Green Room - Week 20 - Day 1

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Good morning.

*yawn*

Oh this having access thing is going to be dangerous. You Tube has Season 2 of the South African version of Survivor! They seem to have other versions as well, which just spells trouble for me.

So what are you guys going to be unleashing upon this unsuspecting week?

Comments

[kittenboo.livejournal.com]

i think sometimes online we create this image of who the person is because all we see is what they leave for us. that is true in any relationship, but online there is little else to go by than the written word (no tone of voice, no conversation, no facial expressions).

it's like when i was in college you spend so much time with each other the friendships become so much more intense so much faster. this competition does that as well, i think.

[spydielives.livejournal.com]

I will give you that.

When something happens that somehow doesn't match our inner image of the person, either by way of a third party, or even just an observation in a different setting, the foundation that the friendship was built upon can suddenly be called into question because of the speed with which it was built, The mind wants all its ducks in a row; new information almost automatically requires new evaluation of everything, instead of sifting the new information against what it already known to see if it makes sense.

My first semester in college was the typical "country mouse goes to big out-of-state university." There were more people on the floor of my co-ed dorm room than my graduating high school class. Hell, my first science class had more people in it than my entire high school population.

I was very-much-not the person at Syracuse that I was in little-town-Maine. Maintaining a persona is hard work, even online, and frankly, more power to those who can pull it off, I guess. I wound up quitting school after the first semester, because I could not be me, the real me, at all there.

[angstzeit.livejournal.com]

This isn't natural. One of the problems I've noted in online relations is that tendency to extrapolate. In RL, we use those various clues we get from tone and non-verbal cues to fill in things about a person. Online it seems we still try to fill in the picture but without the extra information. It makes for some very odd notions about people. And, I think, underlies a lot of the drama--people get ideas about others without much information to base such ideas on.

[worldofcharlie.livejournal.com]

*nods*...

and plus there's a lag in between responses as opposed to being able to pick up the phone and getting the entire/real story...

[kittenboo.livejournal.com]

good point

[kittenboo.livejournal.com]

i think that is very true, and you're right it isn't natural. in RL we see so much more of a person by what they say, how they respond, how they interact with others too, and by just being around them. online we assume things about a person based on their words, and i find we are often wrong about those assumptions.

[spydielives.livejournal.com]

Whether we give someone more or less benefit of the doubt says much about our own personality.

Assuming anything about someone, whether it is based on an online interaction, or after knowing them for twenty years, has never worked out well for me.

[Of course, asking a clarifying question can get me into hot water faster than a boiled lobster dinner...]

[angstzeit.livejournal.com]

Just going by writing is tough. You don't know if the person carefully crafted the writing or just dashed it off so it's hard to know how to take it.

[worldofcharlie.livejournal.com]

well plus the anonymity of the internet helps with that. This is why I don't get involved with Role Playing games on the internet, but I have friends that do. Carrie's known people that take the RP stuff way too seriously and these people really become the personas that they create for themselves. And fuck why not? It's tempting, if you could change the way you look, be sexiers (via written word) why wouldn't you? The shyest person in the world could be quite a chatterbox on the internet.

The anonymity serves as a really nice security blanket too, it's safe behind that wall. Plus writing, it's one way and not necessary real time - the interaction's different than how it'd be face to face.

my five cents