This thread was born in the BBQ Pit and Anthracite had expressed an interest in debating this topic in a medium other than the debacle that was it’s original thread.
I will try my best to give a brief background in the form of the original point from myself, followed by Antracite’s reply and my reply to that.
The original thread was regarding one of my real life friends Joe_Cool being called a bigot.
my original post
reply from Anthracite
I appologize for the clutter of this thread. I’m merely trying to keep things as clear and understandable as possible for the purpose of a good debate.
Here is my reply to that and where we will start this thread from:
There is no reason for you to believe me. You don’t know me, nor will you ever truly know me through this medium. I’ll give a bit more background and insight into myself. I do this only because Joe_Cool is a real life friend and I find it funny how different the portrait of him painted in this thread looks as compared to his real life persona.
I’ve actually met a great deal of people from the internet in real life. Many of them I’ve made my friends, and others I have had relationships with. On top of that, I’ve hung out with an even larger chunk of persons on several occassions and in several settings. People are not always who they are online. On the contrary, they are often very different from who they are online. That admittedly blanket statement based only on the maybe 150 or so people that I’ve met online, applies to both those who were good natured online and those who were not. I’ve sadly been involved in a handful of romantic and physical relationships with people I’ve come to know because of the computer. It’s not that I lack the social graces to pursue a woman in real life nor was I online looking to meet someone, but something just seemed to “click” with those persons. Cautiously and reluctantly I allowed myself to be pulled into a real life relationship. On the times in question, the seemingly “ideal” mate turned to be a quite different person than who I knew online. A few of the times they were just very different than there online person. On on occassion, she turned out to be a very evil and sadistic person who broke my heart badly. I hate to throw my beliefs into a discussion, but they fueled my handling of that situation. I held no bitter feelings towards that one person in particular and simply prayed that she will one day understand the person she had become in her life and find a way to repent.
As for the other people that I have entered into serious friendships with that found their roots on the internet, they are not the person from the computer. Some were trolls, some just looking to debate every point no matter how true and factual it may have been, and others unable to wish ill will to anyone. These however aren’t the people that I know in real life. For some of them, message boards and irc is just a medium to kill boredom. Maybe one’s online persona represents a fantasy of who they can be on the computer that they aren’t in real life.
Please don’t misunderstand my point though. I HAVE met and known plenty of people from the internet who are very much like their online persona. In the end, to me, I haven’t met or known someone until I’ve spent enough real life time to know them.
As a published poet and writer of other things, I truly appreciate the power of the written word, but I also understand how easy it is for the meaning of the word in my mind to be something so different from its intent in the mind of someone else. Our dreams, our hopes, our loves, hates, and fears are not always the person we are. How many people have you met that just live their life in the moment? Can you honestly say you are following all of your dreams and working towards them? I have many loves, a few that I can achieve. Life to many is compromise. I love Mercedes Benz’s (never quite figured out the plural for Benz. No matter what I write, it sounds silly to me.), and would love to and dream of being incredibly rich. I am going into the field of computer animation and must be realistic and make a compromise. I know the jobs that I get will not pay me enough to satisfy the material objects that I love. I make the compromise of trying to find a job that I will enjoy doing and will in return pay me enough to comfortably support a family on. In the case of 3D Arts, lead animators and directions to make a very nice amount of money, but they unfortunately are no longer animators/modelers/texture artists/riggers/compositors by that point. They are in a role of management and no longer do what they entered the field doing. My dream was to become a lawyer, but nearly a quarter of a million dollars worth of tution by choosing the Ivy Leage route wasn’t feasible to me. I am a 3D Artist, because I will enjoy going to work every day.
With that said, in the case of the word rape being thrown about in this thread. I personally don’t think I would have used it in that context around people who may have a different definition of it. Words are often a memory moreso than just letters with a definition linked to them. I highly doubt that Joe_Cool meant to offend those who have been or know people who have been raped by using the word in a context other than what it stands for. Has anyone ever gone to see a broadway play or watched or live show where someone just totally missed or messed up their line and said “wow he/she just murdered that line.”?
I’m sure most people who read what I just wrote will take nothing from that line.
“wow he/she just murdered that line.”
My mother’s sister was murdered by her boyfriend. I take offense to that line. I understand it’s context in the statement and would never chastise someone based upon that usage.
The net is a life within itself. That life however isn’t real life.
If you are only able to speak of certain things online that are part of your real feelings, then by meeting you in real life I wouldn’t get to meet those feelings. If someone would moonwalk away from the things you wish to say in real life, then they aren’t knowing the same person from online. I may like who you are in real life, but hate your online persona based upon that. I really haven’t read enough of things you’ve posted here to make an online opinion of you. Based on you saying things online that you wouldn’t in real life for fear of people backing away from you, then you sort of are two different people. Your interactions with others may be the same, but what you feel is different.
