How do you view your fellow posters on the SDMB?

In My Humble Opinion
81

Ok, jsgoddess, I was only half joking. I really do know you from these boards, and thought we were cool. But I don’t know you in real life, so of course, I’m not hurt in real life that you don’t consider me a friend.

If I go to my husband and say, “My friend from work told me today that she doesn’t like me. I thought we were cool. I’m a little hurt.” he will say to me stuff like, “Well, honey, try talking to her, blah blah blah” or whatever.

If I say to him, “This poster on line told me she doesn’t want to be my friend” he will say, “Nzinga, get the fuck outta here with that.” For real. He would dismiss that. Because he knows internet friends aren’t real friends.

Let’s take what you said about the hugs. Even in cases where my heart is pure, let’s say I’m posting in a memorial thread (which I don’t do) if I extend internet hugs from the bottom of my heart, it is NOTHING to the embrace from a friend off line. Because I know the offline hugs are real hugs.

MsWhatsit, I think at first, I was going more in the direction you are saying now. MOL had it right when she posted what I meant. But since then, I have doubled down. Because the more I think about it the more it really does seem more and more obvious that many, many people are definitely doing the fantasy thing. Just because we aren’t doesn’t mean they aren’t.

So, I think maybe I’m just too cynical.

82

I view them as people who tend to be more informed than average on a wide range of subjects, which is why I come here to ask questions or have discussions. I have my ideas shot down here sometimes which is good because I probably never would have figured out why I was wrong using only my own reasoning.

I don’t really feel community or support here, this is more like an informal gathering place of people who have vaguely similar personalities and interests. But I know everyone here is real. If anything people online tend to be more real because the barriers that prevent honesty are broken down.

83

I don’t think anybody is claiming the internet isn’t way different from interacting with people in person, or that real life relationships aren’t way closer and way more, I don’t know, profound. I don’t even have anything like an online friendship anywhere, I don’t think, so anyway that isn’t what I’m saying. I just think there are different distinctions being drawn about whether that means the shit on the internet isn’t real people talking. All of the stuff you say about being different on the internet vs. with your real life friends could just as easily be applied to me when I’m at work. I’d not only get thrown out if I talked at work like I talk elsewhere; I’d be put in jail. I’m totally certain that the other people at work talk a lot differently at home, too, and in ways that would probably be really significant if I knew about them. But I don’t think that means I’m not having real interactions with real people at work. It’s less genuine, less important, all that shit, yeah, but not categorically Other.

To be totally honest about it, I have a hard time imagining that you actually feel 100% the way you’re saying you feel about this stuff. I can understand feeling that way about the Pit, or about trolls in general, and I can understand claiming it as a good general principle but 1. I feel like that about real life douchebags and 2. what’s the point of this thread, for instance, if you don’t believe that the responses you’re getting are from real people talking about their real-world experience of the internet? If it’s just as likely that I’m making up my response for shits and giggles as otherwise, what do you get out of hearing it?

84

I think we likely are still cool, just using the term “friend” in a different way. I tend to use it the same way in person and on the internet. Since you and I rarely have any sort of direct exchange, I wasn’t using that term. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like you (originally this said “dislike you” which wasn’t what I meant) or wish to destroy you utterly though the power of MY MIND (which I could totally do). We just haven’t had the sort of interaction that turns a person from a friendly acquaintance into a friend.

But you’ll still come pick me up at the airport and help me move, right?

85

Nzinga, you seem to want to be both sarcastic and liked. Those things don’t always go together.

86

Oh fuck, I’m doomed.

87

Whoa whoa whoa…since when???

88

But when they do, it’s magic, baby.

89

The pit is the main issue, because I honestly started to feel guilty about laughing at people in the pit.

Since then, though, I have really doubled down on this.

I’m going to use ‘font’ the way we do on the other board.

