You! Out of my internet!

[dolorosa_12]

This post has been building in me for a long, long time. To a certain extent, it's tilting at straw men, as you may conclude when you've read it, but it's something I really need to say.

It was The Social Network that tipped me over the edge, much to my mortification. Or, not so much The Social Network but the promotional material associated with it.


In just about every interview and review I read, I found the same quote by writer Aaron Sorkin. I'm paraphrasing, but essentially, what he said was 'I don't like the internet. I don't like Facebook. I think they are really dangerous and harmful because they allow you to create this whole idealised persona, they allow you to be someone else and present an alternate version of yourself to the world.'

Every time I read that quote, I flinched. It was hard to imagine anyone so comprehensively Getting It Wrong.

(Now, I'm obviously not a disinterested observer when it comes to all things internet. I would say that I'm online for at least 50 per cent of the day. I maintain an online presence at Livejournal (obviously), two Wordpress blogs, two fandom-related forums, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Goodreads, Youtube and Last.fm. I contribute to two other blogs, as well as the discussion in the comments of multiple other blogs. I have two entire circles of friends online, some of whom I've met irl, some of whom I intend to meet irl when I get to the right continent, and several of whom I may never be able to meet irl. I've dated someone I met online through one of my forums. I'm just about as immersed in the online world as it's possible to get.)

I object to Sorkin's comments for two reasons. The first is that, in spite of the popular (offline) perception, Facebook is NOT the internet. In fact, Facebook is not even representative of social media. Facebook is the social media tool used by people who don't, otherwise, spend a lot of time online.

Now I don't mean that people who spend lots of time online don't use Facebook. Clearly this is not the case. The point is that Facebook is the most visible element of Web 2.0, used by 35-year-old newspaper journalists and 50-year-old empty-nesters (to pluck two random examples out of the ether) who otherwise only use the internet for email and possibly research. (Just so we're clear, I'm not saying that all 35-year-old journalists or 50-year-old empty-nesters are like this. These are fabricated examples.) The thing about Facebook is that it is known to people who don't like the internet, and taken up as representative of the entire internet, or of all places online where people socialise.

This is so patently wrong that I don't know where to begin. If we're talking places where 'young people' hang out with their friends online, Facebook is simply the most recent incarnation. When I was a teenager in the late 90s and early 2000s, it was all about ICQ and later, MSN. My sister and her crowd had MySpace (and I'm told Bebo was popular elsewhere, although it never really made much impact in Australia, as far as I'm aware). And that's only since the mid-90s. There are things of which I'm only dimly cognisant (UseNet?) from the earlier days of the internet on which I don't feel qualified to comment.

If we're talking the last five years or so, there are MYRIAD places where people congregate online. Livejournal and LJ-clone blogging sites. Forums. Twitter and Tumblr. The comments of other blogs, news and commentary articles, webcomics, Youtube, the IMDb boards (although if you're looking for rational discussion, I'd give these last two a miss!), Deviantart, every online game ever (although I'm not a gamer and again don't feel qualified to comment) and Wikipedia and other wiki-based sites. And these are only the places that I can think of at the top of my head and that I've encountered myself. Each one (and by this I mean 'each forum', not 'forums in general', for example) has unique characteristics and its users socialise there in a different way. This is because these corners of the internet are shaped by their users. We bring our own baggage and personalities and requirements to each place, and the different combinations of people at each place creates a different atmosphere at each. To judge all of them by the standard of Facebook is ridiculous.

You might think this is my main criticism, but it's not. My biggest issue with Sorkin's complaint is the idea that the internet somehow makes it easier for you to 'create a false persona', or that this is indeed what the majority of internet users want to do.

I can only speak for myself, but I've found precisely the opposite to be true: the internet allows people to be themselves more perfectly and completely. I'm not naïve. I do realise that the internet enables people to have more control over how they present themselves. But in 90 per cent of my experience, this results in people being more open and honest with those online than they would in real life. I know things about some of my online friends that they have never told their 'real life' friends. The first person I told about the worst thing that ever happened to me was thelxiepia. The second and third were soapyhermit and watch_them_grow. (I'm not a hugely private person, so most of my real life friends know too, but I had to tell online people first, not because they were online, but because I felt safest with them because they knew me so completely.)

