Christopher Hermelin: Where is He Now?

One photo changed Christopher's life forever - but not necessarily in a bad way. Get an update on him now.

1. Are you currently active on Social Media? If yes, how has your online activity changed since the incident that changed your life?
Yes, I'm currently active on Social Media. I know more people pay attention to my work because of what happened.

2. What type of support did you seek in the aftermath of what happened to you?
Right afterwards I exercised my phone and folks close to me who like talking on the phone. I stayed on the phone for hours, talking about what happened and also about anything but what was happening. It was good to hear the voices of people who knew me and genuinely liked me.

3. If you had the chance to re-do the tweet/post that changed your life, what, if anything, would you do differently?
I didn't get a choice - the picture and the meme were posted without my involvement. So the only thing I might do differently was respond faster. I wrote an essay about the whole incident maybe a year after the original meme came out, and I should have done so sooner, since it so effectively changed the narrative of what was happening.

4. What, if any, ramifications from your incident are you still experiencing today?
After losing interest in typing, and getting scared of the whole prospect, I soldiered forward and continued, and I'm glad I did. So the Internet didn't really ruin my life, it changed it. Thanks to my Internet infamy, people order custom stories from all over the world from my website (rovingtypist.com). A man named Mark Cersosimo made a beautiful documentary about my project, Roving Typist. Organizations and couples hire me to type stories at events and weddings. I get invited to talk about creativity and the Internet at wonderful, exciting places. It's almost all positive.

5. Have you had any other life-changing incidents on the Internet since the one we profiled?
I think my life is positively affected by the Internet in some way all the time.

6. What advice would you give to other people on managing Social Media?
Seek context, provide context. Give as many of the facts as possible, and never assume you know the full story. Anything can be removed from context.

7. What do you feel are positive aspects of the Internet (if any)?
Our ability to communicate real information at lightning speeds is the great innovation of the modern age. It facilitates connections both large and small that change the way we live. The Internet is an equalizer, providing access to vaults of information that only humanity's elite had access to in the past, and I believe it should be a human right.