Behind the Scenes
Online Jerks
Are there people you see writing/publishing/commenting online that you feel like you don’t like, even though you’ve never met them? I’ve been thinking about the way persona comes out of no tone mostly online and how people can seem unlikeable and some people even become so angry as to physically hate the person, based mostly on an exchanging of ideas (even if the idea are, you know, bitchy). I often feel I personally have come off like an ass in situations where if it were bodies talking I wouldn’t have been perceived the same way, and yet I also feel I am better at expressing my opinions in text than I am in speaking. It’s a strange duality. I wonder who people hate and what it is that might make someone dislikable someone based on their online appearance? Is it more childish to judge someone based on their online action or to be childish online in the first place? Have you ever felt you didn’t like someone online and then met them in person and felt differently, or vice versa? I know this shit doesn’t matter really, but I wonder.
I dislike everyone who comments on anything, even people I know and even myself–especially myself.
I have the feeling that I come across as a know-it-all asshole in my posts. I always feel diminished and regretful after I comment on someone else’s post, like I’m trying to ride coat-tails or something.
i hate myself!
i’m a way better actor in person, and i can match an honest critique with a kind, cute facial expression that makes for maximum message absorption, but being that honest online requires ever & ever more elaborate supporting architectures to lower the guard of your conversational partner, which takes too long – since it’s public, so everyone has always got their guards really high, trying to look smart – but since you’d rather be spending your time writing non-ephemeral literature than writing instantly evaporating internet things, you try to have internet conversations where you are “just honest” without regard for your or anyone else’s guard, which makes you come across as rudely overconfident and therefore unnuanced in your thinking
i ain’t so good at either
but in the panopticon of public speech you learn a lot more than in silence; granted it’s mostly stuff about yourself, and it’s stuff that, once you know it, you wish you didn’t know it anymore; but it is knowledge, and ultimately i think that makes you a better writer; in this sense to me interacting online is great “practice” for writing poetry or fiction or whatever that knows as much as it can about itself, the good bad and ugly; it also is great practice for speaking through the greater, wider silences that afflict our culture & keep people imaginatively impoverished; i feel like if you can say something online that’s “honest” and not be afraid of all the different unflattering ways you know you’ll come off–in addition to all the things you learn–if you can get past that fear, you may have a tiny hope of someday writing something fearless
i’m too sensitive for the internet in general.
sing it, leids.
anon comments anon folks
ETOH
no intonation, no timing, pauses = misunderstandings
looking someone in the eye is real
nonverabl 90% of conversation. now remove it
im just thinking here…
but this is a big topic
i mean this is books
essays
i have always wondered why EVERY youtube video ends in a homophobic, racist, disgusting exchange. Always wondered why, from a sociological perspective, I mean as a person curious about life.
Go look. It could be a video about knitting or lawnmower repair or Stalin.
It will end in misogyny, hate, gay-bashing, etc.
Why?
this is a good line of inquiry. i’m glad you’ve made explicit, blake, the stuff we wade through every time we submit comments or hit publish or whatever. i have definitely made careless, if not snap, judgments about people’s online personas. i expect, even as i’m making such judgments, that i’m wrong. i tend to be excessively careful when i comment, which may be considered ‘childish,’ as it’s often motivated by fear–that i’ll be misconstrued, disliked, whatever. i agree with mark, that at its best, presenting oneself ‘publicly’ in various forums can be good practice, a good way to test out different voices, a way to claim one’s bold, tiny corner.
as for your wondering ‘who people hate’–> i sort of hope folks don’t answer this, at least not by naming names. i’m guessing we probably all hate the same things: nambypambiness, self-righteousness, fraud, sycophantism, etc.
it’s rare that i’ve met someone whose stuff/comments/etc i’ve liked online, and haven’t ‘liked’ them in person. it’s more common that i’ve eye-rolled and then been proven way wrong.
you spoke well about this issue too in your recent interview on thought catalog i think.
and i think, as for your last remark–this stuff does matter. once in a while it’s worthwhile to suction our heads out of the vacuum-orifice that is the internet, where so many of us spend so much time, and ask.
jaron lanier draws some crazy brilliant sometimes unreadable conclusions about stuff we say “over the cloud” in his “book” called “you are not a gadget.” a manifesto of sorts. for example, ” a great many of us have experienced being drawn into nasty exchanges online. Everyone who has experienced that has been introduced to his or her inner troll.”
we all feel like trolls at times. but that happens at parties, too.
yes
seems like self hate is the foundation of a large chunk of the internet
There are people I might dislike based on their commenting personas but I will say I respect anyone who has the balls and decency to put their name behind their opinions. The only thing that really frustrates me is anonymous commenters. I don’t understand the point of voicing an opinion you won’t stand behind.
stopped reading after panopticon. come on, man, please.
what about writers posting/publishing under pseudonyms, eh?
I don’t mind pseudonyms. Writers have been using them forever. I suppose it’s ultimately a matter of tone and more often than not anonymous commenters tend to behave in ways that get under my skin.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets really aggravated by this. As people who know me are aware of, I’m a big comic book fan. That means reading comic book websites, which means occasionally reading the comments. You think the anonymous posters here are bad, read a couple threads on Newsarama or Comic Book Resources. Almost everybody there uses some insane name to shield their identities and that gives them carte blanche to shit on every writer and artist in the industry.
What’s funny is that when comic creators are asked if fans ever approach them as viciously in real life as they do on the internet, the answer is always no, that real life fans are absolutely wonderful. It’s disturbing what a single level of removal can do to certain people’s ability to partake in rational discussion.
Whenever I don’t like someone online, I’m always aware of the possibility that I will like them in person. I’ve met some people that are completely different from their online personas.
Strangely enough, the people who I have liked via internet/e-mail exchange I usually like in real life, and the other way around. Online dicks are very often offline dicks.
Only once has this not been the case – Once I met someone who I didnt much care for on line and found them quite nice in real life. Manners.
But isn’t this how we sort of vote for the President and other such things?
Anonymous commenters bother me but often it seems they’re not saying anything.
Which I suppose is in itself a bother.
But less of a bother than when it’s antagonizing the group from behind a mask.
I dislike everyone who comments on anything, even people I know and even myself–especially myself.
I have the feeling that I come across as a know-it-all asshole in my posts. I always feel diminished and regretful after I comment on someone else’s post, like I’m trying to ride coat-tails or something.
i hate myself!
i’m a way better actor in person, and i can match an honest critique with a kind, cute facial expression that makes for maximum message absorption, but being that honest online requires ever & ever more elaborate supporting architectures to lower the guard of your conversational partner, which takes too long – since it’s public, so everyone has always got their guards really high, trying to look smart – but since you’d rather be spending your time writing non-ephemeral literature than writing instantly evaporating internet things, you try to have internet conversations where you are “just honest” without regard for your or anyone else’s guard, which makes you come across as rudely overconfident and therefore unnuanced in your thinking
i ain’t so good at either
Q: “I wonder who people hate and what it is that might make someone dislikable someone based on their online appearance?”
A: it takes v little to make ppl on the internet hate/love u. yr online persona, ‘blake butler’ is fairly hate/love-able which is probably why you are currently running a successful website. this ties directly into yr earlier statement: “I often feel I personally have come off like an ass in situations where if it were bodies talking I wouldn’t have been perceived the same way, and yet I also feel I am better at expressing my opinions in text than I am in speaking.” you already know the score.
Q: “Is it more childish to judge someone based on their online action or to be childish online in the first place?”
A: it is more childish to judge someone based on their online action without question. nothing is childish online because an online social contract hasn’t been codified? i dunno.
Q: Have you ever felt you didn’t like someone online and then met them in person and felt differently, or vice versa?
A: No. Well. I haven’t ‘liked/disliked’ someone because of what they do online beyond thinking ‘they are awesome/suck online’ for a very long time. but i have liked everyone i’ve met/come-to-know online that i’ve ‘met up with’ I-R-L.
a very good point, assuming we do.
but in the panopticon of public speech you learn a lot more than in silence; granted it’s mostly stuff about yourself, and it’s stuff that, once you know it, you wish you didn’t know it anymore; but it is knowledge, and ultimately i think that makes you a better writer; in this sense to me interacting online is great “practice” for writing poetry or fiction or whatever that knows as much as it can about itself, the good bad and ugly; it also is great practice for speaking through the greater, wider silences that afflict our culture & keep people imaginatively impoverished; i feel like if you can say something online that’s “honest” and not be afraid of all the different unflattering ways you know you’ll come off–in addition to all the things you learn–if you can get past that fear, you may have a tiny hope of someday writing something fearless
Same reason they do it on Yahoo! . . . no matter what the article is about.
i’m too sensitive for the internet in general.
i stopped caring about this shit. i found people hated on me more when i was trying to be “nice” and cater to the emotional needs of others.
now i express myself with a genuine nature and have learned to unconditionally love myself. i would like to think my friends know i mean no harm towards them. i am just a bad communicator sometimes.
people who aren’t in my circle of friends I don’t really care how they interpret me.
this model works for me. i wouldn’t suggest it to anyone who wants a “career” or has a political agenda.
a genuine person is almost always mistreated or misconstrued by the insecure majority.
sing it, leids.
Aye. Anger & fear are related and online, both are manifestations of cognitive dissonance. Who fears words? That’s asinine. As I like to say, we’re all equally armed w/ keyboards.
