Where are the portals across Realm Gemini?

While I caught on to the gemini protocol community fairly early, I wasn't particularly adventurous. I looked at the main hops, and, honestly, that was quite enough to satisfy.

That being said, I never really integrated into the community. Even though I continue to haunt the same spots that my early discovery unearthed.

What really stuck with me, and still does, is the same sense of wonder and excitement I had when I first discovered the web. Almost like a world of text filled with epiphany under every stone.

And most of that came down to the fact that when I discovered the web, the primary mode of socialisation were portals. Portals of blogs, portals of digital art, portals of flash animation, portals of flash games, and later even portals of amateur videography. Everything was some kind of forum hinged on one or more media formats (but, largely, each community was focused around one).

This created a sense of a cohesive culture. First, within each community itself: with trends, popular contributors, the shared and learned logic of a specific reputation system, the shared pet peeves and precious components among frequent users and long-time members of a given platform. Which, second, radiated into the wider web, filling the pockets between with shared experiences, familiar patterns (of discovery, delight, and participation), and even overlaps between community members on one platform and another.

When I first discovered the gemini protocol, that's what it felt like. Like walking through a portal in an old cupboard and ending up in a memory, infused with a new magic. Or, maybe more accurately, an old magic still young.

Which brings me to my question: what is the gemini equivalent of those communities?

How do I find them? How do I keep up to date with new ones that emerge?

In the old web, the primary mode of discovery was inviting suggestions on one platform for another (so the nature of the platform acts as a natural filter and the responses reflexively filter for suggestions relevant to me). Then, near the end of its reign, services like stumbleupon would boost this further. I'd even had some luck discovering new websites through conversations on old web-based MMORPGs.

(And maybe its just me but the ads on blogs, webcomics, and even the media portals all seemed so much more relevant back then. Maybe the degradation of ads has somehow paralleled the degradation of search results as a significant discovery tool?)

Where do I go in gemini-space to recreate that feeling of discovery that drove me down so many wonderful rabbitholes that always led to a new community at the other end?

Is that even a a reasonable expectation to have of gemini-space? Or am I searching for a phantom through rose-tinted telescopes?

I feel a little guilty asking because I'm not exactly 'new' to gemini-space. I've just been a little too lost (and lazier than my younger days) to have become anything more than a guest.

So, I leave it to you, reader(s), to offer me a hand of kind guidance if you so wish to.

- - -

Sincerely,

a ghost asking about ghosts.