The appeal of online friends is not that you can present yourself in a more positive light than would be possible 'in real life'. It's that it's easier to find your tribe. There is a community online for everything. That being said, the best online friends - as with the best real-life friends - quickly move beyond being friends who share interests into people with whom you share a common history. We are like any other group of friends. We help one another - I've edited many CVs, job applications, essays and stories, I know the more scientifically-minded sraffies help one another with homework, we help one another agree on outfits when we're going out. We care about one another - there is not a sraffie I've not talked to about seriously troubling stuff, and pretty much all of them have talked me down from some pretty dreadful emotional window-ledges. We watch films and tv shows together, we listen to music together, we talk every day. We speak our own language, we have in-jokes and internal references. We recommend music and TV shows and films and food and books and fanfic and hairstyles and clothing to one another. We meet up irl when we can, and some of us are married, and some of us are engaged, and some of us are dating and some of us used to date but I refuse to hold these things up as examples that somehow legitimise our friendship, as if it's somehow not real unless it has a 'real world' component. The point is that once you reach a certain level of closeness with any friends, the distinctions between online and 'real world' become increasingly blurred.

The one danger of online friends is, perhaps, that because there exists a community for everything, it's much easier to surround yourself only with like-minded people, so that your opinions and prejudices are never challenged. But there's a danger of that in the real world too. Most friendship groups are based on shared experiences, opinions and values, as too much disagreement destroys social cohesion.

The internet is neither a force for good or a tool of evil. It just is. It is no better, and no worse than the ideals, desires and needs of the people and communities who use it. But my friendships with the sraffies, the Obernetters and the other people I know online have enriched my life in so many ways. I'm tired of being told that we are creating false personae. I'm tired of being told that our friendships are somehow lesser, or less meaningful, or less real, than those forged entirely in the 'real world'. My 'real world' includes the internet and the people on it.

Comments

[cereswunderkind.livejournal.com]

You must have heard of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Presentation_of_Self_in_Everyday_Life

[cereswunderkind.livejournal.com]

E.M. Forster predicted Srafcons - "we touch, we talk, not through the Machine." The Machine Stops (1909)

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

I'd not actually heard of that before, but it does seem somewhat appropriate.

[cykotyks.livejournal.com]

The internet is neither a force for good or a tool of evil. It just is.

This.

I quoted your paraphrased quote to my partner, who was all "Because we totally don't do that anyway." Most people have learned to put on masks and personae in order to deal with the rest of the world. The way you act around your parents is different from the way you act around your friends - they're both you, essentially, just different facets.

But yeah, I think that mindset, that the internet is somehow a dangerous place full of stalkers, pedophiles, and creepy old men who just want in your pants, comes from the overabundance of news on such things. But you can do that with anything: if the news only reports crimes that happen at night, then people are going to start thinking that the nighttime is really dangerous, not really taking into account that the news isn't reporting the non-events (ie, the times at night when crimes aren't taking place). That's what's happening with the internet - people hear about all these horrible things happening via the internet and they simply jump to conclusions that the internet is a dangerous place. Add on top of that the people who wrongly base virtue on looks and assume that if you can't see their face, you can't know if they're a bad person, or that somehow it's easier to parade around as someone you're not. And yeah, some people may find it easier to be a liar on the internet, but those same people are also probably liars offline, too.

I'm in the same boat as you - most people I've met online have been more honest versions of the people they are offline. My partner even admitted that if he'd met me offline, he'd be terrified to speak to me, but he had no problem with it online. It was probably the only way we could have met, barring some intervention on a mutual friend's part. For him and people like him who have social anxiety problems, the internet is a great way to exercise being social without the consequence of, say, the person you're talking to witnessing you have a panic attack. (Not to mention it's the only way I'm saying so much on this subject, despite barely having talked to you :P) Plus, it allows tiny minority groups to find each other more easily and find solidarity. The only reason I learned about what was wrong with my head was because of the internet, and without it, I'd still be a confused wreck, wildly unhappy with my life and everyone in it.

There is just as much good in the internet as there is bad, just like there are as many good people as there are bad. It's a balance. And with something that is completely and utterly dependent on the people who contribute to it, it is nothing more than a reflection of the human race as a whole. And you cannot definitively say that the human race is all bad or all good. The same thing goes for the internet.

And I'm sorry for writing so much - that quote rubs me the wrong way, too, and...I get fairly verbose about things that rub me the wrong way xD;;

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry for taking so long to get back to you. Fittingly enough, I was in London for the day with some of those false personae, otherwise known as internet friends...

