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Yvette Perry
Veteran Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 51
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 01:00 pm: | 
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Alright, I'm going to jump right in and try and start a new topic. This is something interesting to me: Maybe it's interesting to some of you, too.
I've been reflecting recently about how the age-old challenge of "realness" and authenticity has been ante-upped with the proliferation of on-line culture. Just reading these discussion boards you can see it: "digital Ebonics," references to skin tone, arguments over Afro-centric views, self-references identifying ourselves to others as African American, etc.
How many of us know each other out there, in "meat space" (as some digeratti refer to the face-to-face world)? How do we know we are who we say we are? How do we even know that posters writing in these forums who we might presume to be "Black" are in fact "Black" at all? How do we even know that folks are separate people at all? Do some people, as a recent poster suggested, take on an argument for entertainment purposes only, or are the views they express really reflective of "who they are"? Does the answer to any of these questions even matter???
In short: What are the tests, the criteria, for determining if someone else we only know by username and post topics is not only "keeping it real," but just real?
I've seen this phenomenon on a couple other on-line forums I've been involved with over the years, but my feeling is that the answers take on greater urgency in ones such as this.
SO. What do you all think? |
cynique
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 02:41 pm: |
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Well, Yvette, in answer to your probing questions, the obvious answer is that we don't know. That's the intrigue and lure of the inter-net. The mysterious cyber world is a whole new realm that functions as an enabler for people who want to assume an alter-ego. That's why the Net is so addictive and fascinating! But, in the "real world" people also assume facades. They wear game faces and effect demeanors that help them to get over in a dog-eat dog world. Life is just one big stage with people playing out their roles. Peceptive people can see through the obvious masquerades, but civility keeps folks from exposing those who cling to the security blankets of their false personas. As for me, I am the same opinionated, argumentive person in real life as I am on this board. But it would be obvious to a perceptive person who confronted me in person that I don't take myself that seriously and that I am more mischievous than anything. I like to provoke over-confident people who are so often insulated from different points of view because they tend to gravitate toward people who think like they do. I also think it's interesting that, chronologically, I am not a young woman, but people who meet and interact with me for the first times are always shocked if they find out my true age. I don't know what that says. BTW, this is the only site where I post. |
kola@aalbc.com
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 262
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 06:07 pm: |
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Hi Yvette.
I'm so happy that you posted a TOPIC for me...that I could care less whether you're Real or NOT.
LOL
But yeah, that's really true. Lots of people post "pretending" to be someone that they aren't---and back in the days (2002) when the New York Times claimed that "I" (Kola Boof) was not a real person (because no one had access to me or had seen me/met me).....I was ACCUSED of doing just what you said. In fact, the rumor was that I was really the Internet Creation of a White College Guy....computer generated images and everything!!!
The New York Times did an entire 3 page article on me, just because I wouldn't cooperate with their story.
And to this day, there are people who've read my books (and I can sound SOOOOOOOO Black American after living with them 20 years)....that others have ACCUSED ME of not really being from Africa.
___________
Cynique's Post is really Dead-On.
And although we disagree a lot, I always think Cynique keeps things interesting and I really RESPECT her opinions.
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Lily
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 11:41 am: |
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Lots of people perpetrate online. LOL
I knew this girl who used to pretend she's so gorgeous and post pics of her cousin. In real life she was a 300 pound gorilla, but she had all kinds of guys online.
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Chris Hayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 1034
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 01:45 pm: |
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Aren't we all pretending
At least some of the time? |
Yvette Perry
Veteran Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 53
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 09:33 pm: |
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Lots of people perpetrate online
But, why? And what do the people think who "bought" the perpetration? (Ex: those guys going after your friend, Lily.)
I'm so happy that you posted a TOPIC for me...that I could care less whether you're Real or NOT.
But I guess part of the issue is that I care that others know I am real. (One reason I've always used my real name in on-line forums.) I think others care, too, otherwise why spend so much time proclaiming things such as our age, skin tone, etc?
I guess there are two issues that fascinate me:
(1) What do people feel when they have been "fooled" by an on-line personna they took to be real, and
(2) Since it is so easy to be whoever you want to be on-line, why do so many work at showing who they, in fact, are (or, at least, who they think they are).
I remember a case a while back there was a blog where a lesbian who was a sexual abuse survivor wrote of her daily life. She posted pics of her hometown, partner, herself. People wrote in often to boost her spirits when things were going poorly and to cheer her on when things were going well. Mnay wrote of their own experiences and childhoods, feeling a connection to this woman.
Well, you guessed it. Eventually it was discovered to be a farce. This was a married man, a writer, who considered the whole thing to be "performance art." Many people who had been following the blog were not amused. Although--some people "got" it all along, figured out what writer it was, and even wrote him suggesting various story lines.
(If anyone knows the case I'm talking about, go ahead and correct my details. I'll look for an on-line account of it.)
we don't know. That's the intrigue and lure of the inter-net.
Very true. It's like the (New Yorker?) cartoon of the dog sitting at the computer, saying something like "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog." And that is what is so interesting.
And we don't know in "real life" either. I was trying to make just this point to someone the other day who said she would never participate in discussion forums, blogs, etc.
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Yvette Perry
Veteran Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 64
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 22, 2005 - 10:54 am: |
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Some interesting commentary related to this issue at the recent South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in a panel called "Blogging While Black." I'll post some links when I get back to my home computer. |
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