When I say I like you Jimmy, I mean I like your ‘font’. I don’t KNOW if I like you in real life, because I don’t KNOW if you are Jimmy or Comic Book Guy or Jenny. But I DO like your font. Even if you are a KKK member in real life, I LIKE YOUR FONT.

If someone posted a thread saying, “Look, guys, a link proving Jimmy is a Grand Wizard” or dragon or whatever they call it, I would STILL say, “Man. I always liked his font.”

See? I’m not saying everyone on here is a fake. I’m saying they aren’t ‘real’. Can you see where I am drawing the difference?

When I say I love Skald the Rhymer, I mean his online way of being. I don’t know what he is like in real life, and I don’t care.

When I say Vinyl Turnip cracks me up and I hang on his every damn post to feed my giggle monster, I mean VT online. The real VT may be a grumpy grump for all I know, and I don’t care.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings. If someone says to me, in seriousness, “I really don’t like you Nzinga. I just don’t” That hurts my feelings, if it is someone I like or respect on this board. But it hurts my internet feelings. When I log off and go hang out with my pals, I don’t give it a second thought.

See how that is different from work? At work, I come home, I still remember that the girl at work who I like very much, doesn’t like me. At church, at school, anywhere in the world, if I meet someone I like but they don’t like me, I will feel hurt. Online is the only place where I log off and don’t give a damn.

Online isn’t shared with my friends and family and coworkers to any great extent. That is why people don’t catfish in real life. Because the stakes are higher. You get caught pretending to have cancer in real life, and you have just ruined your interpersonal relationships with your friends and family and coworkers…it is all interconnected because it is all real life.

If you pretend you have cancer on the internet, just delete the account and keep it moving. No big deal.

90

I admit that I do not understand this distinction you are making between real feelings and Internet feelings. If someone hurts my Internet feelings but I don’t give two shits about it after I have logged off for the day then…my feelings weren’t really hurt. Like, I don’t have a special set of feelings for dealing with my online friends that I just pack up and put away when I’m done being online for the day. I do not understand that concept at all. My feelings are my feelings. If some douche on the Internet that I don’t care about makes a lame crack at my expense or says he thinks I’m a bitch, I’m not going to be upset about that at all. But if someone I consider a friend on here says the same, I’m going to be hurt, and that hurt isn’t going to magically go away when I’m no longer on the SDMB.

Will it keep me up at night? Well, I dunno. How close was I to the person? If it’s someone I’ve shared a lot of stuff with off-board and consider an actual friend, then yeah, maybe. If it’s just a cool person but we’re not really friends, I’ll be upset but not too upset. If it’s an acquaintance or someone I don’t know that well, maybe I don’t care at all. But that’s exactly the same as my real-life social circle. Some people I am closer to than others, and the people I am closer to can hurt me more.

All that said, I don’t worry about hurting people’s feelings in the Pit, because it’s the Pit. The real-world analogy is IMO going to one of those insult restaurants like Ed Debevic’s in Chicago or whatever, where you know when you walk through the door that the schtick is to make fun of the patrons. If you go to a place like that and get all butt-hurt because the waiter made fun of your hat, well, what the hell did you go to that restaurant for? Same thing with the Pit IMO.

Now, if someone in all seriousness tells me in a Pit thread that they think I am a raging bitch and they hate me, and this is a person I have formerly respected and considered a friend, that will still probably hurt somewhat. But I’m not going to worry about the feelings of everyone participating in some 10-page Pit thread about puppy neutering or someone’s bitchy sister or whatever.

91

Whatever, man. Nobody is saying they like to bully people online because everyone on the internet is fake. You’re reading things that way because, well, I don’t know why. Apparently you got your feelings hurt in the Pit or something. I don’t know, whatever.