I’d say being thin-skinned is worse than being antagonistic (which I differentiate from trolling, though too many idiots define trolling as ‘mean speech’), because it’s a signal of mental weakness and intellectual dishonesty. Dialogue means that the same rule which permits one party’s speech, must be necessarily reciprocal. People are going to say things you don’t like–tough shit. I think it’s worse to conceal persona online, because then words are being expended for vanity’s sake. What’s the purpose of engaging online if one’s not going to be intellectually honest? It’s mercenary. That’s how I see it. Fake conversation (ie one lacking intellectual honesty) creates intellectual stagnation. The internet bypasses fortifications anyhow, so attempts to censor reasonable speech (like my own in numerous cases last week) only discredits the censor.
And I find it hilarious what sorts of people others consider ‘good folk.’ The traits that people select for are often just traits that reinforce their own vanity. I accept a margin of error in my online judgments of people and I think it’s fucking foolish to do otherwise. There are few, if any, worthy challenges of character to be found online. People that get angry at the literary disposition of another person online are petty.
anon comments anon folks
ETOH
no intonation, no timing, pauses = misunderstandings
looking someone in the eye is real
nonverabl 90% of conversation. now remove it
im just thinking here…
but this is a big topic
i mean this is books
essays
i have always wondered why EVERY youtube video ends in a homophobic, racist, disgusting exchange. Always wondered why, from a sociological perspective, I mean as a person curious about life.
Go look. It could be a video about knitting or lawnmower repair or Stalin.
It will end in misogyny, hate, gay-bashing, etc.
Why?
this is a good line of inquiry. i’m glad you’ve made explicit, blake, the stuff we wade through every time we submit comments or hit publish or whatever. i have definitely made careless, if not snap, judgments about people’s online personas. i expect, even as i’m making such judgments, that i’m wrong. i tend to be excessively careful when i comment, which may be considered ‘childish,’ as it’s often motivated by fear–that i’ll be misconstrued, disliked, whatever. i agree with mark, that at its best, presenting oneself ‘publicly’ in various forums can be good practice, a good way to test out different voices, a way to claim one’s bold, tiny corner.
as for your wondering ‘who people hate’–> i sort of hope folks don’t answer this, at least not by naming names. i’m guessing we probably all hate the same things: nambypambiness, self-righteousness, fraud, sycophantism, etc.
it’s rare that i’ve met someone whose stuff/comments/etc i’ve liked online, and haven’t ‘liked’ them in person. it’s more common that i’ve eye-rolled and then been proven way wrong.
you spoke well about this issue too in your recent interview on thought catalog i think.
and i think, as for your last remark–this stuff does matter. once in a while it’s worthwhile to suction our heads out of the vacuum-orifice that is the internet, where so many of us spend so much time, and ask.
jaron lanier draws some crazy brilliant sometimes unreadable conclusions about stuff we say “over the cloud” in his “book” called “you are not a gadget.” a manifesto of sorts. for example, ” a great many of us have experienced being drawn into nasty exchanges online. Everyone who has experienced that has been introduced to his or her inner troll.”
we all feel like trolls at times. but that happens at parties, too.
First, I’m glad Blake put this up, since it’s been something that’s bothering me for a while, since I often find myself, on forums, really quickly becoming an object of hate. I seem to be always getting into arguments with people, often by just making an almost harmless offhand comment.
Over time I’ve had to learn to keep my opinions to myself.
Second, I disagree with Mark that posting on forums can be good practice for a writer. I think it’s about as good practice as having a conversation with somebody on the bus. What are your posts going to inform you about? Notwithstanding the fact that people read forum posts very, very differently than they read a book (and are likely to interpret a poster as arrogant much more quickly than they’ll do the same for any author) . . . all you’re learning is how to worry more and more about a dubious audience that you’ll never understand and who, honestly, doesn’t want to be understood.
Back to myself and posting on forums: I’ve always thought that my Achille’s Heel is my honesty. I’ve said it on here, as well: a couple times, in the beginning, I posted something and then thought, “Shit, I’m gonna come across as a jerk again!” And then had to adjust my remarks. I’ve been learning, over time, how to walk this fine line. Especially on forums like this one: you want to offer something, but you don’t want to come across as a jerk, and especially not a troll.
Of course, the longer you spend on a forum, among a group of people — so long as you’re honest and they are as well: you will get to understand one another better, learn to accept one another more easily, not unlike ‘real life’, although of course in real life this sort of thing works much more quickly. Human behavior was not shaped in order to learn to understand and deal with one another online — it was shaped in order to learn to understand and deal with one another on a personal basis.
When you take your normal personality and put it online — all these visual cues and vocal cues that you’ve cultivated in order to make people understand you better are now absent. There’s nothing to rely on except for your words.
Why others do NOT to come across as an asshole . . . I think it’s largely that these are just ‘most people’, in other words people who avoid confrontation and touchy subjects at all costs.
I think also it’s just that some of us — like myself — just don’t really belong online. We’re too curious, too honest, too opinionated. Over time we’ve learned to manage this on a personal basis with other people . . . doing so online is a totally different problem.
Finally: I think that, online, a door opens up to us which is not available — especially to writers — in everyday interaction. It’s now all words, words, words, and you say what you think. You’re INVITED to say exactly what you think. You’re invited to viciously attack people you don’t know and never will, because you don’t have to worry about really unfortunate repercussions. It’s a pretty poisonous situation, especially for opinionated writers. We learn to avoid things in everyday interaction, but when online it’s BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH and then we’re shocked when people start attacking us.
If we wouldn’t do this in a bar, why do it online?
But, since it’s so irresistible… well, I guess the only good answer I can give is: emoticons help. A lot.
I think another thing that bugs people is that my posts are often way, way too long.
yes
seems like self hate is the foundation of a large chunk of the internet
I am usually too busy being certain everyone hates me to worry much about hating anyone else. It is not a nice way to live.
There are people I might dislike based on their commenting personas but I will say I respect anyone who has the balls and decency to put their name behind their opinions. The only thing that really frustrates me is anonymous commenters. I don’t understand the point of voicing an opinion you won’t stand behind.
stopped reading after panopticon. come on, man, please.
what about writers posting/publishing under pseudonyms, eh?
interesting. all of this. seriously.
i’ve been thinking a lot lately,
“why is my name herocious online when no one ever calls me herocious offline?”
last night, i realized that i’d like the name herocious, if it were really my name. like plato, aristotle, socrates, or mclovin . . .
but it’s not my real name.
should i use my real name instead of herocious? would that make my words and comments more human, more honest, more meaningful? because if that’s the case, if something so simple could make such a difference, then i’ll start using michael davidson.
or maybe it wouldn’t make a difference.
just thinking aloud here.
I don’t mind pseudonyms. Writers have been using them forever. I suppose it’s ultimately a matter of tone and more often than not anonymous commenters tend to behave in ways that get under my skin.
Yes, Herocious it shall be. I hereby dub thee.
Oh, by the way: In the beginning, when I absolutely refused to use emoticons, I seem to remember people having a really hard time distinguishing whether or not I was being sarcastic, ironic, facetious or serious. Without emoticons, and without the ability to use the normal visual and/or verbal cues to tip people off: it’s hard for complete strangers to tell.
(For example: the above response I gave to Herocious, though presented facetiously, was actually serious. This is how tricky it can be.)
(I guess the only answer is to stop posting on forums.)
I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets really aggravated by this. As people who know me are aware of, I’m a big comic book fan. That means reading comic book websites, which means occasionally reading the comments. You think the anonymous posters here are bad, read a couple threads on Newsarama or Comic Book Resources. Almost everybody there uses some insane name to shield their identities and that gives them carte blanche to shit on every writer and artist in the industry.
What’s funny is that when comic creators are asked if fans ever approach them as viciously in real life as they do on the internet, the answer is always no, that real life fans are absolutely wonderful. It’s disturbing what a single level of removal can do to certain people’s ability to partake in rational discussion.
Whenever I don’t like someone online, I’m always aware of the possibility that I will like them in person. I’ve met some people that are completely different from their online personas.
Or “too” short, sirrah. Since the bears came home, Goldilocks has never been happy.
i like facetiously serious remarks. you also got published in snow monkey? pleasure to meet you!
i was glad to read “growing home”. burying the mirror… that’ll stay with me.
Strangely enough, the people who I have liked via internet/e-mail exchange I usually like in real life, and the other way around. Online dicks are very often offline dicks.
Only once has this not been the case – Once I met someone who I didnt much care for on line and found them quite nice in real life. Manners.
I’ve taken so many Tylenol PMs that I actually read your first sentence as “I like facesitting shiitake remakes.”
Owen, irony, good-natured kidding, supportive criticism, respectful dissent, and so on are hard to catch in print – but they’re often misunderstood face-to-face, too.
I think the question enabling this blogicle’s “wonder” is: do the judgements you make of other people hinge more on their motives – reasonably inferred from the data of their deeds/words – , or do your judgements of other people depend on the projections you impose on that data?
The Stevensian distinction between “discovery” and “imposition” – played out in reading these speluncoglyphs.
How well you understand other people’s words does “matter” – but it’s normal (I think: inescapable) not to know quite how right or wrong you’re getting and being gotten by some particular other perchild.
Is this uncertainty more liberating or more paralyzing? Well – what do you want?
But isn’t this how we sort of vote for the President and other such things?
