I have a response to your Hubski post, and a response to your Reddit post. They may or may not directly contradict each other. They may also meander into irrelevant territory- I've had a lot of coffee. To the Hubski post: I disagree to a degree on point (1). I feel like those who don't experience the net as an extension of their lives are actually more likely to unwittingly present a more honest face in online interaction. I don't know whether they devalue honesty per se, but I get the sinking feeling that the people you're talking about are a lot more open and honest in a really ugly way online than they are in real life, purely by virtue of not drawing that link between physical life and digital life. Goes back to the whole Ring of Gyges thing- I've seen a lot of folks on Reddit espousing this notion that morality is a) an entirely social construct, b) as such, malleable, c) not worthy of "rational" consideration and can thereby d) be more or less disregarded online, where free speech can do no wrong, and anything cast up in the name of free speech is worth serious ("serious") consideration. This notion comes out in a variety of ways, be it within the AskReddit format, where grotesque confession is often celebrated; AdviceAnimals, where there's a meme for the specific purpose of airing dirty laundry in a "funny" way; in plain old everyday comments, often those upvoted to the top of the thread, that spout some pretty serious invective; or else whenever there's a much-publicized brouhaha over the outing of some controvertial sub or user (ahem ViolentAcrez). This last one always culminates in widespread discussions/feedback loops on the subject of free speech, where a very vocal, very upvoted contingent argue that if it isn't illegal, it ought to be allowed and even celebrated as part of the Great Digital Tradition. As if legality was the only watermark for socially permissible interaction, and all free speech is noble purely by virtue of being free. Anyhow, all this is to say: the internet makes our person invisible, and that provides a huge incentive to be more honest in some ways than we might be in real life. For better or worse, I feel like people are much better at expressing themselves as they intend to, and it just turns out that a lot of peoples' intentions are rotten. I guess this is what I meant about the whole "people being worse online than they are in real life" thing, and it ties nicely into your Reddit post. I don't have a problem with you or anybody demolishing an unworthy post- especially in the instance that the response is calibrated specifically to preempt further useless discussion. I have a problem with people being so gleefully and blithely ugly. And I think there's a big difference there. The ugliness I'm talking about is less academic, more bloody-minded. It's kids calling OP a "faggot" because they heard that's the cool way to respond. It's grown-ass men curating nasty subs simply because it's technically legal. It's prevalent in a million tiny little interactions that, when taken individually mean next to nothing but when taken en masse present such a dour portrait of humanity's secret self that I had to a) devise my own online code of conduct just so I felt like there was no way to even accidentally toe that line and b) eventually abandon Reddit altogether because it just became too pervasive. Maybe that makes me a delicate flower, but I guess I've decided there are worse things to be. When you get down to it, I'm more for being dishonest in some ways online. Or just more controlled. Or is control in the face of anonymity just another form of dishonesty? Which is why I asked the question in the first place- it's interesting to figure out what kind of dishonest people here are choosing to be, and how that shapes our interactions with each other. On your side, it sounds like you've carefully crafted this narrator that refuses to suffer fools gladly, and deals with foolishness in a way that you, the author, wouldn't in real life. I've gone something of the opposite route, but it's no less dishonest and no better or worse (I hope)- the person I present online is as of now unflinchingly affable; I still dismiss valueless interactions, but I choose to do it by being as respectful as possible and, if met with further disrespect, assume the person I'm talking to just isn't worth talking to, and I stop talking. One more thing on the note of narrative versus authorial intent- there's a weird tension between your two posts. In one (the Reddit one) you posit that we know more about yesterday's waiter than we do about those we interact with online. And as such, sounds like you're saying that we're a bunch of characters interacting with other characters rather than real people interacting with other real people. e.g. I don't know you at all, so I shouldn't take it personally when kleinbl00 insults fuffle. But in the Hubski post, the implication is that a) you're very good at expressing yourself as you intend to, and thus b) you DO experience the internet as an extension of your life, replete with all the psychological/social bleed-through that entails. Which seems to run in direct contradiction with your Reddit point. How do you jive those two? Or is that what you meant about having come to new conclusions? Or am I missing a vital point? Anyhow, that's kind of apropos of nothing, just nagging at me.