My father got adicted heavily to an online Role Playing Game and snapped. He left my mother only to return a week later when he came to his senses. That online RPG is nothing but a message board with graphics and quests. That experience and what it put my mother and myself through only help to more strongly forge my opinions that the net isn’t real.
Allow me to toss in an even more extreme version of what Anthracite had to say…
Frankly, I’ve become convinced that on the internet people are often more “real” than they are in person. The Net is much like alcohol; it removes inhibitions. People who, in real life, might carefully hide unpopular opinions (such as racist beliefs, to abuse a typical example) to keep the respect of the people they know often feel no such need once granted the annonymity of a message board or Usenet post.
The uninhibited mental exhaust of a Net user often tells me much, much MORE about them than meeting them in real life, with all the masks and inhibitions on, ever would. I don’t care how nice somebody acts in public; if they’re a jackass on the internet, ten to one that’s who they are deep down.
Now, obviously some people can be deceptive. But in my experience, they are by far the exception.
I do agree with you that people will often say things that would never be uttered in real life when they are on the net. These things can be deep down emotions, or just unpopular thoughts on certain subjects. The point I’m trying to make however is this. If someone will only release certain inner thoughts and feelings on the net, then will you ever really get to me that same person in real life? Most likely not. The thoughts and feelings that someone shares in real life would most likely make them a completely different person.
In addition to that, I also feel that you can not fully get to know someone based solely upon direct contact on the internet and certainly not by simply reading what someone else thinks about the topic at hand on a message board. You will only truly get to know someone by spending time with them.
Undisputed. My point is that, in that case, you have met the real person on the Net. The person you think you know in “real life” is just a mask, a fake persona they wear. If the thoughts and feelings they share in real life aren’t their true thoughts and feelings, then how can you say you know the true person?
Well, messages boards tend to only go so far. Talking with somebody regularly is much better. Obviously, you still miss aspects like body language you only get in person. But if a person doesn’t show their true feelings in person, that’s no better, and often much worse.
Honestly, I’d never feel I truly knew somebody until I’d spent time with them, in person, without the masks people normally wear. And there’s very, very few people I could say that for.
I’ve suspected that many people never know another human being that closely.
I agree that you can never really know someone until you’ve spent real time with them. With that said, how can you assume that you know who someone really is if you’ve only exchanged words with them over the internet.
I base my argument on somewhat extensive personal experience and the input of friend who have had similar personal experiences.
I have met easily more than 100 people in real life whom I met online. More often than not, they aren’t the same person from the internet. Since you are mainly dealing with words with someone, your mind formulates an image of that person. Even if you have seen pictures of that person, your mind still paints a picture and give life to that person. The chances of that person being the same person from your mind in real life are fairly slim.
That however only covers initial meeting and conversation. Has you get to know this person more in real life, the differences between who they are in real life vs their online persona begin to arise. That seemingly confident person you spoke with online for so many months is actually a very shy and indecisive person.
On a few occasions in my life, I have dated women that I met online (some inadvertently and others by design). The person that I met online was absolutely perfect for me and the person I met fit that same mold. Over time however, the differences began to stack up. In the occasions where I’ve dated women from the internet, I’ve found that I was attracted to a person that didn’t exist in the body of the person I had been communicating with.
Serious character flaws are easily hidden from the blind eye of the internet. A serious temper might never find its way to the screen during most normal “chat”. Insecurities that may severely cripple a person in the real world may not exist in the electronic world. The outcome ends up being one or both persons wonder where that person they met online has gone.
I also have good friends and acquaintances who I met via irc and various message boards. I get along really well some people online, but am bored to tears when I actually go out in the real world and do something with them. Other people just come off with attitudes that were present in their writings.
All that I’m trying to get it is, the internet is not real life and its inhabitants aren’t always the people that are actually behind the keyboard.
Who I am is dependant on where/when/why/with whom, etc.
To assume that you really know anyone is a stretch - to surmise that you can do so based solely on the words one wishes you to see in an anonymous forum is preposterous.
Are “trolls” really nasty, spiteful people, or just folks out to jerk some chains?
My “Tweak the Twit” philosophy, if encountered out-of-context would gain me much opprobrium - it is only those who do “know” me, and understand the situation, who can appreciate the art form.