Awesome, thanks Herocious. And, yes, burying mirrors is the only way to effectively defeat them.
Snow Monkey #18, the final print issue, and the only one that STILL doesn’t appear in Kathryn’s archives… sigh. It makes me look like a liar.
But I still haven’t emailed her about it, because THAT would make me look like a whiner.
See how much I worry about my online persona? There’re so few editors/writers who still like me… .
Yeah… I really ought to email her. Maybe she lost the computer proofs… that’s my only explanation.
Hey, isn’t there a limit to how much acetaminophin you can take without breaking out in a cold sweat? Like… um… 1000mg?
I accidentally overdosed on that stuff once… it wasn’t pleasant, but the effects didn’t last for long.
Yeah. I found that out on 9/2008. I had a resting heartrate of 190 bpm for six hours. The ER doctor kept on asking me if I’d taken cocaine. Cold medicine is a hell of a drug.
Well . . . I don’t wanna rock. I’ve tried that and, well, it didn’t work out.
Nor do I want to be subject to a Stevensian distinction.
But… I don’t know. Having your writings “misunderstood” is often fun. Having your own self (via forum posts) misunderstood is really unpleasant.
The distinction constitutes a description of cognition: in coming to understand/misunderstand – that is, in coming to have a perspective – , one both discovers and imposes. See? – you’re doing both right now.
Owen, what do you mean by distinguishing “your writings” from “your own self (via forum posts)”? What, of “your own self”, is, in fact, in “forum posts” and not in “your writings”? You see what I mean – how are you vulnerable here in a way you aren’t in writing a poem or a story?
Anonymous commenters bother me but often it seems they’re not saying anything.
Which I suppose is in itself a bother.
But less of a bother than when it’s antagonizing the group from behind a mask.
My attempts at this end with something like Owen’s “I guess the only answer is to stop posting on forums”(this post is also way too long). Or not start. Starting is dangerous. Persona is dangerous. I like the idea of posting with jereme’s “a genuine person is almost always mistreated or misconstrued by the insecure majority” in mind, even though I take it as initially insular. Insecure majority, myself included. Why would you begin carefully without insecurity? Why would I trust/take seriously someone who does not act with care.
If web interactions offer opportunity, such as “speaking through the greater, wider silences”, it is because a) you have a heightened awareness of your presentation of “self”, persona b) you try to be concise because of the twitter attn span c) while being concise, you try to communicate complex and often minor or niche specific ideas … so posting on a blog’s comment section can be exploration in rhetoric, content, and depending on the way you handle the persona filter, these places can be touched in engaging, bold ways.
When I read posts and responses, I often have childish, fearful reactions – I dismiss some as stupid, hold others above my level of engagement. I’m insecure about my opinions (though I’ll put my name on them). But insecurity paired with a drive for community is how we’re building and sorting web norms. There’s elitism, ignorance, prejudice, blah blah. I think most cases where someone complains about human conditions permeating webspace is just that, complaining, whining.
The real meat of what forum spaces are doing is connecting people who would never know each other, in ways they could never have connected. Look at Owen and herocius, there. That’s nice. But the notion that “nothing is childish online” by means of a lack of rule or regulation – we’re already regulating. By choosing which comments and posts we respond to, which we quote and link, who we lean toward – there are just as many reinforcements here as face communication. It’s just the medium that’s “new”, and it’s not that new.
Back to web/face interactions. Mine have been consistent and positive. Even in my mid-teens when a kid from a gaming community ended up near me, he spent new years with my non-web-friends. It was good.
First, please: enough with the bold type, man. I can read plain text just fine. Thanks.
Second: Forum posts = what you want to say to somebody, which you do not wish to be misunderstood.
Writings = art. Since the vitality of art is dependent on the audience’s perception: we as artists ought to desire more and more ‘misunderstanding’.
Third: These linguistic games relating to perception by others and the imposition of perceptible forms upon others who might or might not proceed to misperceive them based on the this and the that and the inbetween and the everything else as noted or not noted is simply not very interesting to me.
Q: “I wonder who people hate and what it is that might make someone dislikable someone based on their online appearance?”
A: it takes v little to make ppl on the internet hate/love u. yr online persona, ‘blake butler’ is fairly hate/love-able which is probably why you are currently running a successful website. this ties directly into yr earlier statement: “I often feel I personally have come off like an ass in situations where if it were bodies talking I wouldn’t have been perceived the same way, and yet I also feel I am better at expressing my opinions in text than I am in speaking.” you already know the score.
Q: “Is it more childish to judge someone based on their online action or to be childish online in the first place?”
A: it is more childish to judge someone based on their online action without question. nothing is childish online because an online social contract hasn’t been codified? i dunno.
Q: Have you ever felt you didn’t like someone online and then met them in person and felt differently, or vice versa?
A: No. Well. I haven’t ‘liked/disliked’ someone because of what they do online beyond thinking ‘they are awesome/suck online’ for a very long time. but i have liked everyone i’ve met/come-to-know online that i’ve ‘met up with’ I-R-L.
a very good point, assuming we do.
Same reason they do it on Yahoo! . . . no matter what the article is about.
i stopped caring about this shit. i found people hated on me more when i was trying to be “nice” and cater to the emotional needs of others.
now i express myself with a genuine nature and have learned to unconditionally love myself. i would like to think my friends know i mean no harm towards them. i am just a bad communicator sometimes.
people who aren’t in my circle of friends I don’t really care how they interpret me.
this model works for me. i wouldn’t suggest it to anyone who wants a “career” or has a political agenda.
a genuine person is almost always mistreated or misconstrued by the insecure majority.
Employers + Google = good enough reason not to go painting your name everywhere. A friend of mine just started teaching high school; he got in hot water over something as innocent as mentioning like a Dennis Cooper book or something.
:-/
Aye. Anger & fear are related and online, both are manifestations of cognitive dissonance. Who fears words? That’s asinine. As I like to say, we’re all equally armed w/ keyboards.
I’d say being thin-skinned is worse than being antagonistic (which I differentiate from trolling, though too many idiots define trolling as ‘mean speech’), because it’s a signal of mental weakness and intellectual dishonesty. Dialogue means that the same rule which permits one party’s speech, must be necessarily reciprocal. People are going to say things you don’t like–tough shit. I think it’s worse to conceal persona online, because then words are being expended for vanity’s sake. What’s the purpose of engaging online if one’s not going to be intellectually honest? It’s mercenary. That’s how I see it. Fake conversation (ie one lacking intellectual honesty) creates intellectual stagnation. The internet bypasses fortifications anyhow, so attempts to censor reasonable speech (like my own in numerous cases last week) only discredits the censor.
And I find it hilarious what sorts of people others consider ‘good folk.’ The traits that people select for are often just traits that reinforce their own vanity. I accept a margin of error in my online judgments of people and I think it’s fucking foolish to do otherwise. There are few, if any, worthy challenges of character to be found online. People that get angry at the literary disposition of another person online are petty.
*Also, here, like on most forums I visit, people use the same handles consistently (though it’s not required). That’s good enough for me.
**Also, how weird is this: I got called a “coward” for “hiding” behind a nickname…by some nut named “King Wenclas”. Eh? Does royalty visit the ‘Giant? Or does everyone have weird ideas about what constitutes their True Selves?
First, I’m glad Blake put this up, since it’s been something that’s bothering me for a while, since I often find myself, on forums, really quickly becoming an object of hate. I seem to be always getting into arguments with people, often by just making an almost harmless offhand comment.
Over time I’ve had to learn to keep my opinions to myself.
Second, I disagree with Mark that posting on forums can be good practice for a writer. I think it’s about as good practice as having a conversation with somebody on the bus. What are your posts going to inform you about? Notwithstanding the fact that people read forum posts very, very differently than they read a book (and are likely to interpret a poster as arrogant much more quickly than they’ll do the same for any author) . . . all you’re learning is how to worry more and more about a dubious audience that you’ll never understand and who, honestly, doesn’t want to be understood.
Back to myself and posting on forums: I’ve always thought that my Achille’s Heel is my honesty. I’ve said it on here, as well: a couple times, in the beginning, I posted something and then thought, “Shit, I’m gonna come across as a jerk again!” And then had to adjust my remarks. I’ve been learning, over time, how to walk this fine line. Especially on forums like this one: you want to offer something, but you don’t want to come across as a jerk, and especially not a troll.
Of course, the longer you spend on a forum, among a group of people — so long as you’re honest and they are as well: you will get to understand one another better, learn to accept one another more easily, not unlike ‘real life’, although of course in real life this sort of thing works much more quickly. Human behavior was not shaped in order to learn to understand and deal with one another online — it was shaped in order to learn to understand and deal with one another on a personal basis.
When you take your normal personality and put it online — all these visual cues and vocal cues that you’ve cultivated in order to make people understand you better are now absent. There’s nothing to rely on except for your words.
Why others do NOT to come across as an asshole . . . I think it’s largely that these are just ‘most people’, in other words people who avoid confrontation and touchy subjects at all costs.
I think also it’s just that some of us — like myself — just don’t really belong online. We’re too curious, too honest, too opinionated. Over time we’ve learned to manage this on a personal basis with other people . . . doing so online is a totally different problem.