So a couple things: You may feel that way, but your feelings on the subject are completely, documentably, demonstrably 100% wrong. Jeron Lanier spends a chapter on dishonesty and online cultures in You Are Not A Gadget and the nature of identity and the fluidity anonymity grants online have been a central theme of not one, not two, but three books by Sherry Turkle. Your "feelings" on the subject are internal, reflect your own emotions, and are absolutely 100% wrong in regards to common, greater trends that have been clinically documented since the rise of online identity. "A lot of folks on Reddit espousing" anything is one thing - but they know as much about it as you do. They're going on instinct as much as you are. And as we've had computers as part of our daily lives for exactly one generation, nobody has any "instinct" to go on. If by "honest" you mean "tactless" then you are correct. If by "honest" you mean "honest" then you are, as mentioned before, baselessly, groundlessly wrong. Yup. And Reddit is Thunderdome. I've been good at fighting online for more than a decade but Reddit made me absolutely lethal. It's the same problem as everywhere, though - you have to learn the lingua franca for anywhere you're at or else you can't communicate, and Reddit's default communication standards are cruel. So when I'm elsewhere, I have to reef myself in... and when I'm on Reddit, I have to let myself out. That is because you have demonstrated a naive inexperience with the online world. The fact that you think "honesty" and "tact" are interchangeable concepts proves my core point better than anything else you could have written. "Honesty" is being true in the interests of fostering communication. "tact" is being mildly duplicitous in the interests of fostering communication. Your mistake is that you think the cruelty of online interaction fosters communication - it doesn't. It's monkeys screeching at each other from treetops. Nope. I've written an apologia as to why I do not imprint my personal expectations on online communications and argue that nobody else should do so to me. That's because you started out with an incorrect thesis, backed it up with incorrect evidence and reached incorrect conclusions. From a psychosocial standpoint, "me" as in this thing that you are reading is made up of text. That text contains exactly zero body language, exactly zero facial cues, exactly zero vocal inflection and exactly zero shared experience. You know less about me from what I have written here than you do about the waiter that refills your coffee. If this is not the case, it is evidence that you're not paying attention to your waiter, which also furthers my point. No. NO. NO. You don't know me at all, so who the fuck do you think you are to have "expectations" of me. Here's the part you're not getting: there are over 400 people on Reddit that have told me, via PM, that they look up to me. That they always look out for my posts. There are over two dozen people who have asked for life advice. There are a half-dozen people for whom I have gotten jobs. There are three people for whom I have greatly reduced prison sentences. But there are over three million people on Reddit. I interact with people regularly. I interact with people above and beyond the boundaries of Reddit. But I also regularly get people professing their "disappointment" in me because I did not live up to some construct of me they have in their head. The entire point of the essay linked is to explain why, in no uncertain terms, those who are "disappointed" in me are "disappointed" in their construct of me, and who the fuck do they think they are expecting anything of me at all? Easily. All you have to do is read what I wrote for what I wrote, rather than what you want it to say. But, as my ENTIRE ORIGINAL POINT EXPLAINED, "kids these days" suck ass at this. The fact that you wrote a 500 word essay saying "you're wrong" only illustrates that "you're wrong" is your way of saying "I don't understand." Which, again, is my point. You tell me. Are you?I feel like those who don't experience the net as an extension of their lives are actually more likely to unwittingly present a more honest face in online interaction.
the internet makes our person invisible, and that provides a huge incentive to be more honest in some ways than we might be in real life.
I have a problem with people being so gleefully and blithely ugly.
When you get down to it, I'm more for being dishonest in some ways online.
Or just more controlled.
On your side, it sounds like you've carefully crafted this narrator that refuses to suffer fools gladly, and deals with foolishness in a way that you, the author, wouldn't in real life.
One more thing on the note of narrative versus authorial intent- there's a weird tension between your two posts.
And as such, sounds like you're saying that we're a bunch of characters interacting with other characters rather than real people interacting with other real people.
e.g. I don't know you at all, so I shouldn't take it personally when kleinbl00 insults fuffle.
Which seems to run in direct contradiction with your Reddit point. How do you jive those two?
Or am I missing a vital point?
