You Don't Know I'm All Right
I used to be a big collector of Bad Religion's music. At some point, I began to pare down my collection to the few recordings I really like. Anyway, one of the CDs I no longer own had a tune by the name, "You Don't Know I'm All Right". Its focus was primarily televangelists and how folks learn to trust them through the television and end up giving away their money, sometimes their life savings, to them.
I often think of this song when I'm on the Internet "meeting" people. The thing that gets me, more than anything else, about online communities like Vox is the certainty people seem to feel about how well they know someone they've run into online. We tend to make rather rapid judgments about others in life in general, but we do it even faster online because of our obvious limitations with the medium.
We will read one post by someone we've not encountered before and make an instant judgment of their character and whether or not this person is a potential "friend" merely based on words and possibly a few photographs. Is it not more often than not that the words we read are, in some way, not honest, and that we are "meeting" what others only wish they were and not the individuals themselves?
I find it positively amazing that those with the most in their online "posse" are so often the least revealing of themselves, the most superficial in general, and the ones carrying the biggest smiles on their Internet faces. And maybe this gets to the heart of it -- are online communities really about true friendship (i.e., being there for someone even during the times you positively can't stand them) or actually about a form of entertainment, call it, "friendship lite"?
It's so easy to make nice, little witty comments sprinkled throughout the sea of cyberspace. Try smelling me after a workout, listening to me when I'm making no sense even to myself, or helping me come to terms with my inner demons. Then we'll see if you're my friend, or if you simply want others to like you by making yourself seem likable.
Comments
"It's so damn easy to make nice, little witty comments sprinkled throughout the sea of cyberspace."
Yeah, no doubt. And, you often get duped into thinking you've made some real connection with someone when you may not really have anything in common at all with that person. It's pathetic, but I often feel like all I can do is just sort of off-handedly make it known that I give a crap with short, choppy statements. The fact is I don't have a lot of time right now to make deep heart-felt comments. Yet, I put this pressure on myself to keep contact with people in my neighborhood even when I don't have anything to say or comment about.
I think it's easy nowadays for people to think they know someone because knowing someone doesn't seem to go very deep. Knowing often gets caught up with surfacy issues. I often catch myself offering up advice about serious issues when I might not feel I have any real place to do so.
Something I do that is bad is add people to my neighborhood on the premise that they've added me or that I read one post they wrote that I really liked. In the scheme of it I may find that overall that person is uninteresting to me. Or, maybe I wish I could un-add them to my blog because I never read anything they post. If I remove them, does that make me shallow? In fact, when you choose to add someone to your neighborhood, VOX pops up with several options of how you want to categorize this person and they recommend that you label them as a friend. There is a pressure to add people. It's almost like "collecting" people and putting them into a little box.
You know, in truth, there's a whole other side to this discussion, and that's that these online communities do people good. I know it's done me good, particularly in the sense that I've become acquainted with people I'd never know otherwise. And hell, I found my wife online, so who am I to criticize meeting people on the Internet?
Being called your friend makes me feel very good.