Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to 'Interior and exterior paint' on the Zone

"Curious...this realm of virtual community."
Robert — (archived)

Indeed it is, and we're pioneers in making up the conventions and standards.

I've always felt that the ability to create a persona in a virtual community is, on the whole, a constructive thing. Sure, it can be negative if there's intent to defraud or impersonate (the term "identity theft" is very literal in virtuality), but those are aberrations that we've long held to be outside the social bounds--virtual crimes in our virtual community.

I think that what happens in a virtual community is that people are free to construct an idealized version of themselves...to be who they think they ought to be, in a "better world", or want to be, free of circumstances and learned/taught inhibitions. Wish fulfillment, perhaps, but of a very special kind.

Or you could look at it through a more mundane metaphor, like plastic surgery or body sculpture or prostheses. In the "real" world the body is the primary representative of the mind, and sets limits on how the mind can express itself. If my body has two left feet, my inner Fred Astaire will be forever frustrated.

Believe it or not, some people are shy in the physical world, and even though their minds may be capable of eloquence, that eloquence is thwarted by the blush-and-stammer they experience trying to express themselves face to face with other people. I think that some of us may be mildly agoraphobic and so avoid the presence of other people, others are perhaps wallflowers in social situations. If participating in a virtual world liberates them from those shackles, that's entirely positive.

People make much of how cyberspace allows people complete freedom of expression behind anonymity, but they're not getting it. You can spot the newbies because they often exhibit a sort of Tourette's Syndrome, because they have not yet constructed a new persona appropriate for a virtual world. People who are successful in virtual communities don't remain anonymous and lack personas, they construct personas that work for them in the context of the community of which they're a part.

So I"m not sure that these are "facades" so much as alternate personas and personality, and I don't think that it much matters if the virtual persona is different from the "real world" persona. That persona works out there, and perhaps a different persona works here, and who's to judge if one is better than the other? Both are real as far as I'm concerned.

"I *am* who and how I am here..but am I perceived as such by the Zoners?" Only you can know for sure, Jody...well, OK, Fox too, in your special case. But ya know what? I don't care. I like the Jody you are here in the Zone, and there ya go.

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