Virtual me, part II

Okay, here’s the follow-up post.

I pondered this topic for a while – no, strike that. I pondered my reasons for pondering this topic for a while. After a, shall we say, heated conversation with Bryan about it, I began to question my own purpose. He challenged me to explain my “point,” and, I realized, I didn’t actually have one. Rather than completely rescind my post, which seems like cheating in this kind of honest forum, I’ll use this follow-up to explicate my thinking and, hopefully, invite conversation, for my comment pane remained chillingly silent all week.

Let me make a few things clear:

1. I am a gamer, of a sort; I like the quest-like nature of World of Warcraft , EverQuest, etc. I’ve always thought of D&D as a kind of “Choose Your Own Adventure” story, except verbally communicated instead of paper-based. And, no, I do NOT dress up as a character. Ever.

2. I’m not the type to invest myself emotionally in online worlds. I don’t instigate, develop, or pursue relationships (platonic or otherwise) in an online fashion. I also don’t allow – and I’m usually up front with it – others to consider my online avatar that way. Not my thing at all.

3. I try (really I do!) not to pass judgement on those that do become immersed in those worlds, those “other lives,” wherein the other participants become the primary source of many of these individuals’ social interaction.

The purpose, then, for my discussion, must constitute a desire for study of the phenomenon of technological interaction and communication. Ever since my first linguistics course in college, the structures and metamorphoses of language in a technological and instantaneous context have offered tantalizing points for study. (Now I just sound like a pseudo-intellectual. Ah, me.)

Not, of course, that I want to turn online folks into guinea pigs. I think it arises from my own sort of “outer rim” interaction with that culture and my own utter lack of interest in complete immersion (Good grief, what a snob I have become!). To ignore the repurcussions of this shift in communications from interpersonal and, comparatively, slow, to ever-mediated and lightning fast, is tantamount to holding onto the belief that babies arrive courtesy of storks.

And I’m not just thinking of one-to-one communication, either; on the day of the VA Tech killings, my good friend Brooke commented on the "virus-like" nature of the media. The implications of the ubiquitous coverage that day left me feeling both awestruck and reflective. From just a few stories on GoogleNews at 10am, to over 7,000 – and growing – by 2pm, Reuters and AP Wire had changed the front page headlines of newspapers from Blacksburg, Virginia to Syndey, Australia and New Delhi, India. The entire world had time to react to the tragedy at the same pace of the U.S.

Of course, thousands of graduate students, the world over, have written on this topic. Indeed, I had the pleasure of reading one of Melanie’s papers on “1337 speak” (get her to send you a copy – or convince her to post it – it’s brilliant!) for her graduate-level grammar course. I think, however, that if I tackled this realm (again), I’d go after within the framework of linguistic concerns, with an examination of the spiritual / psychological effects (and affects!)

Sooo…. now that I’ve probably embarassed myself with a whole lotta showing off and self-examination, I hereby declare this topic finit! (but you can still comment!)