here we come!

please join me and tell all your friends! 

thank you in advance, this really means the world to me.