peter wrote:I'm going to sound really naive here - but do people use more than one identity here on the Watch. I've been a member for a few years now and always taken it on good faith that each time I read a post by a particular poster whose 'name' I recognise or enter into a dialogue with them, that I am communicating with an individual who has 'reality' beyond the screen that sepparates us. But sometimes I wonder. Take 'Babybottomfeeder' for example. He always seemed to want to mess with people for some reason - albeit sometimes in a *very* clever way; but i began to ask myself is this guy for real or is it just another Watcher f****** with us. Do people do that? How can I know the people I am corresponding with are for real - come to that how can you know *I* am too! If this stuff goes on what forn does it take. How should I recognise it. I like corresponding with real people, not facsimile's thereoff.
There's been quite a bit of discussion about this recently on the Watch and quite a range of opinions on it as well. It raises many interesting questions, not only about the nature of the Watch but also about the nature of the Internet itself. This in turn brings up the nature of things like identity and also language. (All very post-modern
)
I have been reading Marshall McLuhan's
Understanding Media recently (I bought the book 10 years ago
) and some of the things he says are striking. He talks about each medium bringing its own changes to the societies that use it. For instance he names the printed word as one of the great influencers of modern society and he names the 'electric media' (Radio, Film, Television and the Internet) as the next great change.
One of the points he makes is that each medium brings with it certain ways of seeing the world. With print one of these is what he calls 'a point of view'. People who are used to the written word expect everyone to have a single point of view. Now this is where electric media are different. In electric media we can see many points of view at almost the same time, (e.g. split-screen).
One of the effects of electric media is that the multiple nature of identity becomes possible to express. It's not that the electric media have created this multiplicity, it's that it was always there but largely hidden. The Internet is probably the easiest place for people to engage in this multiplicity. That, in a sense, is the 'reality' of the Internet. One of the things that a 'troll' does is highlight that 'reality'.
In a way, the Watch is almost like a preserve. It is a largely troll-free open forum, which, I would guess, makes it an exception on the Internet. I think that the reason the Watch is troll-free is because the mods, as a group, are very Internet savvy. They allow enough flexibility in their moderating policy that people feel able to express themselves freely (witness the amount of thread drift there is in general on the Watch). Permitting alts is one form of this freedom. One possible consequence of this is that that the niche for trolls is quite narrow and anyone who joins to solely to be disruptive will be quickly outed.
Personally, I am more comfortable with single identities, but I am also aware that the identity that represents me on the Watch is, at best, a persona. My preference for a single persona probably relates to my age more than anything else. I am still a 'point of view' person. However, the more time I have spent on the 'Net the more aware I have become of its nature.
So, for example, the persona of 'ussusimiel' is probably closer to some idealised aspects of myself than my 'true' self. My posts (hopefully) read relatively smoothly and free-flowing because they are heavily edited and rewritten rather than spontaneous (akin to Yeats's, 'stitching and unstitching' or more likely, Frankenstein's
). Also when I post I have access to Google and Wiki which means that I can easily present myself as more knowledgeable than I may actually be
'ussusimiel' is by his very nature a product of the Internet. Less a reflection or echo of my 'true' self and more an exaggeration and idealisation of certain aspects of it. If I were to create an alternate identity on the Watch I might choose to represent and highlight other aspects of myself (like the excellent DPJ maybe
).
u.