Finally: I think that, online, a door opens up to us which is not available — especially to writers — in everyday interaction. It’s now all words, words, words, and you say what you think. You’re INVITED to say exactly what you think. You’re invited to viciously attack people you don’t know and never will, because you don’t have to worry about really unfortunate repercussions. It’s a pretty poisonous situation, especially for opinionated writers. We learn to avoid things in everyday interaction, but when online it’s BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH and then we’re shocked when people start attacking us.
If we wouldn’t do this in a bar, why do it online?
But, since it’s so irresistible… well, I guess the only good answer I can give is: emoticons help. A lot.
I think another thing that bugs people is that my posts are often way, way too long.
I am usually too busy being certain everyone hates me to worry much about hating anyone else. It is not a nice way to live.
interesting. all of this. seriously.
i’ve been thinking a lot lately,
“why is my name herocious online when no one ever calls me herocious offline?”
last night, i realized that i’d like the name herocious, if it were really my name. like plato, aristotle, socrates, or mclovin . . .
but it’s not my real name.
should i use my real name instead of herocious? would that make my words and comments more human, more honest, more meaningful? because if that’s the case, if something so simple could make such a difference, then i’ll start using michael davidson.
or maybe it wouldn’t make a difference.
just thinking aloud here.
Yes, Herocious it shall be. I hereby dub thee.
Oh, by the way: In the beginning, when I absolutely refused to use emoticons, I seem to remember people having a really hard time distinguishing whether or not I was being sarcastic, ironic, facetious or serious. Without emoticons, and without the ability to use the normal visual and/or verbal cues to tip people off: it’s hard for complete strangers to tell.
(For example: the above response I gave to Herocious, though presented facetiously, was actually serious. This is how tricky it can be.)
(I guess the only answer is to stop posting on forums.)
Or “too” short, sirrah. Since the bears came home, Goldilocks has never been happy.
i like facetiously serious remarks. you also got published in snow monkey? pleasure to meet you!
i was glad to read “growing home”. burying the mirror… that’ll stay with me.
I’ve taken so many Tylenol PMs that I actually read your first sentence as “I like facesitting shiitake remakes.”
I’ve stopped reading Yahoo comment threads (and if I didn’t use Yahoo mail, I wouldn’t be glancing at Yahoo headlines, either): too much like walking through a gun show/ tractor pull/ klan convention. I think zesty, acid-dipped exchanges are great when they’re stylishly-written and bristling with factoids and ideas… and clever commenters are more likely to be frank when the exchange is heated. But people who can barely think or write, get all their “news” from rightwing radio personalities and would probably be out there in roving packs killing women, queers and ethnic minorities if that weren’t still illegal… reading their comments is too much like looking into the near-future.
Owen, irony, good-natured kidding, supportive criticism, respectful dissent, and so on are hard to catch in print – but they’re often misunderstood face-to-face, too.
I think the question enabling this blogicle’s “wonder” is: do the judgements you make of other people hinge more on their motives – reasonably inferred from the data of their deeds/words – , or do your judgements of other people depend on the projections you impose on that data?
The Stevensian distinction between “discovery” and “imposition” – played out in reading these speluncoglyphs.
How well you understand other people’s words does “matter” – but it’s normal (I think: inescapable) not to know quite how right or wrong you’re getting and being gotten by some particular other perchild.
Is this uncertainty more liberating or more paralyzing? Well – what do you want?
Awesome, thanks Herocious. And, yes, burying mirrors is the only way to effectively defeat them.
Snow Monkey #18, the final print issue, and the only one that STILL doesn’t appear in Kathryn’s archives… sigh. It makes me look like a liar.
But I still haven’t emailed her about it, because THAT would make me look like a whiner.
See how much I worry about my online persona? There’re so few editors/writers who still like me… .
Yeah… I really ought to email her. Maybe she lost the computer proofs… that’s my only explanation.
Hey, isn’t there a limit to how much acetaminophin you can take without breaking out in a cold sweat? Like… um… 1000mg?
I accidentally overdosed on that stuff once… it wasn’t pleasant, but the effects didn’t last for long.
Anyone who thinks it’s preferable for everyone discussing controversial and/or serious matters, in public, to use their legal name, must think Politicians say interesting/honest things. Even famous novelists are very careful to go on record with innocuous statements on certain topics it can only get them in trouble to be frank about.
Yeah. I found that out on 9/2008. I had a resting heartrate of 190 bpm for six hours. The ER doctor kept on asking me if I’d taken cocaine. Cold medicine is a hell of a drug.
Well . . . I don’t wanna rock. I’ve tried that and, well, it didn’t work out.
Nor do I want to be subject to a Stevensian distinction.
But… I don’t know. Having your writings “misunderstood” is often fun. Having your own self (via forum posts) misunderstood is really unpleasant.
The distinction constitutes a description of cognition: in coming to understand/misunderstand – that is, in coming to have a perspective – , one both discovers and imposes. See? – you’re doing both right now.
Owen, what do you mean by distinguishing “your writings” from “your own self (via forum posts)”? What, of “your own self”, is, in fact, in “forum posts” and not in “your writings”? You see what I mean – how are you vulnerable here in a way you aren’t in writing a poem or a story?
My attempts at this end with something like Owen’s “I guess the only answer is to stop posting on forums”(this post is also way too long). Or not start. Starting is dangerous. Persona is dangerous. I like the idea of posting with jereme’s “a genuine person is almost always mistreated or misconstrued by the insecure majority” in mind, even though I take it as initially insular. Insecure majority, myself included. Why would you begin carefully without insecurity? Why would I trust/take seriously someone who does not act with care.
If web interactions offer opportunity, such as “speaking through the greater, wider silences”, it is because a) you have a heightened awareness of your presentation of “self”, persona b) you try to be concise because of the twitter attn span c) while being concise, you try to communicate complex and often minor or niche specific ideas … so posting on a blog’s comment section can be exploration in rhetoric, content, and depending on the way you handle the persona filter, these places can be touched in engaging, bold ways.
When I read posts and responses, I often have childish, fearful reactions – I dismiss some as stupid, hold others above my level of engagement. I’m insecure about my opinions (though I’ll put my name on them). But insecurity paired with a drive for community is how we’re building and sorting web norms. There’s elitism, ignorance, prejudice, blah blah. I think most cases where someone complains about human conditions permeating webspace is just that, complaining, whining.
The real meat of what forum spaces are doing is connecting people who would never know each other, in ways they could never have connected. Look at Owen and herocius, there. That’s nice. But the notion that “nothing is childish online” by means of a lack of rule or regulation – we’re already regulating. By choosing which comments and posts we respond to, which we quote and link, who we lean toward – there are just as many reinforcements here as face communication. It’s just the medium that’s “new”, and it’s not that new.
Back to web/face interactions. Mine have been consistent and positive. Even in my mid-teens when a kid from a gaming community ended up near me, he spent new years with my non-web-friends. It was good.
First, please: enough with the bold type, man. I can read plain text just fine. Thanks.
Second: Forum posts = what you want to say to somebody, which you do not wish to be misunderstood.
Writings = art. Since the vitality of art is dependent on the audience’s perception: we as artists ought to desire more and more ‘misunderstanding’.
Third: These linguistic games relating to perception by others and the imposition of perceptible forms upon others who might or might not proceed to misperceive them based on the this and the that and the inbetween and the everything else as noted or not noted is simply not very interesting to me.
Employers + Google = good enough reason not to go painting your name everywhere. A friend of mine just started teaching high school; he got in hot water over something as innocent as mentioning like a Dennis Cooper book or something.
:-/
*Also, here, like on most forums I visit, people use the same handles consistently (though it’s not required). That’s good enough for me.
**Also, how weird is this: I got called a “coward” for “hiding” behind a nickname…by some nut named “King Wenclas”. Eh? Does royalty visit the ‘Giant? Or does everyone have weird ideas about what constitutes their True Selves?
I’ve stopped reading Yahoo comment threads (and if I didn’t use Yahoo mail, I wouldn’t be glancing at Yahoo headlines, either): too much like walking through a gun show/ tractor pull/ klan convention. I think zesty, acid-dipped exchanges are great when they’re stylishly-written and bristling with factoids and ideas… and clever commenters are more likely to be frank when the exchange is heated. But people who can barely think or write, get all their “news” from rightwing radio personalities and would probably be out there in roving packs killing women, queers and ethnic minorities if that weren’t still illegal… reading their comments is too much like looking into the near-future.
Anyone who thinks it’s preferable for everyone discussing controversial and/or serious matters, in public, to use their legal name, must think Politicians say interesting/honest things. Even famous novelists are very careful to go on record with innocuous statements on certain topics it can only get them in trouble to be frank about.
I’ve always been interested in paranoia online and its attendant grandiose thinking. it goes from the mild i’m-so-honest-people-hate-me to the most absurd conception of a person’s agency in the world. maybe it’s not in greater quantity online than real life but I certainly see it more starkly in the first.
no one’s doing any actual examples here but i’ll say that i was a bit intimidated by blake-online but when i met blake-person he was kind of the nicest guy.
People that get angry at the literary disposition of another person online are petty.
Pettier than contempt for online abortive sorrow and long-winded elation?
Pettier than selecting against the vice of anonymity?
-1. no bold.
/feeling petty.
First: Thank you, Owen, for that splendidly personalized advice.
