By The Way...

Thursday, July 27, 2006
10:13:00 AM EDT
Hearing Where Eagles Have Been -- Wolfmother
Journals Editor Jeff -- you know, the new guy -- is thinking about the quasi-public nature of being a blogger, riffing off an article on the subject he found in the Washington Post. Some of what he had to say:

I feel like I’m pretty qualified to tell you this: The person you see online is NEVER the real person. It doesn’t matter what they look like, what bands they like or how well they write an e-mail – real life defies digital interpretation every time... Seeing the hand behind that glass – or meeting an online acquaintance in person – can be a terrible shock. It’s never what you expect, and it’s invariably a letdown. No human being can meet all your invisible expectations – and no human being deserves to be judged by your electronically enabled prejudices.

Like Jeff, I'm all over the place online and have been for a dozen years, which is long enough that there's a whole class of people who have "met" me online before they met me in the world, and invaraibly when people meet me in the real world after meeting me in the online world, I'm told some combination of three things:

1. I'm smaller than they expected (apparently my pictures make me look large).
2. I'm friendlier than they expected (apparently my pictures also make me look like I'm all serious)
3. I'm less of a jerk than they expected (this has more to do with people who read my other site, where I tend to fly off the handle rather more than I do around here)

I pretty much take it all in stride, because I've internalized what Jeff mentions here: There's a different between online personas and offline ones. We all craft an idealized version of ourselves online, even if we're not aware we're doing it. Now, "idealized" may be the wrong word, because some people insist on documenting every quirk and twist of their personalities online, which may or may not be ideal. It's more to the point to say we have control of how people perceive our online selves to a much greater extent than we do in the real world, where people see all our twitches and body language and other things we're not always in control.

I don't know that I agree that it's always a letdown, however. I likemeeting people in the real whom I have met online because I'm interested in seeing how the online version integrates into the live version. I know several people I find more interesting and personable in the real world than I find them online, and that makes me like them better online, because now I have that context.

Be that as it may, Jeff is right: Online is not offline. You'll be happier when you meet your online friend in the offline world if you remember this essential fact.



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This entry has 3 comments: (Add your own)

• #3 Comment from editorjeff76 
  7/27/06 1:33 PM | Permalink

  Wow -- thanks for adding your wrinkle to my musing, man! I'm flattered, to say the least. But what I meant when I referred to the letdown was that nobody can live up to the idealized person that you hold in your head when you meet someone online. People can only be people, not fantasy characters based on online avatars.
  
  And also: Wolfmother is the new JESUS CHRIST. I exaggerate only slightly -- I saw these guys in DC and it was absolutely unreal -- and so lud that the sound actually moved your face. Awesome, awesome stuff.
• #2 Comment from monponsett 
  7/27/06 12:32 PM | Permalink

  I haven't started to compulsively spam Jeff's journal comments section yet.
• #1 Comment from dpoem 
  7/27/06 10:25 AM | Permalink

  One thing I get is that people tell me I'm far more normal than they would have expected.  In fact, some even seem to be somewhat disappointed.  I've got to admit, it's kind of funny sitting down over drinks and hearing: "You know?  You're not nearly as dysfunctional as I would have thought."  
  
  -Dan
  http://journals.aol.com/dpoem/TheWisdomofaDistractedMind/