kaby
Legacy Member
"It Is Only the Internet."
I had been talking to this guy for a long time. We met on the Internet, in a quiz channel on IRC. I was the night owl and the quiz addict, he worked long hours at a hotel in the city where he lived. So after a while, we started talking. Our relationship was weird. This guy was acting strange. One minute, he was talking normally, the next minute he was saying the silliest things and looking for a verbal fight.
Regardless, we became somewhat friends as we spent hours talking. He sent me a picture of himself, I sent him a picture of me, but only as that ok-it-is-time-to-exchange-pictures routine, not because we were interested in each other - we were not. One day, he told me he was going to the city where I live. I do not remember why, but he had some business there. So we exchanged phone numbers and agreed to get in touch to meet and have a chat in real life.
He flew into my city. I called him once, he told me he would call me back at a better time. Then all of a sudden, he was back on the Internet, online from his own city. A little surprised, I asked him why he didn't call me before he flew back home. He told me the picture he had sent me was not him, and that he had not dared meeting me as he didn't look anything like that picture. I wondered why he would send a fake picture. His reply was that he just did it because he never thought we would meet anyway, so he didn't see any harm in it.
"It is only the Internet."
Add to the story that we did meet later as he eventually moved to the city where I live to study. We hung out a bit, then he moved back to his home town after finishing his studies and we went back to talking online until we drifted apart. A brief friendship, but still, it taught me something. It taught me how some people see the Internet and the online world.
To them, it is not real.
To me, the Internet has always been real. Ever since I started with webchat way back in the nineties, I always regarded the people I met online as real people. Even though I cannot see their faces, even though I may not know their name, age, location or even gender, they are still people behind the nicknames. When I am online, I act more or less similar to what I do in real life. I met many of my best friends on the Internet. Of course, we have met in real life too, but we first talked online. The Internet is wonderful like that, that is, if you let it be.
Needless to say, I have had to change my mindset a bit. Now I know that many others take on an online personality when they sit in front of their computers. They use the Internet as a way to express feelings and do things that they would never do in real life. On the Internet, they can, because they do not see it as real.
I have seen so many people hurt each other online. People are saying things that would easily earn them a punch in the face in real life, they are saying things that would make other people cry and run away, things that could drive a person into depression, things that are so far from what they stand for in real life that they would never even consider uttering to someone standing in front of them.
Yet, they say them online, because it is only the Internet. Or is it? If one of the persons in the conversation has the mindset that this is real, and one of them has the mindset that it is not, then is it real or is it just a virtual reality? If one person gets hurt by another person's comment while the person who said it thought it was ok because he said it online, is that not real?
Our Warcraft environment is just like any other online environment. Some people like meeting other people who share their interest for the game. Others do not care too much about that aspect of it, they are there to game and they could not care less about the other people, for instance their opponents. They fling insults at them as soon as they enter a game, if they lose they scream bloody murder along with one insult after the other, and if they win, well, how about some more insults to rub in the loss.
I know people who does not want to play on Battle.Net simply because they do not want to get insulted by people they don't know as soon as they hit "Play Game". I know people who have been hurt - in real life - by comments made in games or in forums.
Did you ever think about the fact that people may have cried because of something you have said in the heat of a game? That someone might have given up the game because you had to throw insults at them? That, in a worst case scenario, someone might commit suicide because of a snide and spiteful forum post?
"It is only the Internet." Or..?
Some years ago, there was a big plane accident at the Linate airport in Milan, Italy. In that accident, an online friend of mine died. I still have pictures of her smiling and memories of our online conversations. Would you cry for an online friend who died? I did.
-Kidarctica
I had been talking to this guy for a long time. We met on the Internet, in a quiz channel on IRC. I was the night owl and the quiz addict, he worked long hours at a hotel in the city where he lived. So after a while, we started talking. Our relationship was weird. This guy was acting strange. One minute, he was talking normally, the next minute he was saying the silliest things and looking for a verbal fight.
Regardless, we became somewhat friends as we spent hours talking. He sent me a picture of himself, I sent him a picture of me, but only as that ok-it-is-time-to-exchange-pictures routine, not because we were interested in each other - we were not. One day, he told me he was going to the city where I live. I do not remember why, but he had some business there. So we exchanged phone numbers and agreed to get in touch to meet and have a chat in real life.
He flew into my city. I called him once, he told me he would call me back at a better time. Then all of a sudden, he was back on the Internet, online from his own city. A little surprised, I asked him why he didn't call me before he flew back home. He told me the picture he had sent me was not him, and that he had not dared meeting me as he didn't look anything like that picture. I wondered why he would send a fake picture. His reply was that he just did it because he never thought we would meet anyway, so he didn't see any harm in it.
"It is only the Internet."
Add to the story that we did meet later as he eventually moved to the city where I live to study. We hung out a bit, then he moved back to his home town after finishing his studies and we went back to talking online until we drifted apart. A brief friendship, but still, it taught me something. It taught me how some people see the Internet and the online world.
To them, it is not real.
To me, the Internet has always been real. Ever since I started with webchat way back in the nineties, I always regarded the people I met online as real people. Even though I cannot see their faces, even though I may not know their name, age, location or even gender, they are still people behind the nicknames. When I am online, I act more or less similar to what I do in real life. I met many of my best friends on the Internet. Of course, we have met in real life too, but we first talked online. The Internet is wonderful like that, that is, if you let it be.
Needless to say, I have had to change my mindset a bit. Now I know that many others take on an online personality when they sit in front of their computers. They use the Internet as a way to express feelings and do things that they would never do in real life. On the Internet, they can, because they do not see it as real.
I have seen so many people hurt each other online. People are saying things that would easily earn them a punch in the face in real life, they are saying things that would make other people cry and run away, things that could drive a person into depression, things that are so far from what they stand for in real life that they would never even consider uttering to someone standing in front of them.
Yet, they say them online, because it is only the Internet. Or is it? If one of the persons in the conversation has the mindset that this is real, and one of them has the mindset that it is not, then is it real or is it just a virtual reality? If one person gets hurt by another person's comment while the person who said it thought it was ok because he said it online, is that not real?
Our Warcraft environment is just like any other online environment. Some people like meeting other people who share their interest for the game. Others do not care too much about that aspect of it, they are there to game and they could not care less about the other people, for instance their opponents. They fling insults at them as soon as they enter a game, if they lose they scream bloody murder along with one insult after the other, and if they win, well, how about some more insults to rub in the loss.
I know people who does not want to play on Battle.Net simply because they do not want to get insulted by people they don't know as soon as they hit "Play Game". I know people who have been hurt - in real life - by comments made in games or in forums.
Did you ever think about the fact that people may have cried because of something you have said in the heat of a game? That someone might have given up the game because you had to throw insults at them? That, in a worst case scenario, someone might commit suicide because of a snide and spiteful forum post?
"It is only the Internet." Or..?
Some years ago, there was a big plane accident at the Linate airport in Milan, Italy. In that accident, an online friend of mine died. I still have pictures of her smiling and memories of our online conversations. Would you cry for an online friend who died? I did.
-Kidarctica
)