In any event, I was attempting to summarize how I read Bazinga’s posts. I could have gotten it wrong. My personal approach to these parts is more or less the same as my take always. I’m generally nice, but if someone’s being stupid, I’m not always diplomatic enough to point out what’s wrong with what they’re saying without calling them dumb asses. Depends on my mood and just how stupid the person is being. I only avoid saying “dumb ass” here outside of the Pit here because it’s against the rules. I also don’t think of my interactions here the same as I do in real life, not because I don’t recognize that you’re not all people, but it’s hard for me to personally identify with 1,000 different anonymous user names, plus the internet is rife with trollery. When umkay pulled her bull, I didn’t care. At all. If I found someone I knew in real life had fabricated her entire existence, I’d be pretty rattled. On the internet? Don’t care. If I get e-hugs, don’t care. If someone calls me e-names, don’t care. Actually, even in real life, I don’t care if anyone calls me a name. But I am rather fond of hugs.

Since we’re no longer talking about how we see people, and are on to our views on how to treat people online, I guess the way I see things boils down to don’t troll, because why would you? But trolls exist. If you get all emotionally invested in things people post on a message board, maybe you’re not right for the internet. I’m never going to go into a “My grandma died” thread and type “LOL,” but if someone else does I wouldn’t be appalled in the same way I would were someone to mock the folks at an actual funeral. Online I’d just think, “What a fucking clown” and move on. If someone did this in real life, I’d be absolutely horrified.

Yes’m.

Ha ha!

92

Lots of wisdom in that post, MsWhatsit. I see where I am different from others, through this post.

I consider you as good a friend as I could ever have online. I agree with you all the time, I think you are smart, cool, level headed, fun, funny as hell, sweet, right about most shit…I mean, you are as good as a friend as I could find online. But if you told me right now that you don’t like me very much, I would only feel bad about that while I’m logged on here. When I’m not online, I don’t really think about you. Because it would be weird even trying to think about you…I think of you as the person I know online, not as the person you are in real life, visiting your mom, taking the kids to school, or whatever. Those are the things I do in real life, and when I’m doing those things, I’m not thinking about people online at all, ever.

Sometimes, it may come up in conversation, “yeah, this guy online was telling me about that new science there!” but that is the extent of it.

There has been times when real life crossed internet life. But those times are rare enough that overall, I don’t consider that.

So I think it’s my own weirdness that compartmentalizes my real world feelings versus my internet feelings.

Internet feelings to me means feelings that I have while online but don’t even think about at all when I’m not online.

At Brynda, I think you are right. I think I wanted some kind of license to be able to crack jokes and laugh without feeling guilty about it. Because I’m not gonna lie, I do feel a bit guilty if people start saying things like, “I am extremely sensitive, and you shouldn’t be making fun of me”

93

It just seems to me that it’s either the same or a scaled-down version of the same dynamic I have with people elsewhere in my life, which means the distinction breaks down for me, too. For instance, my “relationships” with the lady I buy my coffee* from every morning, and with the receptionists or other lawyers and judges I see occasionally. I don’t honestly have any idea what they’re really like; I just know whether the little slivers of their identity that are relevant to my life are for shit or if they’re OK with me. All those people have their little fonts, and that’s all I interact with, and I don’t wonder what else they have going on.

There’s this one court reporter who probably is a great lady, good at karaoke and shit, but she chews gum in a super annoying way and that is the only aspect of her life that has any bearing on my life, which means she is a terrible person. And if she tells me she doesn’t like me, well, that’s all right, she probably shouldn’t. I’m not going to be hurt in a different way than if somebody on the internet who I also think is terrible said it. I don’t ever think about the court reporter when she isn’t GNNAA GNNAA GNNAA while I’m trying to think. And it works in reverse too. I like people I run into - because they’re entertaining or nice to look at or do favors for me or talk about sports or they laugh at my jokes or whatever - even though I’m absolutely certain that if I learned anything at all about what was going on in their actual personal heads, I would probably have to try to kill them. Practically all old people go in this category. I don’t think they’re not real because I’m not observing their reaction to Hannity later that night. I just take them for what they are when they’re around, and never think about them when they aren’t.

