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Friday, July 18. 2008
Reality 3.1
Ever wonder about the online world of forums and message boards? Chat rooms? Me neither, until I joined one. A forum that is.Our family has an online forum, but it’s seldom used nemore (anymore). We still post in there on occasion, but not like years past. It’s morphed into something wonderful and easy to use, with great features like photo and art galleries, links to all of our local weather pages and of course sub forums for topics like music and the arts, politics and religion, health and … I forget’em all. Wish we posted more.
Mi familia is scattered all over the U.S.: Colorado, Texas, Florida, California and Wisconsin, where we originated. So, the family forum is a great way for all of us to keep in touch and check in on one another. There’s an older brother I haven’t heard from in months. He’s going through some desperately difficult times and I worry about his health, both emotionally and physically.
Then there’s a sister in Texas. I just worry about her. She makes the best cookies at Christmas and regardless of our differences in opinion — we are solidly on opposite sides of the political fence — life without her would be significantly diminished. Then there is another sister in Florida. I worry about her constantly. Some of us have hardscrabble lives and existing would be a step up from surviving. And yet, when we communicate we hardly read or hear a peep of complaint.
My two younger brothers are doing well, bringing up their families; their children are either in college or about to graduate from high school, so they have a lot going on in their lives and it would be nice to know what’s going on with them. The also have significant health issues, just like mine, so trading stories, sharing our experience, strength and hope with these issues not only gives us a way to vent, but also could give us the courage, discipline and hope to change our lifestyles for the better and live longer, less pain-filled lives.Then there is my younger sister. She is such a sweetheart! One can never say that enough! Well, her two children — both grown now — could probably give us ample reason to refute that, but they’re 20-somethings. What do they know! She’s got health issues too — we’re all at that age when health issues are generally the main topic of conversation — so I worry about her health as well.
So, that family forum is important. But it isn’t quite like a forum where all the members are people you’ve never met in “real” life.Everything you’ve ever heard about online “personalities” is true. Few, if any of the members (including myself), are exactly who or what they are in “real” life. Much of who I am is contained in those posts. If anything, it’s my personality magnified. Online, you can say things with the keyboard you might not consider saying to someone face-to-face, although I’ve called someone a “dickweed” in person and online.
Also, when talking down to someone, I’ll often correct his or her grammar. When talking down to someone online, I’ll correct his or her spelling! Sometimes though, I’ll correct someone’s spelling just out of kindness because I have affection for the person so the difference is all in how the spelling lesson is delivered.
The most amusing aspects about online forums are the various personae one encounters. In this one particular forum, as one gathers more posts, he or she is given a new title. Currently I am a “Forum Fanatic.” One of my favorite titles is “Addict.” Which is funny because one gets that title early on in the posting tenure when it isn’t quite apparent if the poster is indeed addicted or not. Maybe it’s an inducement to the posters to continue posting until they do indeed become addicted.
Once a poster (member) reaches a certain number of posts — 22,000 to be exact — the poster can choose a title of his or her own, like “The First Family,” “Chairman of the Board” or “Romantic Dream Weaver” and (I’m not making this one up), “The King.” Really? The king of what?
Actually, the guy has a little fiefdom in that forum, with a lot of disciples willing to do his bidding online — including one who claims to be, in his screen name signature, “The Official Bouncer.” Now, bear in mind, anyone who is a member of the forums as a whole can post in any topic — called a thread — and they really can’t be stopped from posting. But he has a menacing photo in his online I.D. so that pretty much tells you he’s the tough guy. Oh, and he’s studying to be a security guard.Which brings us to the point of this little commentary: a “flame war” has erupted between factions of this forum, this community. Yes, it is a “community,” complete with cliques and clubs, pulpits and even a Surf Shack! It used to have two Witch’s Tits, but when the Witch was banned the moderators deleted the Tits.
It would appear unnatural to have just one tit, so the Witch created two.
Nevertheless, the flame war was on, two of my friends were banned and the creeps of the forum still have their way. Forums don’t like flame wars. It disrupts the quiet, friendly congeniality forums are supposed to engender on the Internets. It’s a place where like-minded people gather to discuss common interests. But, like everything else in life, people have personalities and those personalities — amplified exponentially — come out.
In an online forum, you can be whomever you want to be; you can be that “person” you wish to be in real life but are too afraid to live since you most likely will lose your job, go to jail or get your ass kicked into the nearest emergency room. In an online forum, you can call someone a “dickweed” and what are they gonna do? Threaten to fly half way across the country, find you and kick your ass into the nearest emergency room? Not likely.
What someone does, when they feel they were slighted or someone they like was slighted, is go to the moderators — the “mods” — and complain that [me for instance] “called me a dickweed.”“Yes [moderator], I called [the dickweed] a dickweed. I won’t do it again.”
That’s how it goes. Of course, there are the little perps who suck up to the moderators so that when they start some shit, they, the perps, might get preferential consideration when an offense needs to be adjudicated by the moderators.
How does one suck up to a moderator? You start a thread (topic) extolling the virtues of said moderator. That’s happened more than once and the latest is a paean to a content editor to the forum’s parent website.
People generally dismiss online forums and chats as not ‘real,” but they are every bit as real as the physical aspects of our lives. Online forums aren’t a flight from reality, they are completely different realities. And for some forum members — of every online forum — the forum is their reality. Some people may consider this harmful, mentally or emotionally debilitating, but only because we’ve been brought up in a world without computers and the Internets.
True, forums do not prepare one for the reality outside our door, outside the cocoon of the Internet, where bill collectors still want their lucre, employers still want us to work like dogs for their low-paying jobs and maybe, if you have a spouse and kids, the demands and responsibilities of having someone else to answer to in life.
For many, the forum is an escape, like playing video games, a retreat from “reality” as other folks like to call the physical world. It’s a refuge from the daily horrors and torments of that physical world — which will still be there when we log off and deal with the physical world.Forums let us be free of the constraints that frustrate us in daily life; we can voice opinions and show our inner beings without facing the scrutiny or condemnation of our fellows. We can talk shit and never have to worry about walking the talk. Think about it: if I ever had to be “John Wayne” in the physical world, at this stage in my life, well, the thought scares me because in my part of the physical world, that can easily become a reality. And that’s a topic for another blog.
If the people who inhabit my physical world really knew what I was into, they would probably cut a wide berth. Maybe even suggest I “get help.” Not so in the virtual world where I can find like-minded individuals or at least people who tolerate and accept my somewhat … err … less mainstream … interests. Some of which I would never have the courage to share with family. I love my family and would rather be happy than be right.
Except when it comes to politics … in which case my sister makes the best cookies.
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