Different type-faces – ‘fonts’ – are a kind of punctuation, a way of making marks to sort the semantic signs among them meaningfully — and so, punctuation marks, like different type-faces, are (only occasionally phonetic) semantic signs themselves. You see? – punctuation marks, such as a variety of type-faces, are part of a writer’s raw material – like adverbs are. Deploying them is not (necessarily) a sign of condescension, but rather, an invitation – to come-to-understand or to misunderstand, as you will or do.
Second: You distinguish “writings” you want “not […] to be misunderstood” from “writings” you do want “to be misunderstood”. I doubt the usefulness of this “linguistic game”, except as a vehicle to recognize the “art” in conversation and the didacticism in “art”.
Third: Claims of ‘boredom’ feel like victory to you, Owen?
I don’t get it. There are anonymous commenters precisely because anonymous commenting is possible- it’s one of the options available- it’s allowed. What IRL ‘facts’ exactly do anony-dislikers really want to know about anony-commenters, and why does it even make a difference? And there is always the option to just not read anony-comments as their handles (here) aren’t purple.
And, btw, I luvz my Z-boyz ZZZZIPPY and zusie, even though I have no idea where they are, who they are, whether they are boys or girls, phantoms or photons. It doesn’t matter. To me, they are their words.
Christ, Deaders, the guy is a writer… I think he has a fair idea as to what is or isn’t “part of a writer’s raw material”.
Werd.
No one with any self respect calls him King.
Yee-haw, Steven.
I wasn’t talking to Owen ad hominem se, as you’re now talking about him, but rather was engaging ad argumenta eius – in the case of using (or not) these various type-faces, with Owen’s assumption that I was using them because I doubted that he could “read plain text just fine” enough.
It’s as though he’d been teasing me for bad grammar, the supercilious know-it-all.
You mean ” ‘bad grammar’ in a compulsive-pedantic sense, which dogmatically ignores the fact that Language is in constant, usage-driven flux” ? Aha! Carry on, then.
Well… even with the anonymity of the web (since even if you use your real name: who’s going to look you up and come knocking at your door to beat you up?), there’s still the idea that if you’re posting anonymously then you’re not being straightforward with people, you’re being evasive, trollish, you’re not as sincere a player as they are, which is disturbing. It’s like talking to someone on the street who’s wearing a mask, or a pair of dark glasses. Who is this person? Despite the limited freedom that the web gives us (or maybe because of it), we want some element of security, some notion of ‘do I trust this person’.
We’re a strange creature, humanity.
And even when we create all this technology to make our lives easier… it still takes us a while to get used to it. Strange.
Problem is that the inherent anonymity of the web (largely the fact that you’re just one of millions of people online) seems to be largely what draws us to say things we would not normally say in public, and to tell people things we would not normally tell to strangers we meet on the bus. It’s pretty absurd, really. And unhealthy.
…sigh…
Third: Claim of boredom as expressed above by the herenamed was, in essence and intent, invitation to stop being a troll. (Um… isn’t this what we’re discussing?)
Second: Man . . . it’s really, really very simple. On an online forum, you are discussing things with people in a straightforward manner. Most people’s intent is not to play games — as yours seems to be — but to have an honest discussion with a complete stranger. (Now… why we’d want to do that? I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with the anonymity of the web — we can discuss things we would normally not be able to discuss in real life, without the fear of being pushed into the street or being hit over the head with a beer mug.)
So… in this scenario we want people to understand us. Because we’re communicating . . . directly.
When we’re creating art, on the other hand, our intent is not to communicate and be ‘understood’, but to be ‘misunderstood’ . . . we’re deliberately evasive, by necessity and by nature. (And… I have to thank Steven (who’s probably played too much Planescape:Torment, but… he’s still cool) for pointing out that I probably know something of what I’m talking about).
I supose that there’re probably a few people here and there — haven’t met ’em yet — who want to take after the Surrealists and make life itself a game, a work of art. But… most of us don’t like to play Surrealist games day after day. We like some element of what we might call ‘sincerity’ or ‘honesty’ or “being real”. We want to feel like we ‘know’ this person we’re talking to, and you can’t ‘know’ art. I’m sorry, it’s just not possible.
As for the excess punctuation: I think that the reason it bugs me is because you’re coming across as a troll. It’d be easier to accept this little eccentricity of yours if you came across as less troll-like.
Of course, being new here, I’m not strongly familiar with your general behavior patterns. So excuse me if I’m annoyed.
First: No comment on your personalization.
Ahh… it all illustrates everything so nicely, eh? Eh?
(By the way, everyone, I like Planescape as well. Best-written game I’ve seen. That, and then probably The Witcher. There’s just too little good writing in computer games.)
I’ve always been interested in paranoia online and its attendant grandiose thinking. it goes from the mild i’m-so-honest-people-hate-me to the most absurd conception of a person’s agency in the world. maybe it’s not in greater quantity online than real life but I certainly see it more starkly in the first.
no one’s doing any actual examples here but i’ll say that i was a bit intimidated by blake-online but when i met blake-person he was kind of the nicest guy.
“It’s as though he’d been teasing me for bad grammar, the supercilious know-it-all.”
By the way: Is THIS what this is all about?
Really… . Come on. You’re surrounded by know-it-all writers.
I think most bloggers totally miss the point of comments. They drop a post and then hope that readers begin a conversation with other readers. So the various commenters begin to bicker and hate each other unless they go to very great lengths to ingratiate themselves to one another. But that becomes laughably ridiculous and holds less water than a good slugfest between strangers.
But the purpose of comments on blogs is not simply to allow readers to converse. It’s to directly engage the author of the original post. Posting and sitting back to watch comments pile up is childish and irresponsible. You must engage and trade punches with your readers. Otherwise, close down the comments.
I once got into a real nasty bit of an exchange with the moderators over at BoingBoing because I wrote a serious poem for them that used an intentionally misspelled version of the shockingly horrendous ‘C’ word. I very quickly became aware that lurking just underneath the surface of a ragingly liberal blog was a squeamish schoolmarm mentality that would jump through hoops of fire in order to rationalize its own hypocrisies. I became immediately detestable to that particular community simply by defending my use of a word in a purely poetic context.
But at least those folks engaged me directly. They punched and I punched back. That’s what comments are for.
Owen: erm… what’s “Planescape:Torment”…? I spend all my leisure-time fucking or writing
Those cunts!
I always thought that blog comments were merely for people to make simple commentary on the post, and that forums were for people to have discussions?
(htmlG, of course, being an anomaly of sorts.)
I can see that if you’re talking about YouTube and Yahoo! then you’d have a point: but those aren’t blogs. They’re just sites people utilize to get out their frustrations and needle people anonymously . . . just because, while they can’t do it in real life, they can do it there.
I hear what you’re saying but most bloggers simply don’t have the time to spend all day engaging with commenters. You wouldn’t believe how time consuming that can be.
Not to mention annoying.
Of course you do, Steve.
(Damn, this sub-thread is getting so long I have to scroll all the way up in order to post a reply. Well… pin the blame on me, if you want. I’ll take it.)
Here’s the fucking:
http://staugustine2.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/the-endless-thread-7-0/#comment-3723
Here’s (some of) the writing:
http://staugustine2.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/difficult-texts-by-steven-augustine.pdf
http://staugustine2.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/steven-augustines-berlin.pdf
Yes, but there are some bloggers who pick their fights very well and engage with a percentage of comments. In general, this entire blog apparatus that we use on a daily basis is not very well considered. It’s as if everyone is fully satisfied with the work of one rather average coder who slapped a very basic blog format together and walked away. It’s been at a standstill ever since. Both on a technical and a philosophical level.
Here’s an idea for some better blog code: the post self-destructs within 5 days, leaving only the comments.
Oh man! Now you’re in trouble! Oh boy! I better get out of here. I know what happens next!
I just went over to your blog. I love that! That’s great. The comment thread. I’m still trying to figure it all out, but see? That’s what I mean. Engaged. Totally cool.
Thanks, man.
Re: cunt: it’s just that “dick” has lost its sting and we need something stronger…
http://www.scorpionmezcal.com/mezcals/scorpion7.shtml
People that get angry at the literary disposition of another person online are petty.
Pettier than contempt for online abortive sorrow and long-winded elation?
Pettier than selecting against the vice of anonymity?
Interesting site your name links to as well… I’ll lurk around it tonight (it’s about 8:20 pm over here) after my 4-year-old goes to sleep…
PS I raised almost exactly your points about the lazy authorial under-utilization of Comment Thread technology about 3 weeks ago (response: crickets [wearing gas masks] )
Yes, re: the ‘dick’ thing – it’s just that men are so used to calling each other names that they’ve all lost their edge. Nothing surprises a man anymore when you hurl a word at him. It’s too bad really. Then again, since it’s all just done by rote, there’s a measure of safety in that.
Peter: that was wicked, man. I walked right into it…
First: Thank you, Owen, for that splendidly personalized advice.
Different type-faces – ‘fonts’ – are a kind of punctuation, a way of making marks to sort the semantic signs among them meaningfully — and so, punctuation marks, like different type-faces, are (only occasionally phonetic) semantic signs themselves. You see? – punctuation marks, such as a variety of type-faces, are part of a writer’s raw material – like adverbs are. Deploying them is not (necessarily) a sign of condescension, but rather, an invitation – to come-to-understand or to misunderstand, as you will or do.
Second: You distinguish “writings” you want “not […] to be misunderstood” from “writings” you do want “to be misunderstood”. I doubt the usefulness of this “linguistic game”, except as a vehicle to recognize the “art” in conversation and the didacticism in “art”.
