Some people say...
Corbett | December 30, 2003 11:41 AM
...that blogging creates a virtual community. A veritable festival of interpersonal relationships in cyberspace. I'm not so sure about that. It is sort of like a community in the sense of living in a tall apartment building in HK, seeing the lady dancing around naked again in her kitchen, knowing the 14th floor is having a party again, and wondering what happened to the guy on the 18th floor, who's lights have been out for weeks. It is kind of Rear Window-esque. And people can leave little notes to your window pane. You can even start up little tit for tats by messaging back and forth, or being involved in silly contests.
I think it's more like an extension of what we already have going on in our material lives -- like seeing the same bus driver, saying hi to the bakery girl, ordering a cup of coffee from the same person for months. Sam Beckett says something about people "orbits." Some people are regularly orbiting around you, or you around them. Some are on long elliptical orbits. Some are like comets [BTW, that's one reason I bought a 1963 Mercury Comet, and also since Charles Bukowski drove one]. Still, if we don't really form relationships with these people we actually bump into on our orbits, why would we take the time to build relationships with people who live in all corners of the world and peep on us through IPs?
Yet a lot of people do. And their communities are quite similar to the way lunchroom politics work. Certain people sit at certain tables. the cool people over there, the jocks over there, the hot chicks over there, and the geeks over there. So we've managed to etch-a-sketch our cultural policies onto the internet. So what? Am I contributing to their lives in any way? Are they benefitting mine? Is there any guanxi going on in cyberspace?
Hmmm...
What if I hang a material door step on this blog community thing? Then at least I can have a beer face to face with someone who reads my blog, or I theirs. I'll have to really think about this. Could be interesting...
Category: Ramble
Comments (3)
Comments
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Brian David Phillips
December 30, 2003 12:05 PM
As to whether the community of the blog is an ext. of what we know in the material world or something new . . . I think it's both . . . albeit, those who know one another in "real" life certainly are connecting in a much more "real" way than any sort of virtual connection could create . . . however, the levels are different in blogging . . . many folks say things online they'd never say in real life and so the level of intimacy and strangerlyness has been set differently . . . the quality of the relationship is different.
Besides . . . no one really reads these blogs anyway. :-)
corbett
December 30, 2003 1:07 PM
Brian, you would be surprised who reads our blogs! It's just that they don't actively initiate a "Ding dong, hello, I'm at your door" kind of thing. I used to think that only google surfers stopped by, that is until I ran into people who brought up stuff I had said on the blog, which was weird at first, then I realized it was like a one way phone call into space. Someone was listening, just didn't know who. My question is, how do you define the quality of a relationship? Based on time input? Emotional investment? Face to face contact? That's what eludes me. For me so far, any relationship is about contributing to the growth or fullfilment of the other person. This could be boss/employer, customer/vendor, mother/child, couples, friends, teacher/student, something defined by what is greater than the parts when they are together. If I help a guy online with an Apache script that does something he's been trying to figure out for days, that also counts...kind of a Samaritan info relationship.
Have you sat down and talked to anyone through your site who wasn't in one of your "orbits" somehow? Someone completely unrelated to your material world?
Brian David Phillips
December 30, 2003 3:14 PM
My orbits are pretty small anyway . . . but, no, I've actually never met anyone in the real world in that way . . . that is, someone who reads my blog who I hadn't known otherwise. I know a few blogging communities do their "blog gather" things where a bunch of bloggers in an area - like Tokyo - get together which is a way of accellerating the sense of community those folks have . . . if they've met face-to-face they have more of a sense of person for the folks on the other end of the datastream whereas when we've not met someone we only know them from what we read or see in the photologs and make assumptions about "who they really are" that don't always jibe with the sense we get in person.
"then I realized it was like a one way phone call into space" . . . that metaphor really works as it is . . . even when we are writing comments or responding to them, we are still writing in blogthought rather than how we think or communicate outside of blog, in the real world.
About defining the quality of a relationship . . . I think it has to remain a subjective thing . . . but watch out on your definitions as relationships can also have bad qualities . . .
I would never say you can't have a good quality relationship that is only online but I would be wary of calling it a complete relationship. For me, a good quality relationship requires a sense of the other as well as a two-way steet deal . . . the momentary good Samaritan thing is okay, just as pointing out the direction to a bookstore to some loan waiguoren lost in Taipei . . . but it's not a quality relationship in so far as there is no real sense of who the person is.
In virtual worlds, just as in the real world, we present parts of ourselves . . . depending upon who we're with or what impression we want to give . . . but at least in the real world we do in fact know what the other person really looks like . . . not just the photos in the galleries or the like . . . but how they look when they speak and the emotions they give off . . . and create . . .
Face contact is qualititatively different from virtual contact . . . I guess at the level of passersby or acquaintances there are some similarities but there are still cross-levels in intimacy because of the nature of blgs that make it a bit different . . . however, for true intimacy . . . the folks who become lovers or friends for life, not acquaintances for life . . . I think the face time is a pretty basic requirement . . . at least at this level of technology . . . that could change, but for now it's a pretty fair assessment . . .
Of course, I'm just babbling now . . . which I do in the real world now and again as well . . .