The internet and social life

[Svartalf]

I'd love to meet Clinton someday.

I'd love even more to meet the real person behind that character who has kept us so entertained.

This too, I would like to buy him a beer one day!

I'd buy him a nice glass of Bordeaux any day!

You sir are a cheapskate... Nice bordeaux should never be bought by anything less than the bottle.

[FBM]

Shouldn't the subject line read 'The Internet or social life'?

lolwut? I hang out on the net because I can't afford a real social life.

That may be pretty much what I meant, but time and a couple of beers have passed since I posted it, so...

[Feck]

The forum ...it's not like it's real it's just that internet stuff where ever body is acting .So drama, aggressive posts etc can just shrugged off ......?

Or that in some way we know our drinking mates with in the RL pub so much better than I know lots of you ?


I think it would be difficult for me to try to be something other than Me on-line .But if I had built up an on-line character I don't think it would stop me from meeting people in the flesh on the few occasions that I can.

The fact that I know people on-line before I meet people in RL just makes it a bit easier to deal with the social phobia stuff.

[floppit]

The forum ...it's not like it's real it's just that internet stuff where ever body is acting .So drama, aggressive posts etc can just shrugged off ......?

Appreciating an online persona doesn't equate with accepting cruel posts or aggression to other posters, it's just about appreciation of a different side to a character - no less culpable, not by default less compassionate.

Maybe it's just me but IRL as much as on the net I have personas and they add up to make me me. At work when I see someone I'm there for them and that dictates every move, every word, even my thoughts. At home I am a mother, a wife - both of those carry different tones and ways of being but they remain me. With my friends there is a huge stretch of time as I have kept friends for decades, there my persona includes all I have been as much as anything I am now. When I meet new people I'm not sat 'acting' but as it would be humanly impossible to be all at once I inevitably begin to create a new mix. Online, everything is written, there's more time, less blurted, less filling of silence - what would be fake would be if I was to NOT change given that extra time. I think I'm very recognisable online because things like this paragraph IS what I'd say face to face as well.

I even act sometimes, I don't think doing so is deceptive. Sometimes I don't know the best way to deal with situations but if I've seen someone else do a good job I'll try what they did - just copying.

Surely the belief there is only one true persona per person is just not self-aware? Do people talk to their parents/children/colleagues/bosses the way they do here? Is one real and the other not?

EDIT!!! I just realised that came across just aimed at Feck and it wasn't meant to just Feck's questions struck me after reading all the responses - sorry for sound like a twit Feck!

[Tigger]

@Dev. I didn't mean to sound arrogant, and I don't think of it as arrogance. I really don't think you are in a position to be able to criticise us (as people, not merely for meeting one another) if you choose to interact here the way you do. Maybe you intend no criticism, but your saying that this is a game utterly belittles some of us here. I am not a plaything, and Geppetto up there needs to realise it's a community of people, and not just a collection of pixels put there for his amusement.

EDIT:
Anyway, I just read this again. http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 28#p479627
Come in here, SB!

[Hermit]

The only thing the internet has accomplished is the ability for an individual to say... anything. Anything, in any tone, for whatever reason, without fear of repurcussion.

I feel really sorry for you.


Forums are an integral part of my social life. No matter whether I communicate with people via the internet or "in real life", interactions are apt to engender the entire gamut of emotions in me. Love, exasperation, joy, despair, anything at all, it is all there, and it is caused by letters on the screen that real people with real opinions and emotions type out at their respective terminals.

In this context I prefer the term 'consequences' to 'repercussions', by the way. It's more neutral.

Edit:

Geppetto up there needs to realise it's a community of people, and not just a collection of pixels put there for his amusement.

Nice summary of what I was trying to convey.

[Faithfree]

I'd love to meet Clinton someday.

I'd love even more to meet the real person behind that character who has kept us so entertained.

This too, I would like to buy him a beer one day!

I'd buy him a nice glass of Bordeaux any day!

+!

[devogue]

@Dev. I didn't mean to sound arrogant, and I don't think of it as arrogance. I really don't think you are in a position to be able to criticise us if you choose to interact here the way you do. Maybe you intend no criticism, but your saying that this is a game utterly belittles some of us here. I am not a plaything, and Geppetto up there needs to realise it's a community of people, and not just a collection of pixels put there for his amusement.

