Virtual Reality

If you haven’t seen it yet, Tim has a new post about virtual reality, and raises a question about whether or not Myspace is an extension of a conditioning program meant to make us feel connected via completely artificial associations. It’s an interesting stream of thought, and it has spurred me into thinking about just how influential the connections made on the internet are in my own life.

MYSPACE:
I found this comment about Myspace left by “One Human?” to be strikingly familiar : “dude, wait until you have a few hundred “friends” and you find yourself out and about meeting people and sayin stuff like “Oh yeah, i seen you on myspace” “Arent you one of my “friends”?” “Yo, hit me up on Myspace” etc etc, seriously, the line betweeen virtual & reality has never been more blurry.”

This has actually happened to me on several occasions. Just the other night Tim and JK and I were accosted by a crazy drunk girl at a bar that I had once briefly corresponded with through myspace. Earlier in the night I had made long eye contact with her, but I turned away hoping I wouldn’t have to confront her in real life. I didn’t know if she would remember me from my denied “friend request”. But then she came up to our table and slurred out “I know you …. Stop pretending that we dont’ know eachother, “. It was awkward, because yes, technically I knew her - but we had never exchanged a word between us. Luckily, she got distracted and proceeded to try to get into JK’s pants.

FRIENDS:
On the same thought, if you’ve been around long enough to remember, I first met JK in a situation mediated through the good old world wide web - I was at a lonely little club drinking a beer and this stranger came up to me, put his arm on my shoulder and said “you’re Garrett Kelly, aren’t you?”. Of all the random goddamn chance occurrences, he just happen to recognize me through a picture on my old blog.

Now the guy lives with me.

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES:

My band, the datura blues, is currently made up of three people I knew from real life in arcata, and five other folks collected off the means streets of Craigslist.

DATING (er… kindof):
I have been recently been “chillin” with a girl I met on the craigslist personal ads - we wrote for two months back and forth and because of the potential for anonymity I revealed a lot more to her than I probably would someone I had met in person in the same amount of time. When she wanted to actually meet face to face, I kept chickening out and cancelling, as per usual with my self-deprecating ways. And while I’m at it, I wanted to mention that you can read about our adventures here; she’s got this hilarious website chronicling the men she meets on craigslist.

There’s even more I could go into if time permitted, but I am curious about how many of your “real life” connections were iniated through the web? How many of your relationships have strengthened because of the power of instant messaging? Dwindled because of misinterpreted humor embedded in an email?

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Published:
03.12.06 / 9pm
Category:
Open Discussion