The other day I was on a site I frequent, one of recent crop of web-based BBS sites that seem to have replaced the old dial-up BBS’s from back in rhe day. What made this occasion worthy of note was that I was insulted.
Now, me being insulted is not an uncommon occurrence; it happens every day. But somehow this time I took it personally. Here’s what happened: I said something informative (at least I considered it informative) with nothing personal toward anyone, and a guy responded (in words verify close to this) "Are you on crack?" and went of to call into question my knowledge, judgment, and reason.
Them’s fight’n’ words.
So I responded. I told him (in an email, of course) that I found his tone insulting and that I resented the drug use implication. Then he wrote back to me, saying in effect "chill out, dude" and saying that if I didn’t I’d "stroke out." His whole manner was condescending in the extreme. Now, this probably wouldn’t have bothered me all that much if I hadn’t had four - count ‘em - four strokes, with a bit of permanent impairment along the way.
OK, so I probably took this more seriously than it was intended. No matter; I was pissed. I wrote him back saying "I'm not going to bother to refute the rest of this post, because I find the above quote (and the accusation) to be offensive and wholly uncalled-for. Shame on you."
I didn’t go so far as to "call him out" or anything, but I was truly tempted. But by this point I had had enough of all of this, and I’m sure that other people on that board felt the same (keep in mind that all this played out in a public chat room). In responding to one message of support from another user, I made it clear that I was done with the thread. And I thought that was the end of it.
But wait; there’s more...
A few days later I happened to look into that same forum to check something (I really had had no intention of carrying on the whole back-and-forth thing) and there, in spite of my announcement that I was finished on that forum, was another message of support from yet another user. This one was a bit more vitriolic than I had been; my unknown supporter said: "I hope you're a diabetic and your fingers fall off so you can't type such insults to fellow (board users) in the future. Shame on you."
Now I’m not one to strike out at someone who’s actually supporting me, but I nearly did...you see, I’m diabetic and have been taking daily insulin injections for the last twenty years, and I’ve started losing bits of myself to the complications of the disease.
Up to this point I had tried not to resort to name-calling, or casting aspersions on anyone else’s sanity or reason, or anything like that. My unnamed opponent hadn’t been so charitable, but that’s him and I don’t rule him. I only rule me, and even if I hadn’t resorted to name-calling I had been a bit rude. But now I had not only my opponent’s comments to be annoyed by, but the comments of someone actually supporting my position. That my supporter was also being insulting to me (unintentionally) was a clear indication to me that I just couldn’t win here. I suppose I could have lashed out at this new insult, in fact I considered doing just that, but that would have been churlish in the extreme (in other words, that would be acting like a dick).
So I decided on a different approach: I decided that my original plan to ignore that thread had probably been a good idea.
And what, I’ll bet you’re wondering, is the point of this long preamble? Well, this whole exchange left me wondering about the nature of the Internet; how people who may be the nicest, most polite people in person turn into total assholes as soon as they get online; about how people’s "online personas" are often in such drastic opposition to the people they are (or at least appear) in their normal lives.
I blame the inherent anonymity of the web. We are all willing to say things, do things, challenge people online in ways that we wouldn’t even consider if we met the same people in the street. I frankly doubt that I’d have gotten so PO’d initially were it not for the fact that I truly didn’t know this guy, would likely never meet this guy, and could be secure in the knowledge that he would probably never come within ten feet of me. When we go online (and I mean all of us) we hide behind our personas and avatars and handles and whatever and conceal our true faces, either out of shame, a deliberate desire to deceive, or simply because that’s the way it’s done on the Internet.
And we all accept this as normal.
It is not normal to be rude or impolite, however. At least it shouldn’t be. We should not accept lower standards of behavior, either for ourselves or for others, just because we never see anyone’s faces online. The rules by which a polite society functions should not be allowed to degrade simply because we have an impenetrable wall between us that will not allow us to see each other or harm each other but allows us to shout at each other.
Maybe it’s time to stop hiding. I’ll start.
The Blues Viking
known in the real world as Michael S. Rosecrans
The opinions here expressed are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.
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1 comment:
There is something funny about the internet. It's not the internet's fault. It exhibited itself in the BBS era (Live Online!!!) and probably goes back to Sumer or cave painting.
The anonymity makes every exchange a game of Texas Hold'em where you have common cards (like, yer all in the same forum and thus something in common, be in slashdot, MAUG or Hairy, Biker looking people. But you also have two cards of your own, that no one else can see.
What that amounts to is that you THINK you are talking on the same level about the same thing, but you end up learning that you're not. This can be manifested in technical discussion (I got into a war of wits about Delta V on a small rocket, were we each tried to prove that we knew what we were talking about more than the other, without actually posting our resumes.)
But also, one of the most beautiful elements of speech is lost. NO, not the pun. That's not beautiful... it's the use of sarcasm, irony, pathos, yea even hyperbole is lost. We've tried to use punctuation to indicate sarcasm, such as "This blog makes me want to vote for Obama~" where the ~ makes the sentence sarcasm, just as ? makes it a question.
But, it seems like sarcasm and its ilk do not transmit across the TCP/IP protocol. And things which we SEND as funny, sadly funny, or full of pathos fall on ears as mean, hateful, or hurtful. I call as evidence a line I once emailed about a "her" who was really about my motorcycle. But it was taken as being about my recently separated wife... and people who SHOULD have seen the pathos, lashed out in venomous chastisement. I thought we were all talking about the same thing, but we weren't. And thus a cry for help from a drowning man was met with a oar upside the head. You (Blues) saw the email long ago.
In my world, a techno, IT, geeky world, "Are you on Crack?" is a term of endearment. At worst, it means "I think you have underestimated the situation or are misinformed on something critical." I might say "I think that installing Windows Vista will solve that issue" and SOMEONE is going to say "ARe you on crack!?" No GENUINE inference of drug use is made.
And though I agree that much of this of which you speak is caused by anonymity, some may be caused my familiarity. Where they THINK they know what you're saying, because they know you, but in fact, they don't see your other two cards.
Yes, we play out dramas with our masks. All the internet's indeed a stage and we are merely players. But really, we all want to be heard by those who read. Sometimes, hyperbole is the way we do it. I recall a Live Online member who was a REAL PITA. PAin in the royal... and when I actually met him (Darkman ;-) I said, "I like you a lot better in real life."
Maybe that is a law of cyberspace. Yes, people overstate themselves when they challenge you. Probable anonymity makes us think we can say things that we woudn't to someone we knew's face. And what seems like a funny haha joke, like wishing diabetes on you, is NOT funny when you HAVE already been there, done that. How could they know?
In closing (no, I don't have my own blog, why do you ask?), i would recommend a term you taught me from the SCA... Rhino Hide.
Get one. You'll need it. ;-)
starglider29a
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