Does saying "life is but a dream" belittle life?

Love is a game, life is a game, this forum is a game. But it's not just a game for my amusement, as if I am a cat toying with a mouse, or blowing the head off some whore in GTA - no, the game is infinitely complex and facinating, and it is for everyone to enjoy. Hopefully everyone gets as much out of their involvement here as I do.

Ultimately, however, those of us who decide not to meet with other members in real life (whether it be a conscious decision or imposed by circumstance) understand that if the plug comes out of the wall and Tigger, Paco, CJ, Pappa, Bella and Ayaan disappear forever from our lives the impact would be infinitely less than if our real life friends left our lives. This community means as much to me as it does to you, but for completely different reasons. I take different things from it, I have totally different expectations of it, and its place in my life overall just happens to be far less important, perhaps, than it is in yours.

Geppetto up there needs to realise it's a community of people, and not just a collection of pixels put there for his amusement.

Geppetto does realise it's a community of people, he interacts, he has fun, he PMs, he gossips, he gets involved in drama, he jokes, he laughs, he plays, he cares - but his community is entirely internet based and the internet is the primary meeting area and, arguably, raison d'etre for this community. That some people have decided to meet up and take their involvement in the community to a new level should not mean that he has to adjust to do that as well, or that he has to change his approach to the forum.

One last thing - you are wrong. If Gepetto's mate Heavypetto comes along and joins in the fun and is perfectly pleasant and nice to everyone but he feels that ultimately this is just a collection of pixels for his amusement while he works his way through a bottle of wine on a Friday night, then that's exactly what it is, to him at least.

[Tigger]

I was going to create a Geppetto sock puppet then, but I couldn't be arsed.

[Hermit]

If Gepetto's mate Heavypetto comes along and joins in the fun and is perfectly pleasant and nice to everyone but he feels that ultimately this is just a collection of pixels for his amusement while he works his way through a bottle of wine on a Friday night, then that's exactly what it is, to him at least.

If I want to interact with just a collection of pixels while working my way through a bottle of wine on a Friday night, I'll play Minesweeper, or whatever. Regarding people's attempts at communicating as just a collection of pixels doesn't even begin to make sense for anybody other than sociopaths.

[floppit]

If Gepetto's mate Heavypetto comes along and joins in the fun and is perfectly pleasant and nice to everyone but he feels that ultimately this is just a collection of pixels for his amusement while he works his way through a bottle of wine on a Friday night, then that's exactly what it is, to him at least.

If I want to interact with just a collection of pixels while working my way through a bottle of wine on a Friday night, I'll play Minesweeper, or whatever. Regarding people's attempts at communicating as just a collection of pixels doesn't even begin to make sense for anybody other than sociopaths.

I think that both statements can be true, although I'm always cautious with the word sociopath.

[devogue]

If Gepetto's mate Heavypetto comes along and joins in the fun and is perfectly pleasant and nice to everyone but he feels that ultimately this is just a collection of pixels for his amusement while he works his way through a bottle of wine on a Friday night, then that's exactly what it is, to him at least.

If I want to interact with just a collection of pixels while working my way through a bottle of wine on a Friday night, I'll play Minesweeper, or whatever. Regarding people's attempts at communicating as just a collection of pixels doesn't even begin to make sense for anybody other than sociopaths.

You and I play Minesweeper, someone else uses here.

As long as they don't hurt anyone and they add to the colour of the community, what does it matter?

[floppit]

As long as they don't hurt anyone and they add to the colour of the community, what does it matter?

Strikes me that would be hard going if a person really never appreciated the words as coming from another human being - hell it's hard enough not to hurt people despite knowing!

[Bella Fortuna]

It makes it sound as if you see this place (or any other like it) as a private vaudeville show, in which you sometimes like to take the spotlight when it strikes you to put on your costume and greasepaint.

[FBM]

Anyone who has ever been made happy, sad, angry, outraged, titillated, etc, by something they read in a forum is acknowledging the reality of the people with whom they're interacting and the degree of significance they allot to them.