Ghost people of the internet

[Cogs Of My Cranium]

I spend quite a lot of time on the net and over the past few years quite a lot of time talking to people online. The number of people in real life has gone down to a few who I see maybe a couple of times a month. I'm not sure how to mentally connect to people on the Internet though. I'm not sure what my mentality should be to them. It's easy to not think of them as people but as words on my screen, like 'ghosts'. It's like I have a different idea of what a person is on the Internet. It's like they're there and they're not. I also have trouble gauging sincerity of Internet folks and I seem to get them to repeat things sometimes you know just to see the same words over and over onscreen. I don't know about other people but I find sustaining internet relationships difficult. Expectations and distortions of what a relationship is gets muddled even more online I think. I also tend to have a more negative and dismissive mindset to people on the Internet when my own repeating, self critical thought loops kick in. I still have the same aspie hibernating retreat when I have bad experiences whether online or offline. So I guess a question from this is what is a person on the Internet?

 

[SignOfLazarus]

Some of these are questions that can't really be answered with a blanket response.
I think how people present themselves on the internet changes form individual to individual.
People tell me I am pretty much the same online as offline... I don't know if I agree- but I'm not an observer.

I think about some of what you have written myself, though have a feeling that you are kind of asking a philosophical question here also, though apologies if that is not correct. On the internet, a person amounts to the same as in "real life"- our perceptions. If all we see of a person is great things- whether online or in real life, to us they are a good person and they are likely to seem very one dimensional. That is, they are likely to seem "fake".

Perhaps you can compare how much depth you give people on the internet to how much depth you automatically give people in real life.


Have you ever met/known someone in real life who you really only associate with one thing? For whatever reason they were "always"... [angry/sad/tired/excited/exercising... you can put anything in there]. The reality is that this person does not actually spend all of their seconds in that state but if that is the only way you have encountered them it is difficult to view them as anything else. But this is actually a more rare occurence in real life. Even if we always see a librarian at the library, chances are at some point we will see them eating their lunch, coming out of the bathroom, fixing their shoe, frustrated, laughing, frustrated... they will eventually start to round out a perception and help us view them as a whole person.

With people on the internet- it can often be the opposite. It is more typical to see people in a restricted way [I personally think, but that doesn't make it a fact], because we have to WORK to get the other parts out. If someone frequents a forum, there is no reason we see those other human bits of them unless we dig for them or they choose to expose them. And that's work, and it's also kind of scary because it leaves people vulnerable. So it is really easy to just hum along as "InternetPerson31415".

I've found that if I pick and choose what I personally share- so have some specific things that I feel comfortable sharing in general, but then I am selective about who I am more intimate/personal with, then i can kind of cultivate more private relationships with people online. Like in real life, this takes time. But it also can offer opportunity for those other "dimensions" to come out.

I may have veered off the track. One thing I find that helps me is when people demonstrate consistent behaviors and reactions over a period of time. So, even if they have a bad memory, they will have a consistently bad memory in a similar manner over a period of time.

Consistency is really the best evidence of a genuine person- online or offline- I've always found.

I don't know if any of this is touching upon some of the things you were thinking about.
I hope something was helpful. I think about these things myself.

 

[Tom]

They are the version of themselves they wish to show you.

But your title made me wonder if the internet, or places on it can be haunted like irl. I am actually iffy on the existence of ghosts but that doesn't stop me from imagining it spectulatively.

I mean many of us have come upon long dead forums or sites... not a living soul around, just spambots and memories... But what if once, someone got so upset in an stupid internet argument there that they had a heart attack. What if they want your heart?!!!

 

[watersprite]

I stsrted to try to answer this a while back, and left it here. I have respect for SignOfLazarus and Tom for tackling this. "Internet person 31415" is ?!

- as I have pondered this too, I would turn the question back to one's self.

Or, back at my self. Who am I, on the internet, when I have such trouble irl with that Question? How does a person become less vulnerable, really, what is going on, really.

My artwork Waiting Wraith exists because I finally decided to allow myself to be alive despite having been haunted by a dead guy for way too long of a long time. But distortions, like Cogs says, well,how does one pin them down and categorize them as to be properly aware.

 

[SignOfLazarus]

Actually in light of the response given by Tom , this is now on my mind:

Reference:
Laughing Man [Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex]

 

[Cogs Of My Cranium]

I still feel very reserved about what I share online. I've shut down Facebook for example. The thing is the online you is having a greater real social importance these days, potential employers checking it for example. It's actually viewed as suspicious if you don't have an online presence now. In a world where being very visible and shouting the loudest is becoming required has anyone just thought f**k it and blasted the Internet with loads of pictures, updates and info about yourself regularly?