Third: Claims of ‘boredom’ feel like victory to you, Owen?
I don’t get it. There are anonymous commenters precisely because anonymous commenting is possible- it’s one of the options available- it’s allowed. What IRL ‘facts’ exactly do anony-dislikers really want to know about anony-commenters, and why does it even make a difference? And there is always the option to just not read anony-comments as their handles (here) aren’t purple.
And, btw, I luvz my Z-boyz ZZZZIPPY and zusie, even though I have no idea where they are, who they are, whether they are boys or girls, phantoms or photons. It doesn’t matter. To me, they are their words.
Christ, Deaders, the guy is a writer… I think he has a fair idea as to what is or isn’t “part of a writer’s raw material”.
Owen, you say you find “excessive punctuation” – by which you refer to a variety of type-faces in posts – to be “coming across as [too] troll-like”. But your post begins with the stage direction: “…sigh…”. You also condescend to signpost your distinction between ‘conversation’ and ‘art’ with: “Man . . . it’s really, really very simple.”
Your theatrics “straightforward”ly reveal your anti-“troll” stance to be, at best, unconsciously contradicted by your practice, and, otherwise than best, insincere.
Third: Now you call babbling your lack of ‘interest’ in “linguistic games” to be an “invitation to stop being a troll”. Owen, your philosophizing is “linguistic games” – to those determined to enforce their superiority to you by virtuously refusing conversation.
You haven’t been exposed to any trolling by me – just an inoffensive joke about ‘too long/short’ (I‘m going to criticize??) and several “direct” responses to issues you raise. Go back and look: before your ‘enough with writing your posts your way, man – thanks’, nothing but polite, even friendly chat from me, and certainly nothing designed merely to provoke unthinking reaction.
Second: Your description of what “we” do “[w]hen we’re creating art” is, indeed, “really, really, very simple”. Also, its falsity is easily demonstrated, by example and by “linguistic games”.
Some art is “evasive” – of course. Anything, for example, that’s constituted by tension between semantic content and meaning-in-context – anything ironic – is bound to feel “evasive” to those who, when the meaning contrary to the superficial meaning is laid bare, feel tricked. And most art admits of – more: imposes – layers of meaning, of effect, that aren’t quickly or soon clear to most audiences.
But Owen, that’s not the effect of an artist ‘trying not to be understood at all‘! Difficulty is not “evasion” “by necessity”.
The ‘unknowability’ of art that you insist is thorough and total is, at every point, mixed or entwined with (imperfect, ever-changing) knowledge of it. And knowably “straightforward, direct” everyday discourse is likewise laced with unintelligibility, with mystery.
First: Not sure what you mean by “your personalization” – I’ve shown, and got, no interest in telling you how to type your comments!
—
By the way, the “supercilious know-it-all” I was scolding was myself. Really… I am “on”.
Now you “come on” and quit being fooled by the straightforward evasion of self-mockery.
Werd.
Steven, you mean “Language is in constant, usage-driven flux” as a truism dogmatically wielded, in its one-sidedness, to the neglect – even to the denial – of “Language”‘s simultaneous persistences? Aha! Carry between, then.
No one with any self respect calls him King.
Yee-haw, Steven.
I wasn’t talking to Owen ad hominem se, as you’re now talking about him, but rather was engaging ad argumenta eius – in the case of using (or not) these various type-faces, with Owen’s assumption that I was using them because I doubted that he could “read plain text just fine” enough.
It’s as though he’d been teasing me for bad grammar, the supercilious know-it-all.
You mean ” ‘bad grammar’ in a compulsive-pedantic sense, which dogmatically ignores the fact that Language is in constant, usage-driven flux” ? Aha! Carry on, then.
Well… even with the anonymity of the web (since even if you use your real name: who’s going to look you up and come knocking at your door to beat you up?), there’s still the idea that if you’re posting anonymously then you’re not being straightforward with people, you’re being evasive, trollish, you’re not as sincere a player as they are, which is disturbing. It’s like talking to someone on the street who’s wearing a mask, or a pair of dark glasses. Who is this person? Despite the limited freedom that the web gives us (or maybe because of it), we want some element of security, some notion of ‘do I trust this person’.
We’re a strange creature, humanity.
And even when we create all this technology to make our lives easier… it still takes us a while to get used to it. Strange.
Problem is that the inherent anonymity of the web (largely the fact that you’re just one of millions of people online) seems to be largely what draws us to say things we would not normally say in public, and to tell people things we would not normally tell to strangers we meet on the bus. It’s pretty absurd, really. And unhealthy.
[T]he purpose of comments on blogs is [. . .] to directly engage the author of the original post.
Alessandro, I don’t understand why you narrow down the thread-function so exclusively to this ‘direct engagement’ (namely, between blogicle author and each commenter).
Sure, when a provocative blogicle provokes, it feels righteous for the blogger to come down to the comment ‘field’ and qualify the blogicle and joke with, agree with, lecture, battle the provokees. Not that self-importance is (all) the glue cementing a conversation together, but – as you say – what else (cool) would be the point of provoking thoughtful, passionate engagement than, well, to respond to it.
But why rule out the (I think: normal) conversational play of pulling on sub-threads, pursuing cross-purposes, veering full-sail into digressions? Perhaps cross-linking thematically cohering comments onto alternate screens would somehow ‘organize’ conversations in accordance with each reader’s priorities and interests, but why are you so against a thread winding where its population unspools it??
I don’t mean to annoy you – I’m just curious what better structure you imagine, in contrast to the commonplace ones (with or without sub-threaded interleafing) that function irritatingly to you.
By the way: your post that I’m reacting to – that’s disappointing to hear about BoingBoing – has little to do with the blogicle’s questions (about online vs. offline personality) . . .
…sigh…
Third: Claim of boredom as expressed above by the herenamed was, in essence and intent, invitation to stop being a troll. (Um… isn’t this what we’re discussing?)
Second: Man . . . it’s really, really very simple. On an online forum, you are discussing things with people in a straightforward manner. Most people’s intent is not to play games — as yours seems to be — but to have an honest discussion with a complete stranger. (Now… why we’d want to do that? I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with the anonymity of the web — we can discuss things we would normally not be able to discuss in real life, without the fear of being pushed into the street or being hit over the head with a beer mug.)
So… in this scenario we want people to understand us. Because we’re communicating . . . directly.
When we’re creating art, on the other hand, our intent is not to communicate and be ‘understood’, but to be ‘misunderstood’ . . . we’re deliberately evasive, by necessity and by nature. (And… I have to thank Steven (who’s probably played too much Planescape:Torment, but… he’s still cool) for pointing out that I probably know something of what I’m talking about).
I supose that there’re probably a few people here and there — haven’t met ’em yet — who want to take after the Surrealists and make life itself a game, a work of art. But… most of us don’t like to play Surrealist games day after day. We like some element of what we might call ‘sincerity’ or ‘honesty’ or “being real”. We want to feel like we ‘know’ this person we’re talking to, and you can’t ‘know’ art. I’m sorry, it’s just not possible.
As for the excess punctuation: I think that the reason it bugs me is because you’re coming across as a troll. It’d be easier to accept this little eccentricity of yours if you came across as less troll-like.
Of course, being new here, I’m not strongly familiar with your general behavior patterns. So excuse me if I’m annoyed.
First: No comment on your personalization.
Ahh… it all illustrates everything so nicely, eh? Eh?
(By the way, everyone, I like Planescape as well. Best-written game I’ve seen. That, and then probably The Witcher. There’s just too little good writing in computer games.)
“It’s as though he’d been teasing me for bad grammar, the supercilious know-it-all.”
By the way: Is THIS what this is all about?
Really… . Come on. You’re surrounded by know-it-all writers.
I think most bloggers totally miss the point of comments. They drop a post and then hope that readers begin a conversation with other readers. So the various commenters begin to bicker and hate each other unless they go to very great lengths to ingratiate themselves to one another. But that becomes laughably ridiculous and holds less water than a good slugfest between strangers.
But the purpose of comments on blogs is not simply to allow readers to converse. It’s to directly engage the author of the original post. Posting and sitting back to watch comments pile up is childish and irresponsible. You must engage and trade punches with your readers. Otherwise, close down the comments.
I once got into a real nasty bit of an exchange with the moderators over at BoingBoing because I wrote a serious poem for them that used an intentionally misspelled version of the shockingly horrendous ‘C’ word. I very quickly became aware that lurking just underneath the surface of a ragingly liberal blog was a squeamish schoolmarm mentality that would jump through hoops of fire in order to rationalize its own hypocrisies. I became immediately detestable to that particular community simply by defending my use of a word in a purely poetic context.
But at least those folks engaged me directly. They punched and I punched back. That’s what comments are for.
Owen: erm… what’s “Planescape:Torment”…? I spend all my leisure-time fucking or writing
Those cunts!
I always thought that blog comments were merely for people to make simple commentary on the post, and that forums were for people to have discussions?
(htmlG, of course, being an anomaly of sorts.)
I can see that if you’re talking about YouTube and Yahoo! then you’d have a point: but those aren’t blogs. They’re just sites people utilize to get out their frustrations and needle people anonymously . . . just because, while they can’t do it in real life, they can do it there.