I tend to use the 'net to try out opinions, thoughts, lines of reasoning, see where they go. Anybody who thought they could judge from the ideas I present here the type of person I am, well they’d probably be disappointed. I’m also quicker to respond and react here, becuase of those lowered inhibitions someone referred to. That actually makes the 'net persona even LESS like the real person, because our social relations and etiquette are part of what defines us.
(Let me start this off by saying I havn’t read the other thread, so I’m not passing judgment on anyone, simply interpreting statements from what I see here)
It seems like the original argument was one person saying “he’s an asshole” in regard to someone’s posts here on the SDMB, and another person saying “he’s not an asshole in real life.”
To be honest, if someone is acting like an ass here, his behavior IRL has no bearing on that; said person is still acting like an ass.
People say that you can never fully know another person; I suppose that’s reasonably true; the less information you have to go on, the longer it will take (or the less sure you can be of your impressions after a given period of time); personal interaction on the net is just subject to a different subset of restrictions as is, say, a telephone call or communication by letter.
It is possible to project a false persona in real-life dealings with people; it’s possible for a sensible person to project the impression that they are a jerk and (to a lesser extent perhaps) vice versa - we pay people to go on stage or on the screen to do exactly this.
Nobody here has any idea what I am like in real life, but you do have nearly 6000 posts’ worth of clues (if you met me, for example, you’d find that I over-use commas and brackets in spoken conversation too). Of course I could have made it all up, but it’s also true that my wife could be an undercover agent, the only difference is the probability.
I agree that people can put on a false persona in real life, but it takes real effort. There is also the question of time - the longer you know the person the harder it is for this person to keep up the act, unless he has special training or is naturally talented.
To some degree it is your observations vs this other person’s acting (if there’s any at all). I posit it is impossible for anybody to put up a fake mask that is significantly different from this person’s intrisic character for any good length of time.
I also think you can’t pretend to be intelligent when you are stupid.
This is also true of online. Anyone can have a false persona, but maintaining it gets progressively extremely difficult. This is why people change their screen names often. (I don’t mean here, where everyone knows your old and new names; I mean on other message boards, in chat rooms, and so on.)
Although it’s true that the net removes a lot of inhibitions, it also facilitates actual social interactions. For example, let’s say you’re a recluse. You post on a message board and find that there are others who share your interests and emotional state. So you open up a little, and you establish a relationship. And perhaps eventually you meet. What the net does is tear down that final wall, allowing people to be themselves over an extended period of time.
If I were a real creep, you guys would be able to tell eventually through my postings. That kind of IRL stuff is never easy to hide over a period of time. I could be a closet racist, but eventually I’d post in a race thread, and I’d be outed. That which comprises our personalities from the inside will bubble to the surface online.
That said, I don’t agree that if a person is an asshole online, he or she is definitely an asshole in real life. But if they’re consistently an asshole online, then the potential for their being a real-life asshole increases dramatically.
I’ll also add this: It is very easy to misinterpret someone’s intention. If he or she has posted on here for a long time and has therefore established a sort of personality that others can recognize, then their words become easier to interpret, although there’s still room for error (unless one knows the person IRL).
However, if the person doesn’t have a zillion posts, then the issue becomes quite muddy. Without sufficient background on a person, one cannot be sure of that person’s intentions, and a simple statement could be construed differently from what the person meant.
Most people probably keep a pretty open mind about people on here they’re not familiar with; they won’t assume Poster A meant so-and-so if the sentence is even a teeny bit amiguous. These people will ask for clarification.
And that’s why after people have jumped Poster A for saying something, Poster B chimes in that he knows Poster A in real life and Poster A could not have meant it the way everyone’s taking it.
Of course, if this is something Poster A has done many times with good consistency, then Poster B’s support is ineffective.
<< grumpy lady who has not had her coffee yet and who just wasted a certain amount of time Searching checks into thread >>
For future reference, O Thou OP Who Evidently Dost Not Post Here Very Often: SDMB etiquette requires that a link should have been given to the original thread, so we wouldn’t have to waste time looking for it, even if we were over at boardreader dot com.
This–
–plus Copy and Pasting huge chunks of the relevant exchange is not sufficient.
Copy and Paste the URL of whatever thread into the Reply window, and vBulletin will automatically make it into a link.
As the OP of the thread that inspired this one, let me say that who you are in real life is irrelevant to the boards. Joe_Cool IRL, I’m sure, must be a swell guy, but who he is and how he behaves in F2F interactions has zip to do with how he, or I, or anyone, is judged online. Your behavior here is how you are judged here.
And if you think that online personas have any connection to real-life, meditate for a moment on the number of nubile 16-year-old blonde, high school cheerleaders on IRC who are really 48-year-old, flabby, male pervs.
