Should web culture go up in flames?
- Thread starter Ahri_Blaze
- Start date
EscapeVelo said:
Ok, this may be the absolute weirdest thing to pick up on from all your... interesting viewpoints, but I haven't actually seen any of the people I think you're bothered by reference class in a very long time. Seems to mainly be race and gender with a dashing of sexual orientation these days. Last thing I remember any energetic kids doing for class issues was Occupy, and that kinda went nowhere fast.
So because a bunch of people are too opinionated, or are trolls looking for attention, we should shut down all online communication?
That's like saying "Hey, because a few people use cars to run people over, no one should have a car!"
Bad people do bad things with things that were intended for good. That's the way of humanity.
It's not that there's a majority of people on the internet being bad people. It's just that the way the internet social structure works, the jackholes and trolls tend to get the most attention. And shutting it all down because of them is way too extreme.
Besides, if there was no interaction, how the hell would I get feedback from people who play my RPGmaker games? Feedback that I need in order to improve my games and make them better? How would I start/participate in discussions about how best to implement certain features in my games? Social interaction on the internet is an amazing thing and axing it to shut up the trolls and assholes only means that they've WON.
That's like saying "Hey, because a few people use cars to run people over, no one should have a car!"
Bad people do bad things with things that were intended for good. That's the way of humanity.
It's not that there's a majority of people on the internet being bad people. It's just that the way the internet social structure works, the jackholes and trolls tend to get the most attention. And shutting it all down because of them is way too extreme.
Besides, if there was no interaction, how the hell would I get feedback from people who play my RPGmaker games? Feedback that I need in order to improve my games and make them better? How would I start/participate in discussions about how best to implement certain features in my games? Social interaction on the internet is an amazing thing and axing it to shut up the trolls and assholes only means that they've WON.
This is an inalienable truth.EscapeVelo said:
And honestly, the only Internet culture I want to get rid of is Tumblr "social justice." It is to actual social justice[footnote]which I fully support[/footnote] what Catholic pedo-priests are to Christianity.
Okay, maybe that's kind of stretching it, but I'm so fed up with people who support racial segregation and think it's not racist.
I'm not certain, but I think they're referring to the rich vs poor vs middle class narrative. It may not be a hot topic on these boards, but it's certainly not a topic that never comes up anywhere (if you're an American, you may recall this coming up quite frequently in the recent State of the Union address).tilmoph said:
The only thing that needs to git gone is Twitter. It has just enough characters for someone to make a totally asinine self-righteous statement, but not enough fully rebut it. I could guarantee you that if Twitter up and fucked off, the internet's toxicity would be cut by half.
And then there's that dark, utterly stupid part of tumblr which keep rising form depths on occasion. Someone should really plug that hole.
Aside from those things, The internet is one of the biggest boons to humanity in all of history. People are able to express their ideas, discuss them, defend them, have them rebutted, and rebut other ideas.
It's a place where information can flow freely.
And without it, we'd all be misinformed puppets, living the way the rich and powerful want us to live.
Take away the internet for any reason, and create a dystopia.
And then there's that dark, utterly stupid part of tumblr which keep rising form depths on occasion. Someone should really plug that hole.
Aside from those things, The internet is one of the biggest boons to humanity in all of history. People are able to express their ideas, discuss them, defend them, have them rebutted, and rebut other ideas.
It's a place where information can flow freely.
And without it, we'd all be misinformed puppets, living the way the rich and powerful want us to live.
Take away the internet for any reason, and create a dystopia.
Who knows, maybe the people you're talking about actually become less unpleasant to be around in real life because they have an outlet for their venom.
*laugh track*
*laugh track*
Disagree there. By themselves they aren't much use, sure, but discussing those issues in any way is going to annoy people, whatever language you use.Ahri_Blaze said:
Web culture is a lot bigger than games, and a lot of important stuff (and lots more noise) happens there.
God dammit.EscapeVelo said:
This is the worst part about an opinion on the internet is you may state a somewhat less progressive and more liberal (as in liberty based, not "American liberal") point of view and the guy who agrees with you walks up behind you and starts shouting about Nazi Space Jews, so you look crazy by association.
What he says has merit, to a degree. Although I would say that Gamergate is simply the first time that things like mutually guided agenda driven journalism, third wave feminism, social justice warriors and New Progressives have encountered a group that responded so... enthusiastically, and vocally, shall we say.
I imagine it's how a lot of anti-gamer gaters feel as well. They'll state something normal, like "Well, I think that we should have a discussion about female representation" and then someone walks up behind them and shouts "Fuck all cis-white privileged males, make all male characters female, the only good game is Portal because it represents a vagina and not a penis" and then the normal person looks crazy by association.
Back to OP: If you think web culture is toxic, perhaps you would like to go to the Middle East where they shoot little girls in the face for wanting an education? As far as toxicity goes, web culture is really, REALLY far down on things we should worry about.
You know that song is satirical, and is mocking that very sentiment, right? In other news, Wild Horses literally tried to drag Mick Jagger, and Princess Diana (Or whoever the song is dedicated to at the time) is literally a Candle In the Wind.EscapeVelo said:
I am very much aware. Still it goes back to that Critical Miss comic from a while back. Where yes. This is incredibly low on list of things in the world that needs fixing. However it is my little corner of the world that and I'd like that to somehow be made better.L. Declis said:
Have you seen Fox News?
People are the way they are. You can choose to see the bad or the good. The culture here is pretty positive, actually, other then some GG threads here and there. And those still keep pretty civil (comparatively).
