-Yet the Sea is Not Full-

I honestly went to bed the first night after I posted that voice meme thinking I'd be lucky if 2-3 friends participated because they felt bad for me. I had no idea it would take off as it did and it seems impossible to express how overjoyed I've been seeing how it expanded from a few brave friends to a huge community of amazing, amazing people. Some participants were entirely new to me, others are good friends from another continent, and still others are authors or artists whose work I've cherished for years. And every single person had something amazing to say.

Truly, the recordings are so special. I've just today caught up with them all and every person had something unique to share, some lovely thought or personal belief or hilarious commentary--not to mention a beautiful accent to wrap around their meme like a little bow. Every single one made me smile or laugh or delighted me in some way. There are 50 or more now...and every single one is different and cool and special. (I was pretty much squeaking and bouncing whenever someone new posted one! :D )

If you hadn't had a chance to listen, I urge you to do so. There are a lot now, so I've created an index to help you navigate them. I would encourage you to listen to your friends and those fav authors and artists you adore, of course. But I would also encourage you to listen to a handful from people you've never interacted with before and maybe a few from the end of the meme, because there are amazing submissions throughout. I have no doubt others will post additional recordings in the coming days. (If you haven't but are tempted, I urge you to do so!)

I did come away with a few takeaways, which I thought I'd share with you now that I've finally caught up on listening to all of the various recordings.

1. No two people pronounce Accio the same way. Hermione needs to give us some lessons, I think.


2. Approximately 95% of the people who participated dislike their recording and were incredibly nervous to post. (A regular podficcer or two seems to be the exception here.) Yet to me every one of the recordings was beautiful and amazing and I think you're very brave for taking the chance to do this. We're all human and we all babble and our voices shake at times and we aren't as articulate as we'd like--but it doesn't matter. If we were robots, these memes wouldn't be nearly as fantastic. Part of the magic is that we hear and experience each other's humanity.


3. The impromptu visits, chirps, and meows recorded from various cats, birds, friends, siblings, and one insistent microwave were kind of hilarious and made me laugh every time.


4. We have recordings from ALL OVER THE WORLD...all continents but Antarctica, if I'm not mistaken. Special kudos to all of the non-native English speakers who posted memes. I know it took a little something extra from you and I think you're amazing for doing it.


5. Special thanks to those who had to go out of their way to find microphones or internet connections or time and space to record and post. I know some of you were borrowing equipment, hiding in bathrooms, using your lunch break, or trying for days to upload. You are AMAZING. Thank you.


6. The HP-themed jokes were perfection. As were the non-English tongue twisters. You all have extremely talented tongues, in my opinion. ;)


7. As best as I can tell through LJ stats, approximately 170 different people visited the meme web page. Approximately 1/3 recorded memes of their own, which is a pretty fantastic participation rate. Well done! Many others left comments. Speaking of comments, I think we're almost at 800 of those. Phenomenal.


8. FINALLY...what I think is most special about this whole thing is how amazingly supportive everyone is in the comments. The number of people who listened to all or many of them and took the time to leave such thoughtful comments--I find it difficult to articulate how amazing it is. Perhaps it's because I had all the comments flowing through my email inbox over the last few days, and as such got a chance to skim or glance at so many of them, but so many people connected and learned new things about each other and fangirled over shared loves and interests and recs and everything else. People made new friends and found new stories and art to embrace. Others found people in their area to connect with or people who ship their ships or speak their native languages. The love everyone expressed for fandom and each other was completely beautiful and overwhelming.

Whew. It's been a crazy week and I didn't even get close to an appropriate amount of sleep, but I THANK YOU from the bottom of my fandom-loving heart for making it that way. Well done. It would be a very sad meme without you. ;) And seriously--listen to some more of these when you have a chance and leave a nice little comment if you can. And of course, feel free to post a recording if you'd still like to do so. <3

THANK YOU <3333
-ICM