I hear what you’re saying but most bloggers simply don’t have the time to spend all day engaging with commenters. You wouldn’t believe how time consuming that can be.
i feel like online and irl personas are converging more and more. like the gap is closing as time goes on, especially as facebook has matured. i find myself not engaging as much as i used to in online discussions, reverting to my real life tendency of being the quietest person in the room and avoiding conflict.
Not to mention annoying.
Not to the neglect or denial of but *including*, Ddrs… including!
Of course you do, Steve.
(Damn, this sub-thread is getting so long I have to scroll all the way up in order to post a reply. Well… pin the blame on me, if you want. I’ll take it.)
Here’s the fucking:
http://staugustine2.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/the-endless-thread-7-0/#comment-3723
Here’s (some of) the writing:
http://staugustine2.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/difficult-texts-by-steven-augustine.pdf
http://staugustine2.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/steven-augustines-berlin.pdf
Yes, but there are some bloggers who pick their fights very well and engage with a percentage of comments. In general, this entire blog apparatus that we use on a daily basis is not very well considered. It’s as if everyone is fully satisfied with the work of one rather average coder who slapped a very basic blog format together and walked away. It’s been at a standstill ever since. Both on a technical and a philosophical level.
Here’s an idea for some better blog code: the post self-destructs within 5 days, leaving only the comments.
Oh man! Now you’re in trouble! Oh boy! I better get out of here. I know what happens next!
I just went over to your blog. I love that! That’s great. The comment thread. I’m still trying to figure it all out, but see? That’s what I mean. Engaged. Totally cool.
Thanks, man.
Re: cunt: it’s just that “dick” has lost its sting and we need something stronger…
http://www.scorpionmezcal.com/mezcals/scorpion7.shtml
Interesting site your name links to as well… I’ll lurk around it tonight (it’s about 8:20 pm over here) after my 4-year-old goes to sleep…
PS I raised almost exactly your points about the lazy authorial under-utilization of Comment Thread technology about 3 weeks ago (response: crickets [wearing gas masks] )
Yes, re: the ‘dick’ thing – it’s just that men are so used to calling each other names that they’ve all lost their edge. Nothing surprises a man anymore when you hurl a word at him. It’s too bad really. Then again, since it’s all just done by rote, there’s a measure of safety in that.
Peter: that was wicked, man. I walked right into it…
deadgod . . . all sarcasm aside, this time:
I’ll make this response only in the case that it might be important. I was inclined to ignore you, but then I remembered something:
I have the feeling I’ve ‘met’ people like you when I used to hang out on Tribe.net, years ago. You just try to hard to come across as highly intellectual and well-read. You don’t have to try. If you’re honest, and contribute something honestly and don’t starts splitting hairs unnecessarily: I’ll like you and respect you and I’ll respond to your questions honestly and respectfully. (The typefacing actually has nothing to do with it.) I’m not singling you out as somebody I’m going to disrespect.
When I was at Tribe.net (don’t bother looking me up there, I used a handle), I went in thinking I was going to find interesting people. I left having met only one — and it turned out to be the very one I initially thought was a phony, who was over-elaborating, trying to impress people. But I’d thought… maybe I’ll give him the benefit of an open mind, perhaps he’s not a phony after all, perhaps he’s the real deal.
He ended up being the only person on all of Tribe.net whom I’d had any respect for. For two reasons: 1. He was adamant about what he believed in, and wholly honest, and 2. He was as interested in what I had to say as what he had to say. He wasn’t there to just prove his ego to everyone, he was there to have real, honest debates with people. I could disagree with him on an honest level, without either of us misunderstanding and getting angry.
What he was trying to do was to understand things. So he would drill, until he thought he understood . . . or: he would explain and explain his way of seeing things, trying to get people to understand him.
He wasn’t very popular. I remember I’d defend him against people. A couple of them, both on my ‘friends’ list (but.. um… not for long), I flatly told “I respect him more than you, or anyone else here.” I meant it. I disagreed with him on an awful lot, but I respected him.
But that was a long time ago. Now I’m more mature and I’m through being yet another asshole.
Now, as for you: I don’t know. I haven’t been around here long enough to have a good idea about your behavior. I can say that you started giving me the troll impression in the post that begins “The distinction constitutes a description of cognition”.
The typefaces are not something that, in themselves, bother me. They only began to bother me in context. What happened was that you replied to me, honestly, asking me a question that I thought was little more than trying to split hairs and trying to confuse people linguistically . . . there honestly didn’t seem to be much there for me to actually answer. And then, the confrontational attitude . . . well, it sort of turns me off.
So… okay… if there’s been a misunderstanding, then let’s get over that. But remember: this game-playing of yours is not something I take as honest engagement.
Two things:
1. It’s well and fine that you’ve pointed out my misuse of the phrase “excess punctuation” to refer to typeface. Punctuation isn’t, of course, what I’d meant to refer to.
2. I don’t think that there is anything about art that is truly ‘knowable’ (although I defy everyone who suggests that art cannot be defined), and I’ll argue that the process of ‘misunderstanding’ is one aspect of how one might describe the experience that the audience has with art. Herein lies the ‘necessity’ of misunderstanding and miscommunication. Of course… we can have a separate discussion some other time — maybe we all should, at some point — about what art is and what its purpose is.
Finally: Steven: My mistake, man. Interesting stuff. Carry on, then, and go with Zerthimon.
Darby: Are you and Lain of the Wired one and the same?
Owen, you say you find “excessive punctuation” – by which you refer to a variety of type-faces in posts – to be “coming across as [too] troll-like”. But your post begins with the stage direction: “…sigh…”. You also condescend to signpost your distinction between ‘conversation’ and ‘art’ with: “Man . . . it’s really, really very simple.”
Your theatrics “straightforward”ly reveal your anti-“troll” stance to be, at best, unconsciously contradicted by your practice, and, otherwise than best, insincere.
Third: Now you call babbling your lack of ‘interest’ in “linguistic games” to be an “invitation to stop being a troll”. Owen, your philosophizing is “linguistic games” – to those determined to enforce their superiority to you by virtuously refusing conversation.
You haven’t been exposed to any trolling by me – just an inoffensive joke about ‘too long/short’ (I‘m going to criticize??) and several “direct” responses to issues you raise. Go back and look: before your ‘enough with writing your posts your way, man – thanks’, nothing but polite, even friendly chat from me, and certainly nothing designed merely to provoke unthinking reaction.
Second: Your description of what “we” do “[w]hen we’re creating art” is, indeed, “really, really, very simple”. Also, its falsity is easily demonstrated, by example and by “linguistic games”.
Some art is “evasive” – of course. Anything, for example, that’s constituted by tension between semantic content and meaning-in-context – anything ironic – is bound to feel “evasive” to those who, when the meaning contrary to the superficial meaning is laid bare, feel tricked. And most art admits of – more: imposes – layers of meaning, of effect, that aren’t quickly or soon clear to most audiences.
But Owen, that’s not the effect of an artist ‘trying not to be understood at all‘! Difficulty is not “evasion” “by necessity”.
The ‘unknowability’ of art that you insist is thorough and total is, at every point, mixed or entwined with (imperfect, ever-changing) knowledge of it. And knowably “straightforward, direct” everyday discourse is likewise laced with unintelligibility, with mystery.
First: Not sure what you mean by “your personalization” – I’ve shown, and got, no interest in telling you how to type your comments!
—
By the way, the “supercilious know-it-all” I was scolding was myself. Really… I am “on”.
Now you “come on” and quit being fooled by the straightforward evasion of self-mockery.
Steven, you mean “Language is in constant, usage-driven flux” as a truism dogmatically wielded, in its one-sidedness, to the neglect – even to the denial – of “Language”‘s simultaneous persistences? Aha! Carry between, then.
[T]he purpose of comments on blogs is [. . .] to directly engage the author of the original post.
Alessandro, I don’t understand why you narrow down the thread-function so exclusively to this ‘direct engagement’ (namely, between blogicle author and each commenter).
Sure, when a provocative blogicle provokes, it feels righteous for the blogger to come down to the comment ‘field’ and qualify the blogicle and joke with, agree with, lecture, battle the provokees. Not that self-importance is (all) the glue cementing a conversation together, but – as you say – what else (cool) would be the point of provoking thoughtful, passionate engagement than, well, to respond to it.
But why rule out the (I think: normal) conversational play of pulling on sub-threads, pursuing cross-purposes, veering full-sail into digressions? Perhaps cross-linking thematically cohering comments onto alternate screens would somehow ‘organize’ conversations in accordance with each reader’s priorities and interests, but why are you so against a thread winding where its population unspools it??
I don’t mean to annoy you – I’m just curious what better structure you imagine, in contrast to the commonplace ones (with or without sub-threaded interleafing) that function irritatingly to you.
By the way: your post that I’m reacting to – that’s disappointing to hear about BoingBoing – has little to do with the blogicle’s questions (about online vs. offline personality) . . .
i feel like online and irl personas are converging more and more. like the gap is closing as time goes on, especially as facebook has matured. i find myself not engaging as much as i used to in online discussions, reverting to my real life tendency of being the quietest person in the room and avoiding conflict.
Not to the neglect or denial of but *including*, Ddrs… including!
try to[o] hard to come across as highly intellectual and well-read
As I said, Owen, I don’t think you realize what my responses to your posts are ‘attempts to do’. All my comments have been “honest” workings-out of my point of view, and phrased in the way that I post online ‘naturally’.