And when the real-life version of the Pit happens – two fucking lunatics yelling at each other in a parking lot about somebody texted somebody something something – I treat that like I treat the Pit, too. If one person’s obviously a dick and the other person’s right, maybe I get involved but mostly I either cringe or laugh or just go away. A shit show is a shit show. So the feeling you’re describing makes sense, but it being not like real life gives me trouble.

*it’s actually tea; I was trying to sound tougher, but I’d have lied in real life too

94

Jimmy, this is not just a matter of ‘degree’.

The woman who sells you your ‘coffee’ isn’t going argue with you over five pages, on a regular basis over the course of years. Internet vs. real life is two different beasts, man.

When I’m buying my rice cakes*, I make small talk with the lady, and she seems really sweet. But every day, the talk is small talk. We don’t ever start talking about racism for hours, or homophobia or give each other support when we lose a parent or a cat and fight and make up. I do that online though.

*entire birthday cake even though it’s not my birthday.

95

No, right, but from where I’m sitting, what’s happening is that conversation about racism is an example of internet talk getting realer. I don’t talk about bell hooks with Eliza when she rings me up, because we’re just having trivial bullshit interactions every day. That’s as irrelevant to my life as it can be, but it’s happening in “real life.” So then if I am having an in-depth conversation about something that matters to me, only it’s happening on the internet… right?

96

Doomed? I’m fucked.:frowning:

97

With utter contempt. I thought that was obvious.

Actually, I have a lousy memory and quickly lose track of who pisses me off so I default to kinda liking all of you jerks and have even been heard IRL to refer to you as my online friends, if I’m not talking to somebody who finds “online” and “friend” oxymoronic, like my wife. So yeah, in her case you’re just people I know, like coworkers. Been that way for going on 13 years.

I have a whole secret life she doesn’t know about.

98

Yeah, I think. I don’t know anymore, Jimmy. You might have more productive racial discussions in real life if you took the hood off, though.

99

Real people…that is what they are, after all. Some are real people who I sometimes agree with, some are real people that I often don’t agree with…some are real people who are borderline nuts. :stuck_out_tongue: But they are all real to me. Friends? No, probably not…I don’t have very many RL friends, but some folks on this board I’m friendly too…more friendly than I am towards many people I know or work with in RL. Some I’m not so friendly towards…mostly those who felt the need at one time or another to send me insulting PMs or the like, as to me that goes a bit beyond the pale.

I don’t see it as a sport, but I love to argue. Often I’ll see a thread that’s interesting to me and just stake out some ground to argue over. In a lot of threads I don’t really have an emotional connection initially, but I love to try and take a side and see if I can argue a specific point and see what happens, where the discussion goes, and if I can learn something either about the posters themselves or about the subject. Often by the end of the discussion (for me) I’ve changed my mind or shifted my view, or learned something interesting about the sometimes arbitrary position I staked out. I remember in one discussion I tried to look at things from a theists view point and argue about an omniscient and omnipotent God, despite the fact that I’m an agnostic and don’t believe in God or the gods, but just as an interesting exercise. Being torn to shreds in that debate by my fellow 'dopers actually taught me a lot about myself and about aspects of omniscience and omnipotence that I had never considered before. A lot of the Iraq war threads taught me a lot as well…some of the lessons were quite painful but still enriching.

No, but you learn a bit about how they think, which to me is a deeper understanding that some RL friendships. I know the stances of a lot of 'dopers on various subjects, and to me it’s fascinating to see how in one thread 'dopers can be vehemently opposed but in another they are shoulder to shoulder in agreement and reinforcement of their positions…often against a poster that was with one of them in a different discussion.

It’s also interesting, to me, to see how posters can shift their stances over time…and how some posters never seem to get that, and assume they know what someones stance is on a given subject only to repeatedly have the wind knocked from their sails when they make those assumptions.

100

But then it’s not a sport anymore!