I'm a flop at Facebook, spaced out at MySpace, and burned out on every workshop and writer's site I've joined in the ten years since I've been online. I've asked myself why I'm such a failure at networking and its obnoxious offspring, self promotion, and what I've decided is cyberspace confabulation affects me akin to a primitive tribesman having his picture taken. Sometimes it feels like my years online have robbed bytes of my soul. Of course, the only way you would get my computer away from me is by prying my cold, dead fingers from my keyboard. All I'm saying is that as a means of communication it is sometimes like having a phone conversation where instead of words the two parties exchange sequences of zeros and ones--and of course a dozen lols. Communication is a tricky business anyway; else why is there a list of self-help books a mile long on how to get head...I mean, get ahead on just a smile and a shoeshine. Oh, wait, that's Willy Loman (which reminds me, I dassent buy that set of snake knives). For me, eye contact and body language are essential for the nuances required for meaningful human communication. Anyone who has posted or perused a discussion board knows how quickly a wrongly interpreted post can ignite a flame that soon escalates to a five alarm blaze. On the internet, any pipsqueak with verbal dexterity is capable of being a bully, any keyboard-tied bully is potentially yo bee-atch, yo. Of course, there is a sense of satisfaction in seeing the tables turned, but unfortunately, write doesn't always make right.
More musing on this later. A roast beef sandwich awaits.
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2 comments:
that's a lie you're not a flop at fb. I see you there...
At times, Ray, I simply remove myself from the oxymoronic online communication community. I can't get no satisfaction there, and I'm not inclined to fake much. How-some-ever, I do manage to glean a nuanced interaction every now and then, yours being one of them. I can only see the images of you that you want me to see, but when I read what you write, I get a sense of who you are. That sense has guided me here, trusting that we've connected on a positive level, so that's one benefit of the peculiar form of Web 2.0 nonhuman, assembler type of communication we've engaged in.
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