You! Out of my internet!
Oct. 24th, 2010 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12This 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 09:24 pm (UTC)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.