Redacting Wikipedia
Feb. 15th, 2016 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraI continue in the most hideous mood. Hasn’t helped that I’m spending so much time online both on Facebook and the Well.
Whatever possessed me to rejoin the Well anyway? I should know by now that it’s an absolutely toxic environment for me. I suppose it’s some kind of deeply embedded yearning for a tribe. Unfortunately for me, I’m never going to find a tribe because I have a strong contrarian streak that makes me throw rocks whenever I’m in the presence of any manifestation of the Hive Mind.
I made some very close friends on the Well back in the day. The closest was my pal Tom who’s been dead for more than 20 years now. (How the fuck did that happen anyway?) Tom and I were besties before being besties was a thing. He was a fun guy! Neurotic as hell, though, holed up in that Mountain View hoarder fortress, stalking and pouncing via massive desktop computer on all those naive, liberal-spouting Deadheads and retired hippies as though they were characters in a shooter game with really bad graphics. Back in the early days of the Internet, there was a vast disconnect between online interactions and “real” life. (Wasn’t it Vladimir Nabokov who wrote, “Real life is a concept that should always be rendered in quotes”?)
When Tom died, there was mass jubilation on the Well the likes of which I didn’t see again till Scalia kicked the bucket.
Of course, I haven’t been on the Well much since Tom died.
I was so sickened by the general Ding! Dong! The Witch Is Dead! tenor of the Wellites’ remarks in public and private conferences after Tom’s death that I lashed out as effectively as I possibly could, packed up all my toys, and left. Scribbled every single thing I’d ever written there, too. I’ll be goddamned if the Well is ever gonna make a cent peddling my words to historians or nostalgiacs wondering what the 80s and the 90s were really like – which I have to imagine is a revenue model the present owners bat about from time to time since God knows they’re not attracting many new customers.
I should just cancel my membership. They offered a one-time special: $9.95 for a whole year to returning past members! Who could resist? I could pretend it was the 90s again! In the 90s, I was gorgeous, in love, and the world was brimming with opportunities.
###
What is it about online interactions that allow them to get under one’s skin so effectively?
Of course, reams and reams have been written about this. I seem to remember writing some of it myself.
I suspect it’s because one reads online interactions. That turns them into voices in one’s head! So online communications – from message board postings to texts – are experienced as a form of mental telepathy or schizoid audio hallucination, highly personalized communiqués, in other words. Much more personalized than a voice issuing from a real live human, which you’ve developed all sorts of stratagems for ignoring.
###
Tom didn’t really die listening to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. That was just something I made up to tell Phil Elmer-DeWitt at Time because I knew Tom would have gotten an enormous kick out of it. Tom really died listening to the hum and whir of his morphine pump. I kept vigil at his bedside that entire night, me and Maria. The memory is no longer vivid; it’s that jagged pebble that’s been washed round by its long journey off the mountain. But I do remember the sound of that machine. Vividly.
Whatever possessed me to rejoin the Well anyway? I should know by now that it’s an absolutely toxic environment for me. I suppose it’s some kind of deeply embedded yearning for a tribe. Unfortunately for me, I’m never going to find a tribe because I have a strong contrarian streak that makes me throw rocks whenever I’m in the presence of any manifestation of the Hive Mind.
I made some very close friends on the Well back in the day. The closest was my pal Tom who’s been dead for more than 20 years now. (How the fuck did that happen anyway?) Tom and I were besties before being besties was a thing. He was a fun guy! Neurotic as hell, though, holed up in that Mountain View hoarder fortress, stalking and pouncing via massive desktop computer on all those naive, liberal-spouting Deadheads and retired hippies as though they were characters in a shooter game with really bad graphics. Back in the early days of the Internet, there was a vast disconnect between online interactions and “real” life. (Wasn’t it Vladimir Nabokov who wrote, “Real life is a concept that should always be rendered in quotes”?)
When Tom died, there was mass jubilation on the Well the likes of which I didn’t see again till Scalia kicked the bucket.
Of course, I haven’t been on the Well much since Tom died.
