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London Zoo: E-Life

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  1.  (1033.1)
    More and more, I'm starting to realize how much time I spend online. It's really become a second life, and that's common for a lot of people. Their internet persona, whether being real or a figment of how the person actually is, is starting to become more and more of a realistic being in their own right. I'm starting to see a " blurring " between " internet community " and " real life community " and I have to admit I'm both horrified and fascinated this. I see groups like 4chan, Anonymous, and phenomena like Second Life and World of Warcraft being looked at as authentic living experiences.

    I'm starting to believe that in fifty years we'll all have a second being that we will inhabit in these worlds. I see in another century, people will be paying money to have their minds uploaded into these beings after their death(hell, maybe even before their death and become a permanent " subscriber ", albeit at a small fortune).

    It's four in the morning. So yeah. Take that for what you will. Thoughts, suckaducks?
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      CommentAuthorroque
    • CommentTimeFeb 15th 2008
     (1033.2)
    the idea of a "second life" is nothing new to writers. the internet is just turning everybody into writers, I think.

    which kinda sucks because... people on the internet can't fucking spell.
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      CommentAuthorAdam
    • CommentTimeFeb 15th 2008
     (1033.3)
    WAHAHAHAHAHAH

    Good call.
  4.  (1033.4)
    the idea of a "second life" is nothing new to writers. the internet is just turning everybody into writers, I think.

    which kinda sucks because... people on the internet can't fucking spell.


    That kind of discounts the visual and auditory stimulations of the video game cultures, which are essentially interactive worlds. While I see what you're saying, I'll shuffle that off into being one of those things that were always underneath the surface and is just recently being tapped into in mass.

    Lolocats can't spell though. And this is correct.
  5.  (1033.5)
    nnnng
  6.  (1033.6)
    Once again, my day is made.
  7.  (1033.7)
    I'm starting to see a " blurring " between " internet community " and " real life community "

    STARTING to? I ran my first online community from 1998-2002, and in that time I think the place caused four marriages to take place, several other longterm relationships, and the formation of groups of friends and fellow-travellers that persist to this day. By 2000 or so, I don't think there was any demarcation -- it was a real community that connected through the web.
  8.  (1033.8)
    I've done the same.

    Most of my current friends came out of a Yahoo group in the late 1990s which evolved into a (now mostly dead) message board I run. Plenty of long term relationships and a few marriages have came out of it.

    It's a very common story.
  9.  (1033.9)
    STARTING to? I ran my first online community from 1998-2002, and in that time I think the place caused four marriages to take place, several other longterm relationships, and the formation of groups of friends and fellow-travellers that persist to this day. By 2000 or so, I don't think there was any demarcation -- it was a real community that connected through the web.


    Man, I have obviously not been paying attention to the actions of the interconnecting web-like tubes that connects us all.

    When the world finally does turn into steam, I fear that the internet will by the window in which we all turn into water by.
  10.  (1033.10)
    Like Sterling said in the Hacker Crackdown, anywhere you put down a communications network, you also put a community. It's not a surprise to me that this is so, I'm more surprised it hasn't become the dominant form of human interaction, though maybe is has, I am notoriously behind the times when it comes to technology, owing to a lack of funds and attention span.
  11.  (1033.11)
    I've been a member of an online group for the last four years that has given me real friends and taken me as far as Houston and San Antonio. The lines blurred and were crossed long ago. People still think I'm a 'geek' for having friends through being online that I had never met while all the while using myspace and facebook... *sigh*
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      CommentAuthorBen
    • CommentTimeFeb 15th 2008 edited
     (1033.12)
    I joined a forum for a webcomic in 1998, it spawned a chatroom. The chatroom spawned at least two marriages during the life of the comic, and at least one more after the whole thing was wiped and gone. Most of them live close to each other now, I was always the odd one out because I was pretty young at the time.

    Around the same time I was involved in a few MUDs, two of which caused another two marriages.

    Of all of the people I've known that have gotten married, only the ones that met on the internet are still together.
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      CommentAuthorJay Kay
    • CommentTimeFeb 15th 2008
     (1033.13)
    I hear ya. For me, I've never been that great at social interaction in the real life, so I've always had better interaction online then in real life. :|
  14.  (1033.14)
    This is only the second message board I've posted on with any kind of regularity, but from the first one I met one of my best friends. That was five or six years ago now, and even at the time when people found out that I "met him on the internet" they weren't all that amazed.

    But I do think that another of Benel's points is interesting, how far we can take interaction through solely interacting online. However although I find it interesting, I know nothing about it, and thus can offer no real opinion. It's like bloody string theory all over again.
  15.  (1033.15)
    We're all going to build our second lives and when we die, we'll live them and each time we die we'll be uploaded into new lives of our choosing.

    It's going to be terrifying.
    • CommentAuthortmofee
    • CommentTimeFeb 17th 2008
     (1033.16)
    I met my last girlfriend through LJ, I met a few people I still contact these days through IRC. This is before the days you could suss people out on facebook/whatever.

    Actually, I'm surprised that IRC is still going so well. I occasionally log on (morbid curiosity, usually) and there's always plenty of people on the thing..
  17.  (1033.17)
    Never been in IRC channels... they kind of passed me by somehow. I do enjoy reading some of the comments on here though...
    • CommentAuthorgrenacia
    • CommentTimeFeb 18th 2008
     (1033.18)
    Without the internet, I'd have no idea how to make close friends as an adult. I'd say that in the past 5-6 years, most of the new friends I've met (and all the guys I've dated) I met on the internet, and the remainder tend to be people I've been introduced to by people I met on the internet! It's been great, I can have as much social life as I desire. Without internet communities, I'd be a real loner.
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      CommentAuthorEgon
    • CommentTimeFeb 18th 2008
     (1033.19)
    I keep up with my LiveJournal friends more than my Real Life friends
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      CommentAuthorFauxhammer
    • CommentTimeFeb 18th 2008
     (1033.20)
    My Internet friends are my meatspace friends.

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