Message Boards are like Porn

[Fight_n_back]

...in oh, so many ways. The message boards I frequent are political message boards, progressive in nature. Now, I am a bit of a misanthrope in the first place, always have been, so people just tend to rub me the wrong way in general but the message board thing is its own particular fashion show of the self involved. First of all, for all of its benefits, the internet is much more insidious than televison could ever hope to be. Television has a fourth wall (actually two fourth walls, the imaginary one and the glass one) this means that it is a show, made up and something that you are not now or probably ever going to be involved in. It is meant for entertainment purposes only and no wagering is allowed. It does not pretend to involve you. The internet is fake community. It is quasi-community, with a real community people see you, smell you, touch you avoid you, move next to you, give you high signs to leave a party early. On the internet you are an avatar, not real in anyway. It is good to see only what someone wants you to see? No, it is a sliver of the human experience. Which is why political message boards are likeporn. They are people sitting alone intellectually masturbating. But there is a new phenomena that makes it even more annoying. Nina Hartley once said that making modern porn annoys her because "when I started it was just a lot of hippies who liked to fuck, now these people think they are going to be stars." Since the "blogosphere" had its psychic IPO, everyone with over a hundred posts thinks they are going to be the next "DailyKOS" or "Wonkette". When I started going on www.democraticunderground.com it was because I was obsessed with the Florida recount and looking all over for credible ionformation. I was linked there from a site called www.bushwatch.com. There were a small number of pissed off people and we shared information, real and imagined, about the Bush selection. We commisserated, argued, teased, YELLED but I don't think anyone thought of it as an audition for being on "Hardball" as the next big internet pundit.


One frequent poster to that site got a book published but not because he posted there. He posted there because he is a tremendous writer which is why he got a book deal. He didn't post a "best of Will Pitt DU posts" . This phenomenon changes the way people post and the way they respond to posts. That is the main reason it infuriates me. There is also the run of the mill annoyance of what people in this country care about, left or right. On DailyKOS I try to post mostly humorous content because the people there really, really know what they are talking about. People have some nice comments like, "is that from the onion" which is a nice thing to see or they add to it but the one thing I wrote that made the "Top 75" list (swear to g_d someone there keeps track" was the one I dashed off asking if Tom cruise's belief in Scientology was any weirder than anyone elses religion. That post got about a hundred comments, the majority of which were people griping that people were paying attention to that issue in the first place. Well, if I want to get on the top 75 list, do Icare if it is something that matters or do I care that people respond? I do love the irony of the amount of time people will argue that the thing they are arguing isn't worth their time. Hours and hours of people arguing about wasting time on the issue they are arguing about.

But also it infuriates me because I am, by my own a admission, someone who likes people more in theory than actuality. Humankind I love, its the individuals I don't like. Kind of like a baseball fan that loves the game, loves the team but doesn't really have time for the players.


Doesn't mean I ain't right though.

[Hugin]

1. All of that and no pix?

Jeebus!

:eyes:

[A-Schwarzenegger]

2. Great rant.

But are you for it or against it?

[Fight_n_back]

3. Great question

Just like porn, Message boards are a creepy but necessary outlet. Without either, many people would explode.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

8. One difference between porn & message boards,

from a writer's POV:
You can only get so good at masturbation,
but you can keep improving as a writer.

[Fight_n_back]

9. I disagree with you there

but only for humor's sake.

[Deja Q]

4. Does that mean a multi-image avatar is like a multiple personality?

:scared:

[sui generis]

5. you ain't right

and I mean that in the most social jocular way possible!

:evilgrin:

Yeah - actually I think it's more like public masturbation for many posters given the quality (and quantity) of replies you sometimes find.

Discussing politics is a touchstone to these huge abstract events that usually don't impact the lives of most people in the mainstream. So a lot of the fringes are actually "in the middle" of the fray, and find their voice. It's great perspective, regardless of what you believe or which side you take, but I think some of the fringiest of the fringes are as hard to like in blogworld as they are in the real world.

The most difficult lesson for me is that you are what you write. Nobody can see your tics, your mannerisms and idiosyncracies, winks, grins, the sparkle in your eye when you talk, and most people just automatically think the worst. I can't help some days thinking that the expression "those who live by the sword, etc." is equally well adapted to "those who live by the pen, die by the pen".

The rest of us are just here for our "personal" reading pleasure. ;)

[On the Road]

6. Did You Post This Somewhere Else?

Just curious -- because of the way you referred to DU by the entire URL, as if a reader might want to click and visit.

Actually, I think internet communities are completely real -- they're just not complete in a physical sense. I don't see why any of the things you mention ("see you, smell you, touch you, avoid you, move next to you...") are absolute requirements. There's also a certain amount of overlap between DU and relationships in "meatspace."

If you have your entire social life over the internet, you're missing something (provided it would have been replaced by a real social life). OOH, a lot of people here have found something not available in their immediate surrounding, especially those in red states or red families.

[biscodawg]

7. not directed at the OP in anyway, but message boards

do bring this out in people

























myself included

[Fight_n_back]

10. and a picture

is worth a thousand words.