 

[Suzanne]

It is funny because I never thought of it before, but how apt is: ghost people and especially on forums, which this one is a exception!

Personally for me, I am myself more online that ever off line; although I do have a few acquaintances ( I would call them friends, but really we do not communicate like friends), whom I feel a modicum of myself with. Although I do admit that if I were to completely isolate myself and that means: refusing to participate in life, my little bit of communication skills, would drastically drop, as it did some year's ago and I found much to my horror, that I could barely talk in life!

I found my best friend online and we have rarely gone a day without chatting and chat about simply EVERYTHING. We have known each other for just over 4 year's now and found that when we did meet and spend time with each other, it was too surreal for us both. However, my friend now works and is phoning me regularly. The first time, I felt soooo horribly shy and as usual felt I was awful, but with a bit of practice, I felt more comfortable.

Personally I rather internet friendships than, real life and to me, I do not see the ones I chat to, to be obscure of without substance, since we discuss what is going on in our lives.

What I find amusing is when you suddenly come across something you typed like 6 year's ago! Thankfully, no shame and thinking: wow not bad at all lol sometimes, I might read something: that is really very well put and then roar when I realise it is ME who typed it: on Yahoo Answers!

I make a rule that I will not befriend ones I know personally and it works. With the exception of my best friend, whom I truly love and only ever want the best for her, which is a first for me ie to feel unselfish love and pride in another person!

 

[Slithytoves]

So I guess a question from this is what is a person on the Internet?

This was the last line of your post, but my answer to this will frame my response to individual comments that came before it.

"A person on the Internet" is a real person, same as you. Whether they are using a relatively anonymous medium to present only part of themselves, create someone they'd rather be, or as a way to freely be all of who they are, they are "someones" with a desire to be heard in whatever venue and on whatever subjects they choose; again, same as you. The version of people you see online is the one you're dealing with, so they are also "real" in a way particular to that context.

I'm not sure how to mentally connect to people on the Internet though. I'm not sure what my mentality should be to them. It's easy to not think of them as people but as words on my screen, like 'ghosts'. It's like I have a different idea of what a person is on the Internet. It's like they're there and they're not.

When I read something online I imagine a person sitting in front of a keyboard, their words creating a sort of portrait. That's what a post is to me; a snapshot of a real person, no matter what filters or effects they may have added to it. When I keep their humanity at the forefront of my mind it governs how I react and respond. From the cavalier ugliness I see online, I suspect that a lot of people fail to remember that all those words they see in generic typeface are actually a real human being's thoughts. If you can't clearly imagine a post as a portrait, you might be able to see it as an artifact of a real person's existence.

I also have trouble gauging sincerity of Internet folks and I seem to get them to repeat things sometimes you know just to see the same words over and over onscreen.

In most cases, I don't even bother gauging sincerity. My own rule of thumb is to take people at face value unless I find good reason to do otherwise. I do consider the venue and the nature of the conversation where I find them, but except when I'm thinking of engaging someone privately (or already doing so), accepting what I see is good enough for me. There is a lot of disingenuous communication online but I don't think it's as common as we fear. In my erstwhile career as a personal assistant to celebrities, I often had to deal with online deception in protection of my employers. I've even helped rehabilitate a few trolls and catfish I discovered. From those experiences I've found that when people lie online, it's usually because they're hurting in some way and it's harmless. There aren't the vast legions of sociopaths the media would have us believe. So I don't spend much time worrying about it. Otherwise I'd have to unplug completely.

I don't know about other people but I find sustaining internet relationships difficult. Expectations and distortions of what a relationship is gets muddled even more online I think.

What kind of relationships are you talking about? I get the feeling you have one or more specific experiences in mind with your post. Knowing more about that would be helpful for answering you.

Romantic relationships online are obviously tricky. Online friendships I treat exactly the same as I would in regular life. Expectations and imbalances occur even in face-to-face relationships. At least online you have the benefit of distance and the control that comes with it.

If you don't have much of a social life offline, I hope you can learn to feel more confident in your Internet relationships. All but one of my very best friends were first met online, then we took things to phone and eventually visits. The Internet can be a truly wonderful social resource. It allows you to meet people you'd never have the chance to otherwise; sometimes people who can become fixtures in your world for life. My own world would be pitifully limited without it.

 

[watersprite]

...an artifact of a real person's existence.[/unquote]
This is a great help in real life too. Thanks

 

[King_Oni]

In a world where being very visible and shouting the loudest is becoming required has anyone just thought f**k it and blasted the Internet with loads of pictures, updates and info about yourself regularly?

Yes and no... I suppose in a sense it's more like building an image of yourself. And if you're aware of it, it's a lot safer and more interesting to do so IMO.

