by @marathemara

One of the main premises of Homestuck is that its protagonists can only interact through the Internet. All the players of SBURB, especially, are isolated, alienated from guardians and peers and thousands of miles (and sometimes hundreds of years) away from each other. So they communicate through an instant messenger called Pesterchum. It’s a simple system with usernames, friend lists, and a few emoticons, reminiscent to readers of my age and older of AOL’s instant messenger.

But I’m not here to talk about the technical details of Pesterchum, or its transdimensional rivals Trollian and BettyBother. Instead, I’d like to discuss how players of the Game use their IM clients and what that says about them and the Internet.



First and foremost, the Internet as represented by Pesterchum is a tool for bringing people together. It allows groups of players to form, and to interact both before the Game starts and within the game while on separate planets. It allows these groups to coordinate and strategize through the use of multi-user memos. It even allows players from different sessions to meet and try to understand each other’s mutually alien perspectives–an understanding that fundamentally changes how people like Karkat and Calliope play the Game.

On the other hand, the Internet can also be used to isolate people from each other. When we first meet the beta trolls, they are all sitting in the same room, talking to each other only through Trollian so that no one has to look their crushes or rivals in the eye. They are all together, but each pursues their own agenda and avoids the others unless they absolutely need to speak, so none of them really understand each other. The Alpha Kids use Pesterchum in much the same way as the trolls: they hide behind their usernames and avoid talking about their feelings to the point of lying about them, and grow more and more estranged from each other and confused about the people they thought they’d connected so well with online.

Hussie has presented the Internet as both a good thing and a bad thing. But he also makes it clear that it should not be used as a crutch. The first reward granted to the Beta Kids when they reach God Tier is the Gift of Gab, which allows them to actually speak to the people around them–using dialoglogs instead of typed pesterlogs, using their real names instead of cryptic chumhandles. This indicates that the ability to speak in this way is a sign of maturity, in spite of Dave’s mocking Karkat in the Old Alpha for not understanding how it works.

But it just so happens that Dave and Karkat are great examples of how the shift from pesterlogs to dialoglogs reflects increased maturity. Remember Dave’s ironic facade, and Karkat’s endless defensive arguments with himself? Both keep them from really understanding themselves, and both were made possible by our friends at Pesterchum.

Both Karkat and Dave are much more honest with themselves and others when speaking to them face-to-face. Dave’s conversation with Dirk about his childhood is a dialoglog; likewise with Karkat’s confession to Kanaya’s that he does not feel heroic. Had these same conversations been held through instant messenger, Dave would have been aloof and Karkat defensive, both hiding behind their usernames and their emotional barriers until the uncomfortable subject went away. That they have the conversations in person, and that they no longer try to avoid those subjects, shows that they’ve both grown a lot.

So what’s the moral of this story? The Internet is a powerful tool, and a force for good. But like any tool, it’s not useful all the time and can even do harm. I like Pesterchum because it illustrates both sides of the argument so well and reminds us that, even if the Internet is good, some things still need to be said face-to-face.