So, what you're saying is... you might have a job you can get me...? Thanks man, I owe you a biggie. I dunno, I'm pretty sure we're saying the same thing after around P3. But that can wait for a second. In regards to P1-3: sounds like some good reading. I kind of love this field of discussion, but as you may have surmised, haven't gotten to study up on it in any academic sense. I'll have to check those out. Regarding the whole "honesty" versus "tact" thing- you've got my idea a little spun around. I don't equate honesty with tact. But I come close to equating the inverse, and your words read as though you kind of agree- "'tact' is being mildly duplicitous in the interests of fostering communication." So yeah, I believe that in some cases, no, a lot of cases, tact is a form of dishonesty. Or at least a bending of light around honesty, which is, by any other name, dishonesty. And I don't think this is a particularly naive or offensive viewpoint, but rather an interesting one. That's me and the ol' feelings again, though! After that, it sounds like we're saying the same thing. Except for the waiter thing, which, I gotta admit, I didn't go out yesterday for a meal. But! I'd argue for the hell of it that a "waiter" (or, I guess in your original words waitress) is a role being played by a person. Something along the lines of "user" as a role being played by me. Each role requires a certain amount of shaping/shading/ignoring of the truth to function as it should in its setting. Thus, I can look at my waiter, but I'd have a hell of a time seeing the person behind the waiter's costume. In something of the way I can see the username, but not the user behind it. Each has its strengths and weaknesses as far as the parameters of human interactions go. Yeah, with my hypothetical waiter, I can observe metalanguage in a way I can't with people online. But then again, that metalanguage is still being strained through the waiter persona. So unless I'm really really good at registering, say, pupil dilation and sweat levels and tiny facial movements (and I live in the Pac NW, so half of that hypothetical face will be covered by beard), I'm only going to see what the person lets me see through the "waiter" disguise. Anyhow, conversely, with online interaction, I only see what the author lets through to the narrator. And that doesn't include metalanguage, unless you count italics or emboldening or caps- thanks for employing all three by the by, it helps me "get" what you're saying! But even the way somebody crafts their online persona might tell us something of the person behind that persona. In a way that we don't learn from the waiter, who's constrained not only by their social role, but their professional one. They can only volunteer so much in the name of being a waiter before they're tipped poorly or fired. With online interaction, I'm allowed to be much less tactful/much more honest because they only thing riding on it is my online reputation, which may or may not have any meaning to me. So there's that. Only other thing I'd say is that I never really said you were wrong, only that I disagreed. Also, that I may or may not have understood a few points. But I think you clarified some of them, so there's that! Seriously though, give me a job I need money.
Well, what can you do? And where can you do it? As to the rest, you are - again - overestimating the context one can get from the written word and underestimating the context you can get from interpersonal interaction. Hell, let's skip interaction. Let's just go to the context that's possible from an image. What can you surmise about this person? We're not jumping to conclusions, now. We can see that he's a young adult male. We can guess as to a few other things and those guesses will help establish our other assumptions about him. It's not a lot to go on, but it's enough to distinguish them pretty distinctly from this person: ...yet they both come up for the image search "waiter." Compare and contrast by what you can tell about a person from their name: You seem to be insisting that you can somehow "learn" something about a person by interacting with them online. I'll say for the third time that you are grossly, demonstrably, succinctly incorrect. You can disagree with that all you want, but it will not change the fact that the facts, the research and the general experience of online interaction are at odds with your theories. And, once again, my assertion is that those who grew up "online" are worse at picking up the differences. How old are you?
I'm 30. Just on the cusp, but spent most of my formative years internet-free. As for marketable skills: I've done audio editing for a good ten years, but I've only been decent at it for four or five. Done some production work (spanning from setting up for live events to recording to "can I get you more coffee?"), learning more about recording but didn't go to school for it because of the cost. Studying under some Real Deals, though. And I've got a good ear. I have no experience waiting tables, so that's right out.
You already figured that out from another exchange we had. Who says you can't tell anything about a person from brief online interactions? I'm only halfway serious about the job thing. Truth be told, I don't know if I can stand Seattle much longer- we're probably making tracks in the next year. I appreciate even the ghost of seriously considering my request, though.
;-) But there you go - there's no reason to presume I would remember the exchange. I trade emails with seven or eight Redditors regularly. They initially found me through Reddit. But I cannot - for the life of me - keep track of who they are on Reddit. We remember the details that are important, and in a sea with no memory, details like that drift away.