The outernet is not safe for everyone. Many immunocompromised people would be risking their lives by going to in person meetings, especially since so few of you wear masks. Many queer people live in areas where even so much as giving a hint of your queerness can be dangerous. So, for many, reaching out to a person who may be leftist to build a connection is gambling with your life.
The internet allows you to build connections and find people with a much lower risk of retaliation. The information and connections provided through it has been essential for so many getting out of abusive situations. If nobody is there for these people to reach out to, many just die.
I have seen many people move across the country to be closer to the people they had safely built a community with. Internet communities can become physical ones if the need and bonds are there.
Tradition is not more important than using all the tools available to you, and that should be extremely clear for anarchists.
One important thing to remember as well, if you don’t think your action can be useful you won’t even try to make it useful. Keep that in mind when reading any comments on this.
Some of my closest friends are people I began interacting with online - some I’ve made trips to visit, others are so far away that we might never meet afk. I began chafing at the online/irl dichotomy more than thirty years ago when my uncle showed me Ohio State’s intranet and my parents lamented that I needed to be spending my time in “the real world”. Back then, I was floored that I could have real interactions with real people in real places I’d never been, and these days I am no less amazed by the ability to connect on a real level with people in digital spaces.
To this day, online and afk are the distinctions I use for my real life interactions - my words are just as able to bring comfort and solace or mockery and derision in either space, and I comport myself the same way in both because of thoughts like the ones in this post.