I was so sickened by the general Ding! Dong! The Witch Is Dead! tenor of the Wellites’ remarks in public and private conferences after Tom’s death that I lashed out as effectively as I possibly could, packed up all my toys, and left. Scribbled every single thing I’d ever written there, too. I’ll be goddamned if the Well is ever gonna make a cent peddling my words to historians or nostalgiacs wondering what the 80s and the 90s were really like – which I have to imagine is a revenue model the present owners bat about from time to time since God knows they’re not attracting many new customers.
I should just cancel my membership. They offered a one-time special: $9.95 for a whole year to returning past members! Who could resist? I could pretend it was the 90s again! In the 90s, I was gorgeous, in love, and the world was brimming with opportunities.
###
What is it about online interactions that allow them to get under one’s skin so effectively?
Of course, reams and reams have been written about this. I seem to remember writing some of it myself.
I suspect it’s because one reads online interactions. That turns them into voices in one’s head! So online communications – from message board postings to texts – are experienced as a form of mental telepathy or schizoid audio hallucination, highly personalized communiqués, in other words. Much more personalized than a voice issuing from a real live human, which you’ve developed all sorts of stratagems for ignoring.
###
Tom didn’t really die listening to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. That was just something I made up to tell Phil Elmer-DeWitt at Time because I knew Tom would have gotten an enormous kick out of it. Tom really died listening to the hum and whir of his morphine pump. I kept vigil at his bedside that entire night, me and Maria. The memory is no longer vivid; it’s that jagged pebble that’s been washed round by its long journey off the mountain. But I do remember the sound of that machine. Vividly.
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no subject
Date: 2016-02-15 04:38 pm (UTC)I understand that overwhelming need (from time to time) to find one's tribe. Western Civilization has made that longing a conscious one, pulling it up out of the sub/unconscious and I think it has caused a huge amount of mental illness. What does a healthy online friendship look like to YOU? I feel as though I've tried to meet you at the online bar for a glass or two...but it's not working out. :(
no subject
Date: 2016-02-15 04:54 pm (UTC)I suspect you find me a bit brash from time to time in ways that annoy you even though you don't want to be annoyed. :-)
I think we would have become fast pals if we'd been able to meet up in CA last spring, but that's not a reproach -- I totally get real life demands -- and there will be plenty of opportunities to meet up in the future, I'm sure.
I only have two online relationships that I would describe as real friendships -- one with someone who lives in Vienna and who, for whatever reason, is a tremendous fan of this journal, and one with another LJer who's quixotic and brilliant, and with whom I have a texting relationship -- when he's not in LUV. :-)
no subject
Date: 2016-02-15 05:08 pm (UTC)I haven't been on FB, for a few days. I'm sure there's all kinds of annoying talk going on in my feed.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-15 05:14 pm (UTC)That was unfortunate last spring. A six hour drive for a two hour coffee with the guys wanting me to help them with their camping trip just wasn't going to be feasible no matter how hard I was trying to make that work. We should try to meet halfway if you travel out to Berkeley again. That's what I do with other Bay Area friends.
I have several real friendships that are 99% online. Glad to hear you have two.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-15 05:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-15 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-15 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-15 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-16 04:38 am (UTC)I have met more than a few friends online. I didn't really seek it out, I guess--I never thought of livejournal or facebook as a platform for meeting people--it just happened sometimes if I found someone I really clicked with. (of course, I met my significant through over OkCupid, which I DID use specifically to meet people.)
In the early wild days of the internet (ca. 2000) I was a teenager with a penchant for prank calling. With the advent of AIM I think you can imagine where that led...
no subject
Date: 2016-02-16 12:35 pm (UTC)Yeah, Max met his beloved thru OKC, too.
And that's interesting to me because Internet platforms specifically designed for meeting people have never worked for me. :-)
Old enough to remember life without the internet, but young enough to have learned to use it.
In fact, that's why I got hired by People. I had no journalism experience whatsoever. But I was a very, very early Internet adopter. I put People's first website up online! :-)