He's Not The Messiah.....

Following on from my last post regarding moderation and in particular the actions that take place on the Internet has made me reopen some things in my past and look at the Internet with new eyes. To lay a little history for you I was involved with Internet chat rooms and message boards in the late 90's, and when i say involved you may substitute for addicted.

The social networking aspect of the Internet is ever growing, the use of sites such as facebook, twitter, myspace has changed beyond recognition the way people now interact, communicate and befriend one another, but this change can, too some people, become a drug and like any drug can lead to addiction. Allow me to wander for a while amongst a few random observations before coming to my point, i have much to get off my chest on this subject and as those that know me will testify things do not always come out in the right order.

There is a basic human need to be liked. There a categorical statement, no matter how independent you are, no matter how much you convince yourself that your happy being just you and alone, somewhere deep down you want people to like you, too respect you & here is where the Internet can feed the need. A recent study showed that 80% of teenagers on social networking sites lie about themselves, in a bid to make themselves something they are not, too fit in, too be popular. The number of friends on your facebook is now the measurement amongst teens as to your social standing, ignore the fact that many of these 'friends' have no idea who you are, have never met you and never will. So our teens create a mask, an illusion, an alternative version of themselves which people like. This in itself is no different from the alternative version that adults create when in different social interactions, meeting someones parents or going for a job interview we often change our mannerisms, speech etc in an attempt to impress.

The problem seems to lie in how we handle the shift in personality, where this apparent popularity takes our own personality & how we recognise this 'friendship' for the illusion that it is. My now ex wife and I systematically destroyed ourselves, each other and our marriage by failing to see the social networking aspect of the Internet for what it is, an illusion. We created alter ego's and shifted the way we interacted with people to feed a basic need, to be popular. Over time the alter ego became the primary one, fed by the fact that others liked it or at least seemed to we both became that which we had created. Only after the cataclysmic results of this and my subsequent decision to remove myself from the Internet as a form of social communication did I see what went wrong. Although people I had never met liked the alter ego, I didn't & nor did anyone else who knew me in the 'real' world.

My need to be liked turned me into something i hated, but until i was on the outside of the box looking in i couldn't see that. I tell you this so you may understand two things before i get to my main point. Firstly that I do understand how immersing and addictive the social networking sites can be & secondly so you will forgive me if i come across as a typical ex addict, like the ex smoker who coughs without need every time someone within a 10 mile radius lights a cigarette.

Only after a great deal of consideration and contemplation did i re-enter the shadow world of Internet social networking, in the form of online gaming via xbox live and the subsequent joining of an Internet forum. In it's infancy the forum aimed to bring together 'mature' gamers, people who wanted to enjoy the experience without the constant insults hurled by teens and primary school children. What started with few, grew to many & soon a thriving online community was in place. I confess to enjoying this & more so I confess to feeling good about myself for it seemed that I was popular, thought of as funny & good company... but (theres always a but) soon after i recognised something. Like some dark malevolent creature at the back of my memories i saw a shift in other members, bullying replaced banter, arrogance replaced acceptance some of the members who were amongst the originals changed, they became more and more insular like the high school 'in' crowd. I stepped back from the amount of time i was committing to this experience in fear that i too was falling back into the illusion of popularity trap and i watched. I watched as what had originally appeared to genuine, reasonable and humble people became so much less while thinking they had become so much more. I have not met any of these people, i do not know them so it is difficult to 'know' them, maybe it is past experience, but i understand the difference between an online persona and the person behind it. As time has gone on I have seen more and more the distressing aspects of Internet addiction within this group, factions have formed, those on the in, those in the know and then outside, smaller groups just as insular. I have seen members sympathise, empathise and support one another in matters which they can have no understanding if what they are being told is true, but they 'know' these people, they couldn't be in the wrong. The truth is I know none of them, I would like to think they are decent people, but for all i know one of them maybe battering his wife or abusing his children. It's not that i think they are its an acceptance of my limited knowledge of them as people despite my extensive knowledge of them as online persona's.

One member in particular has become so far detached from the person i thought he was that someone i would have thought of as a good friend is now less than an acquaintance, the shift in personalty which has come around from being one of the 'in' crowd is so dramatic i wouldn't say i ever knew him. Popularity, or the illusion of it, has turned him from a generous, humble and often kind persona into an arrogant self opinionated shadow of his former self. I only hope that this shift stops at his Internet connection or maybe he is now who he really is and the past was an illusion, i wouldn't know.

My hope is that these would be addicts, recognise their addiction, the changes in their personality before they, like i did, face an apocalypse in the real world bought on by their inability to just be themselves, driven by the need to be liked and the illusion that they are. The truth is simple, and in this i speech from experience, the Internet is a lie when it comes to social networking, regardless of how many people have you on a friends list on face book, no matter how many people follow your blog & despite the fact you get invites galore to play online as soon as you log on, its only true if they are for you rather than the glamorous personality you have created.

I am the common man, these views are mine & yes your right couldn't it be argued that the fact i write under a created name is in itself hypocritical of everything i have just said, but it is done this way for one reason, where as i accepted my short comings, faced my addiction and survived, my ex wife didn't, a fact i partially blame myself for, and because of that and the ramifications i choose not to name her & to do so I must not name myself...

Express Yourself

Of late a subject has been vexing me, freedom of speech, freedom of the right of individuals to express their point of view, too hold opinions and not fear persecution or censorship because of those opinions.

The Internet is without a doubt an enormous step in communication, but it has, in my opinion, bred a new type of dictatorship. Let me elaborate, I am a member of what pertains to be a free an open Internet forum, one which was created on the values of open communication, free speech and freedom of expression. However this forum has 'Moderators', now for those in the dark moderators are people given higher powers of control than normal members, most forums have them & it is their task to ensure that terms and conditions are kept too.

Now in itself that all seems very straight forward, but what when these 'Moderators' take it upon themselves to decide what we should see, what we should be allowed to input into an online environment? What when they conclude that your opinions are not acceptable? We are being controlled by faceless people, by the moral values of a self appointed minority. Now come along you might say, this all sounds a little far fetched, men in black controlling our views and opinions, its all a little x-files.

Ahh yes a follower of Mulder & Scully I confess to being, but stop for a moment and think about the world around you, think about what you now cant say because its sexist, racist, sizeist or just plain non PC. Think of what we now label things in a quest to offend nobody, but more think about where this comes from. We are TOLD yes told not asked that we can no longer use the term midget, we must say vertically challenged, a man can not be black he must be of African origins this one really gets me as not every black man is of African origins and not everyone of African origins is black. Should we choose to challenge these orders we are clamped down, we are punished by the nameless, faceless men that parade the carpeted halls of the hollowed seats of power.

In Australia Mr. Rudd is trying to introduce a national firewall that controls the web sites people can view, the emails they can receive. In one state in Australia one man stands against an R rating for games, and in doing so controls an entire nations free will, one man dictates what games people may play. The truth is people have fought and died to protect a way of life built of freedom, built of the basic human right to hold and express an opinion. The deaths of millions are being belittled by miniature Hitlers be them suited in an office in Whitehall, Canberra or Washington or be them normal people corrupted by the belief that they and they alone have the moral reigns over us, that their opinions are somehow of more importance than others. There was a man who thought that his views were more important than anyone Else's, a man who tried to censor others beliefs, opinions and their rights to hold those beliefs... that mans name was Adolf & he failed with the Jews the way these controllers these dictators will fail.