I agree with pretty much everything you say, although my experiences - and what I get from the internet - are somewhat different, which isn't surprising, considering that everyone brings his or her own personality and needs to the internet communities he or she participates in.

That attitude that the internet is dangerous is just the same as people who think there's a crime wave when in fact all that's going on is that a lot of crime is making headlines. Bad news and tragedies make headlines. '5 million people hang around online, having fun' does not.

There is just as much good in the internet as there is bad, just like there are as many good people as there are bad. It's a balance. And with something that is completely and utterly dependent on the people who contribute to it, it is nothing more than a reflection of the human race as a whole. And you cannot definitively say that the human race is all bad or all good. The same thing goes for the internet.

Well, you managed to say in a paragraph what took me a 1000-word rant to articulate, but yeah. This.

[(Anonymous)]

I am sick of reading facebook hate. On the one hand- I don't think Mark Zuckerberg is a posterchild of integrity and there are privacy concerns etc. But there is a level of control: you can hide your profile, untag yourself in unincriminating photos, only add as friends people you know (which is what most people I know do). But people are so hysterical about it, its frustrating. And I think you're right, facebook is different from other online communities, I think often other communities are about meeting new people based around shared interests where facebook is more around talking to people you already know (like IM and so on).
Anyway, less of this 'internet is evil' thing would be good.

-Catie

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

I know! Facebook isn't the greatest place online, and it's not even the greatest social media site in the world, but it's not inherently evil, just as the internet itself is not inherently evil.

The people who are hysterical are having exactly the same reaction that fearful people have always had to social and technological change that they don't understand.

[ansketil-rose.livejournal.com]

I feel exactly the same way! I have internet friends who are very, very dear to me that I have never met IRL. And I'm sick of having to defend myself when chatting to RL friends when I say "I was talking about this on livejournal and one of my friends said..." People roll their eyes and make very irritating assumptions. There is also the idea that internet friendships are something "for teenagers". I mostly refer to my dear internet friends as "pen pals" because most people IRL seem to respect the tradition far more.

As a woman who switches between several masks a day, what you've said about personae really resonates with me. The internet is definitely a place I use in order to remove those masks.

Thank you for posting this! <3

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome. I imagine I'm kind of preaching to the choir here, since the majority of people who read my LJ are online friends and acquaintances of some description.

That's appalling that you have to resort to calling your internet friends 'pen pals'. Luckily my real-life friends and family are pretty accepting/understanding of the validity and strength of my online friendships, or at least tactful enough to keep their feelings to themselves.

[fairies-exist.livejournal.com]

Well, I agree with a lot of this. I have made some very close friendships in my last 7 years online. I spent a few years "at home" on a forum, and then moved here to LJ. I love it dearly. I have shared the best and worst of me with my online friends, and I think that the fact that there was distance and the dynamics were so different made it easier for me to confide in my online friends more than other people who were in my life.

However, I do think that Facebook is quite a shitty thing, and that's not because I'm 'new' to the internet or I don't understand it. I have one, and I have the strictest privacy controls that are offered. And still, the site's privacy policy is gross (that they own all my pictures and writing the moment I put it there - something which keeps me from using the site seriously, like I do on LJ), and I've heard of several cases of FB being a total dick to people who had gotten wronged because of the site. And then smaller matters, like allowing hate groups freely on FB, but deleting breastfeeding pictures as "pornography". Ugh.

Basically, I don't like Facebook, but I agree with you that the internet isn't about hiding behind a different persona, that many people find the freedom to be themselves here. When I joined that forum at age 13, I'd never met such different and interesting people. We sort of grew up with each other over the years, they were both a comfort and an influence on me. And for kids growing up different, a like-minded person can make all the difference in the world.

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

I totally get your point about Facebook. It's a deeply flawed site. That being said, my problem is not with Facebook so much as with with internet skeptics who think Facebook=the whole internet and the whole internet=a scary place filled with perverts and deceptive, socially inept basement-dwellers. When they criticise 'Facebook', what they are in fact criticising is internet culture and internet friendship in general, which is in no way monolithic. There is no one 'internet culture'.

Also, I feel that all internet communities have their problems. LJ might not be as bad as Facebook, but it's hardly all sunshine and roses.