Nor did I ‘split hairs’. Here’s the example that was grist to your sneer: the distinction between a perception discovered, unfiltered (mostly) by anticipations that structure an experience in advance of it, and a perception (largely) imposed by those anticipations.
This basic problem of phenomenology is not a quibble, Owen – and this philosopheme came up (from my perspective) entirely in the thread’s context, the context you’re talking about to me now: what, of what one infers or intuits from a bunch of posts, is the other poster’s “honest” perspective? what’s the other person really trying to appear as or say or be?
You throw expressions like “troll” and “game-playing” and “confrontational attitude” around – as I’ve suggested, I think: accusations ironically advanced – , and your evidence now is: “The distinction [which I’ve just re-phrased] constitutes a description of cognition.” Owen, that’s actually a too-unqualified, but at-such-brevity accurate, assertion of (what I say is) the basic problem of phenomenology. That post was a “direct” response largely to your “Nor do I want to be subject to a Stevensian distinction.” – really: scroll up and take a look.
You’re liberal with your desire for “honesty”. Cool; me, too. I think claims of having detected efforts to impress, of distaste for ‘pretension’, are usually produced by the competitiveness and/or insecurity of the accuser. I didn’t think the phrase “excess punctuation” was ‘misused’ — I was saying that you’re guilty on your terms – not mine, not yet – of “coming across as a troll”.
Maybe we can interact with you taking my dense – clotted? circumlocutious? needlessly sesquipedalian? – way of thread-chat, and badinage, as “honest” (enough), and maybe you’ll just Scroll Right Past. Either way, Owen, it’s your “honesty” that you’ll be testing – not mine.
deadgod . . . all sarcasm aside, this time:
I’ll make this response only in the case that it might be important. I was inclined to ignore you, but then I remembered something:
I have the feeling I’ve ‘met’ people like you when I used to hang out on Tribe.net, years ago. You just try to hard to come across as highly intellectual and well-read. You don’t have to try. If you’re honest, and contribute something honestly and don’t starts splitting hairs unnecessarily: I’ll like you and respect you and I’ll respond to your questions honestly and respectfully. (The typefacing actually has nothing to do with it.) I’m not singling you out as somebody I’m going to disrespect.
When I was at Tribe.net (don’t bother looking me up there, I used a handle), I went in thinking I was going to find interesting people. I left having met only one — and it turned out to be the very one I initially thought was a phony, who was over-elaborating, trying to impress people. But I’d thought… maybe I’ll give him the benefit of an open mind, perhaps he’s not a phony after all, perhaps he’s the real deal.
He ended up being the only person on all of Tribe.net whom I’d had any respect for. For two reasons: 1. He was adamant about what he believed in, and wholly honest, and 2. He was as interested in what I had to say as what he had to say. He wasn’t there to just prove his ego to everyone, he was there to have real, honest debates with people. I could disagree with him on an honest level, without either of us misunderstanding and getting angry.
What he was trying to do was to understand things. So he would drill, until he thought he understood . . . or: he would explain and explain his way of seeing things, trying to get people to understand him.
He wasn’t very popular. I remember I’d defend him against people. A couple of them, both on my ‘friends’ list (but.. um… not for long), I flatly told “I respect him more than you, or anyone else here.” I meant it. I disagreed with him on an awful lot, but I respected him.
But that was a long time ago. Now I’m more mature and I’m through being yet another asshole.
Now, as for you: I don’t know. I haven’t been around here long enough to have a good idea about your behavior. I can say that you started giving me the troll impression in the post that begins “The distinction constitutes a description of cognition”.
The typefaces are not something that, in themselves, bother me. They only began to bother me in context. What happened was that you replied to me, honestly, asking me a question that I thought was little more than trying to split hairs and trying to confuse people linguistically . . . there honestly didn’t seem to be much there for me to actually answer. And then, the confrontational attitude . . . well, it sort of turns me off.
So… okay… if there’s been a misunderstanding, then let’s get over that. But remember: this game-playing of yours is not something I take as honest engagement.
Two things:
1. It’s well and fine that you’ve pointed out my misuse of the phrase “excess punctuation” to refer to typeface. Punctuation isn’t, of course, what I’d meant to refer to.
2. I don’t think that there is anything about art that is truly ‘knowable’ (although I defy everyone who suggests that art cannot be defined), and I’ll argue that the process of ‘misunderstanding’ is one aspect of how one might describe the experience that the audience has with art. Herein lies the ‘necessity’ of misunderstanding and miscommunication. Of course… we can have a separate discussion some other time — maybe we all should, at some point — about what art is and what its purpose is.
Finally: Steven: My mistake, man. Interesting stuff. Carry on, then, and go with Zerthimon.
Darby: Are you and Lain of the Wired one and the same?
deadgod, my friend… don’t you see? All of this handwringing is unnecessary. All this throwing about of molecular words and esoteric references, the sticky coagulation of hair, this desperate quest for specificity, this micro-intensive query farm you cultivate . . . whatever you want to call it, it’s not necessary. There’s a whole forest out there, and look: those forests grow on hills. And beyond those hills?
??
It’s not that I’m avoiding scrutiny . . . it’s just that there’s a limit to how long I’m willing to look into that microscope before my second eye gets tired of squinting.
try to[o] hard to come across as highly intellectual and well-read
As I said, Owen, I don’t think you realize what my responses to your posts are ‘attempts to do’. All my comments have been “honest” workings-out of my point of view, and phrased in the way that I post online ‘naturally’.
Nor did I ‘split hairs’. Here’s the example that was grist to your sneer: the distinction between a perception discovered, unfiltered (mostly) by anticipations that structure an experience in advance of it, and a perception (largely) imposed by those anticipations.
This basic problem of phenomenology is not a quibble, Owen – and this philosopheme came up (from my perspective) entirely in the thread’s context, the context you’re talking about to me now: what, of what one infers or intuits from a bunch of posts, is the other poster’s “honest” perspective? what’s the other person really trying to appear as or say or be?
You throw expressions like “troll” and “game-playing” and “confrontational attitude” around – as I’ve suggested, I think: accusations ironically advanced – , and your evidence now is: “The distinction [which I’ve just re-phrased] constitutes a description of cognition.” Owen, that’s actually a too-unqualified, but at-such-brevity accurate, assertion of (what I say is) the basic problem of phenomenology. That post was a “direct” response largely to your “Nor do I want to be subject to a Stevensian distinction.” – really: scroll up and take a look.
You’re liberal with your desire for “honesty”. Cool; me, too. I think claims of having detected efforts to impress, of distaste for ‘pretension’, are usually produced by the competitiveness and/or insecurity of the accuser. I didn’t think the phrase “excess punctuation” was ‘misused’ — I was saying that you’re guilty on your terms – not mine, not yet – of “coming across as a troll”.
Maybe we can interact with you taking my dense – clotted? circumlocutious? needlessly sesquipedalian? – way of thread-chat, and badinage, as “honest” (enough), and maybe you’ll just Scroll Right Past. Either way, Owen, it’s your “honesty” that you’ll be testing – not mine.
deadgod, my friend… don’t you see? All of this handwringing is unnecessary. All this throwing about of molecular words and esoteric references, the sticky coagulation of hair, this desperate quest for specificity, this micro-intensive query farm you cultivate . . . whatever you want to call it, it’s not necessary. There’s a whole forest out there, and look: those forests grow on hills. And beyond those hills?
??
It’s not that I’m avoiding scrutiny . . . it’s just that there’s a limit to how long I’m willing to look into that microscope before my second eye gets tired of squinting.
MIMI YES
THE ANON-DISLIKE EXPRESSED ABOVE IS ALARMING
COMMENTING ANONYMOUSLY IS A NECESSARY PART OF THE PAGEANTRY
MIMI YES
THE ANON-DISLIKE EXPRESSED ABOVE IS ALARMING
COMMENTING ANONYMOUSLY IS A NECESSARY PART OF THE PAGEANTRY
Pageantry, eh?
Interesting… .
But I don’t see why the distaste that many people have for anonymous posters should be alarming, considering we’ve been aware of it for so long. Myself, I was just trying to put words to what I’ve observed, and what I thought might explain it… I’ve never really thought about it, before.
I think that it really only bothers people when the anonymous poster makes a challenge or an attack against somebody. Then, obviously, the name “anonymous” takes on a more critical meaning.
Anyway: I find the view of web-presence-as-pageantry to be interesting, but… I don’t agree with it. We’re all here for a reason, obviously, and I think (like I’ve said before) it’s so that we can have frank discussions, with strangers from all over the world, that we can’t have in real life. Like a sort of compensation.
So… maybe it isn’t so unhealthy, after all.
Pageantry, eh?
Interesting… .
But I don’t see why the distaste that many people have for anonymous posters should be alarming, considering we’ve been aware of it for so long. Myself, I was just trying to put words to what I’ve observed, and what I thought might explain it… I’ve never really thought about it, before.
I think that it really only bothers people when the anonymous poster makes a challenge or an attack against somebody. Then, obviously, the name “anonymous” takes on a more critical meaning.
Anyway: I find the view of web-presence-as-pageantry to be interesting, but… I don’t agree with it. We’re all here for a reason, obviously, and I think (like I’ve said before) it’s so that we can have frank discussions, with strangers from all over the world, that we can’t have in real life. Like a sort of compensation.
So… maybe it isn’t so unhealthy, after all.