But I'm probably beyond that point of being in the safezone. I've already did questionable things that ended up online over a decade ago when this entire "social media" thing wasn't as relevant as it is now. And I can hardly revert that.

On the other side; My online persona is very much me. That's the one thing everyone always told me. I'm online as I am offline (aside from being a static image, lol). People I've met online, at least most, learned to appreciate it, while some found I was a bit much and way to intense.

This also brings me to the entire social media and employment thing; chances are if they don't like what they see or read about me on social media (or any other forum of research) I don't belong in their firm anyway. The last thing I am is an actor. If my attitude is way too toxic for them to handle, chances are we won't get long in the long run.

 

[Harrison]

Most forums I have been on I have used one or other of my masks, even FB was me being 'on stage' and performing in a way that suited my students. It was a stressful experience

Now, on AC I am just me, and perhaps it's because I feel the affinity of so many people like me here.

I'm not daft enough to think that everyone here presents 'as they are', but it's ok, you may be ghosts and I am happy with that.

I can always ban you

 

[Cyrano]

As Tom correctly says, "They are the version of themselves they wish to show you." The schtick that anyone can be whatever they purport to be online is so hackneyed, it's even been used in cop shows on TV. Sometimes I think it is like everyone is an attenuated character from some online game, you know?

But in my own case, what you see is what you get. I confine my character creation to my writing, not to my online self. And what I have discovered is that the friends I have met online treat me with substantially more respect than most people I meet in real life, some of whom have known me for many years.

I suspect this has to do with the fact that online, you can put whatever face and voice to somebody that you choose. My own voice has been described as irritating, and people don't hear what I say. But when I write, they "listen" to the words and not the tone of voice delivering them. This lets folks get to know me without judging me on my voice, my "flat affect," or my awkwardness.

For instance, I spend a fair bit of time on a firearms forum where we talk about everything, not just firearms. (The owner & creator of the forum has it organized and compartmented very well; you just go where you want and discuss what's in each sub-forum.) I occasionally get twitted by some of the other members over my loathing of the Stoner-actioned rifles, the US GI M-16, M-4 Carbine, and their civilian cousins the AR-15 sporting rifles; to say that I think the Army adopting them was a mistake is to be very polite. I simply hate rifles that are likely to jam when you need them most, and that's the Poodle Shooter in a nutshell. Once a fellow member accused me of never having fired one. I retorted, politely, with the story of the time I was at the range zeroing my pet Mosin Nagant and came to the aid of a new shooter who had built a "Frankenrifle," an AR-15 assembled out of pieces parts he had bought at gun shows and from online dealers. Perfectly legal, it lets you customize your gun for the kind of shooting you do, and it makes the rifle YOURS, a metaphysical thing you have to experience to understand.

He was trying to zero it and was all over the paper at 100 yards; the thing would not group its shots. After fixing his sights (there are these things called "screws" that you need to lock down, dummy!), I tried a couple of shots. The rifle promptly jammed. I went through the ritual of clearing the jam, and it then jammed again with the next round. He'd put maybe 40 rounds through it, and the Jam-A-Matic was living up to its name. I had him field-strip it, give it a quick clean -- just as our soldiers in the field have to do at every rest break even if they haven't fired a shot, because the Stoner action attracts dust, dirt, and grime even worse than a Luger, and THAT is saying something -- reassemble it, and try again. It jammed about every fifth shot, usually failing to fully extract. As changing magazines didn't help, I finally concluded and told the newbie that either he had a bad extractor, didn't have the extractor installed properly, or had a bad recoil spring. He needed to detail-strip the rifle, examine the spring and extractor carefully, and reassemble the rifle with the manual in front of him, making sure everything was in the right place with the right tolerances. Take it back to the range, and if it still misbehaved, start by replacing the suspect parts. If it still misbehaved after that, it would be time for a trip to the gunsmith.

By the way, I let him try my scoped Mosin. He was mightily impressed by the fact an 80 year old rifle would put five shots into a 1 inch group at 100 yards. Newer isn't always better.

My point was that just because I won't own an unreliable POS doesn't mean I don't know the rifle. My hatred of unreliable firearms is known on that site and isn't confined to ARs. But my opinions are respected there because I back up all I say with facts. I think the other members, who know I write, visualize me as a college professor with a goatee in a shooting jacket with a tweed tie, an Indian Jones-style fedora, well worn cowboy boots, and a web belt around my middle with a Yugoslav Model 57 Tokarev pistol on the right, mag pouches with spare ammo on the left, and my pet Mosin Natasha in my hands. Not what I look like at all, but hey, it's not a bad mental image, is it?