Six Months of Connecting Imgurians

Today marks six months since we launched Social Savanna.

So many of you said it was something you wanted, so you could connect with other Imgurians, meet, make new friends, and even date.

It’s been a fantastic six months and we’re amazed at how positive most of the community has been.

We wanted to share some testimonials from Imgurians and let everyone know how far we’ve come in just half a year.

You’re all fantastic! It makes us love the Imgur community more and more every day.

I (@TheBritishAreComing) have personally made a load of new friends online and offline, and met an absolute load of you IRL. Truly, I have loved every minute of it.

@IAmYourElenath

“I don’t have any huge special story, no relationships, no being helped through hard times, nothing like that. But what I have found through Social Savanna, is friends. People who’ve stayed up talking with me when I’m doing an all-nighter trying to finish an essay; people who make me laugh no matter what; people who I know are there for me; people who support me and don’t hesitate to laugh at me if I’m being stupid.

“I’m not good at people irl, I get nervous and I don’t have many friends, but on SoSa I feel welcome, and I love it there. In the words of The Rembrandts: “I’ll be there for you (when the rain starts to fall), I’ll be there for you (like you’re there for me too).”

@DianeKC and @iupvotepicturesofmonkeys

“So through the Social Savanna Tiny Chat function, I met my boyfriend, Tom. We’ve been together for 3 months now though we’ve been friends since March.”

@HarmlessDickbutt

“I’ve met and made a core group of great friends in the General Chat section of Social Savanna. Many of these people I talk to nearly every day and know very well, and some I keep in contact with off site. I haven’t had the chance to meet anyone in person, but we video chat which is the next best thing. The friends I have made are deep and will hopefully last. I learn from these people and everyone in chat every day. There is also a good amount of creative sharing in chat and in video chat. I’ve been read stories and poetry, I’ve witnessed original musical performances, and taken part in discussions ranging from nuclear physics and anime sword making. The amount of diversity and personalities on the site always make for interesting, thought provoking, and sexy conversation.

Sorry if this is TL;DR, I have way too much love for the people on this site.”

@RedTampon and @iputtheassinsass

“It started when I ventured into the Europe chatroom on SocialSavanna, the other chatrooms in which I used to go frequently weren’t active, but when you’re bored you sometimes have no choice. It was there where I met Nicky. Having talking to the people in the chatroom, I blurted out: “IF ANYONE WANTS POOPINGSELFIES, ADD ME ON SNAPCHAT”. She was the first to respond. Who could’ve thought that poopingselfies would be a great  method of flirting. After the first poopingselfies AKA “crappin ‘n snappin”, we started to talk, a lot. Every day feeling more affection towards her.

“If I’m correct, it was the 3rd of July, a boring, shitty Thursday evening for me. Even though I didn’t know her for long, I missed her, I wanted to be with her. That’s when she had the great idea of going to Amsterdam together, that Saturday. It was an amazing weekend. Better than I ever could have imagined. That’s also when we knew for sure that we had to give this a chance. She living in Belgium and me in a tiny town up north in The Netherlands, it wouldn’t be easy but we had to try it.

“About two weeks after the weekend in Amsterdam, I went to Belgium for four days. Those four days were amazing, some of the best days of my life. Now I’m waiting for the next days to go by quickly, as she’s going to my place the 4th August.

“Even though I didn’t join SocialSavanna with the intentions of meeting someone like her, someone I can call my girlfriend, I am very happy I did.”

@Thedevilstolemydiary and @Elstretchington AKA Strevil

“We started talking in early may in video chat, we met up a month later, then only a month after that we were together. Stretch traveled the 500km (300 miles) south for the first meet up, and since that moment we both have traveled back and forth becoming inseparable. A month into the relationship we are still going strong, even though its early days, we don’t have any plans of leaving each other.”

@Funvee and @InVerum

“Without Social Savanna, I (funvee) never would have met Paul (InVerum). I had popped into General Chat to invite people to come watch QI and Paul was the first person to accept. It’s sort of escalated since then – we talk all day, every day. Seriously, I think we’re up to… 90,000 messages since April. We’ve met in person and that was… amazing. Just plain perfect, really. We spent a weekend together and I can’t wait to see him again. He’s perfect and goofy and nerdy and I don’t know where I would be if he hadn’t wanted to watch QI with me that one day. So thanks, SS. You made this happen.”

@TheLastCabbagebender and @Thepenguinthatstoleyourtoothebrush

“I was just hanging out in general chat when it happened. Thepenguinthatstoleyourtoothbrush mentioned that her boyfriend had just broken up with her by text. Regardless of that fact that she had just openly declared herself as single, being dumped by text is really shitty so I struck up a conversation with her. During that, we talked about a bunch of things that we both liked, and I helped her identify one of her favourite dog breeds – she knew what it looked like, but had no name. Before the end of the three hour conversation we were already Facebook friends.

“Over the next couple of weeks, we talked more and more. She was having a tough time separating from her ex, because he was being rather selfish with returning her possessions, among other things. No matter what, I was there to cheer her up and give her advice on dealing with it. It had been a long relationship, but not the most healthy. During this time, we decided we wanted to meet up, especially since we lived only an hour apart. We also found we enjoyed making sweet baked goods and decided to make something for each other.

“During the first meeting, we wandered her home town, walked along the river, visited a museum inside a castle and looked out over the town together from the top of it. We also exchanged the food we’d made – she had made chocolate brownies and I made cookies. At the end of the day, we parted with a very long cuddle and the promise that we would meet up again soon. Between those two meetings, we’d more or less decided to start dating.

“Two and half months down the line of friendship, and one month of dating, and I’m happier now than I have been in years, and so is she. We’re both really glad to have met through Social Savanna and I look forward to our future together, and the future of the site. I’m even planning on going to the York meetup in June, and maybe taking her along for the ride!”

MRW doing this post

When we started off, we only had a chatroom, messaging and profile.

Since then we have added:

*     Multiple rooms

*     Imgur + YouTube embedding

*     Imgur mentions and sharing

*     Q&A area and voting

*     Imgur profile integration

*     Kitty Cam

*     Facebook style messaging

*     Searching by distance

*     Notifications

*     Democracy mode

*     Mobile website (still beta)

*     Mobile app

… And so much more!

We’re still heavily developing the site and even have our first Social Savanna (Imgur orientated) going live this week!

It’s been a wild ride and I really hope more of you will join us on Social Savanna! It is free to join and usually you need to be on Imgur for a month to get full access.

However, to celebrate six months, we will open the doors to everyone, no points, no time limit, for six days.

(Don’t worry, as long as you’ve not been upsetting people, you’ll keep full access after the six days.)

Much love and feels.

Social Savanna