I'm sorry, I wanted to sound smart. I actually have no idea what you were trying to say. I don't know what I was trying to say either. I just... sometimes I open my mouth, and I can't stop talking, and I make a fool of myself. I'll be going now...
(It's possible that I haven't slept in, like, two days).
People are the way they are. You can choose to see the bad or the good. The culture here is pretty positive, actually, other then some GG threads here and there. And those still keep pretty civil (comparatively).
Marxist conspiracy, ubermansch, austrian economic movement against right wing utilitarian forces, John Stuart Mill, cognative dissonance. We must make the world safe for democracy by exporting the revolution to the shamalongadindong.EscapeVelo said:
I'm sorry, I wanted to sound smart. I actually have no idea what you were trying to say. I don't know what I was trying to say either. I just... sometimes I open my mouth, and I can't stop talking, and I make a fool of myself. I'll be going now...
(It's possible that I haven't slept in, like, two days).
So you want to make something flawed better by basically destroying it completely? Interactions on the internet can be shitty at times, so we just shouldn't interact with each other online at all?Ahri_Blaze said:
First off, let's get out of the way that what you are proposing would be close to impossible to implement in any realistic fashion. The internet does not work in a way that would allow what you are proposing to be done.
What you are suggesting is basically the equivalent to suggesting that the way to make the problems in the Middle East better is to nuke the whole region. Basically a fantasy land solution that wouldn't actually work as proposed anywhere in the real world.
I understand that you see a problem in something you enjoy, and want to make it better, but your proposed solution is nonsense hyperbole, and amounts to a magical "what-if" scenario, tantamount to proposing that a good way to solve U.S. political hostility would be to put walls around all of the individual states and turn them into their own countries. It might solve the original problem, but it would be nearly impossible to implement, and create worse problems than the one it set out to address.
Social media is absolutely terrible. If that got down-played or if it went away for a short while, I wouldn't cry over Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. declining.
Web culture is alright. People get pissy here more than in the real world because the internet is a very personal thing. Seeing a disapproving comment is not the same as say, someone disagreeing with you irl. It feels more personal because those pixels will be forever placed on this magical wall you keep staring at every single day. It feels like "your" internet is insulting you, not another person.
There's this whole psychology of attachment: unlike with other forms of media, you can wilfully ignore anything that disagrees with you and create your own echo chamber. People get entrenched, and since video games are a medium based on emulating personal experience, this effect gets amplified. Hence, why people start great flame wars over game X not being liked by person Y or whatever(though that's another thing entirely, and more to do with the delusional thought process that if something you like is "bad", it reflects badly on you as a person, since you treat it as "belonging" to you. Though this is a problem with society, capitalism and namely "conspicuous consumption". Just that it gets exemplified when it comes to games).
This gets further espoused by the fact that the internet is run by nerds. Sure, there are sites exclusively populated by movie buffs, or exclusively by philosophers or what-have-you, but the dominant trend across the majority of sites is nerd-dom. This is again, another factor that further emphasises the echo-chamber effect, because the whole point of being a nerd is showing intense enthusiasm towards a specific hobby. The earliest forums and discussion boards were run primarily by the classic definition of nerds: tech buffs with interests in games, rp'ing, etc.
As a result, even with this mass designation of games, anime, fantasy etc. that is constant across the majority of the internet, each community falls into it's own niche that it is intensely dedicated to. Yes, people like games, but say, IGN has a preference for Halo, PCGamer is exclusively PC, Eurogamer is focused on Europe(as indicated in their respective titles). Like with gated communities, these niches can also become stagnant due to the lack of an exchange of ideas. It's good that sites like ours tend to mix things up a bit(as are many sites in general by this point), but there are still domineering mentalities across every single one.
Therefore, things tend to stay locked-down, so when hostilities do arise(or even contrary ideas), shit gets pretty explosive. It's this almost-unification-but-not-quite-absolute-unity that begets these sorts of events like 'recent controversies'. It's not the internet itself that does this, but the way in which people treat it and use it, same as with facebook(though that stuff is designed around vanity and breaking down human communication until everyone might as well communicate through grunts and squeaks for all the good that happens with it. Even as I might jest that I detest those sites, I see the value in them. I just don't see the value in the communities which use these sites in a manner that instead of "choose how you use this site" we now have tacit agreements as to how to "use" facebook: that pisses me off).
As for what would take for that sort of unification...I don't know. I retain hope that we will eventually link hands and complain about games instead of having some extraneous event force us into doing so. In theory, if a game was released, one that absolutely everyone likes and has played and has attached some of their own personal meaning to, perhaps we'd gain a better sense of camaraderie, but that's naive. Not only is the idea of such a game unrealistic, but due to the commercialisation of gaming ensuring that even with stuff that everyone is playing, there are massive economic barriers that would prevent this sort of coming together. Movies didn't have this problem due to standardisation: a ticket costs relatively the same throughout all cinemas, but games are not only more expensive, but also range wildly in quality and accessibility(having a dedicated games machine for example, though that is starting to slowly go away) not to mention the way that we assess a game's worth...but that's a discussion for another time.
TL
R No, web culture shouldn't die, it just needs to grow up or get shaken up by a huge, external cataclysm.
Web culture is alright. People get pissy here more than in the real world because the internet is a very personal thing. Seeing a disapproving comment is not the same as say, someone disagreeing with you irl. It feels more personal because those pixels will be forever placed on this magical wall you keep staring at every single day. It feels like "your" internet is insulting you, not another person.
There's this whole psychology of attachment: unlike with other forms of media, you can wilfully ignore anything that disagrees with you and create your own echo chamber. People get entrenched, and since video games are a medium based on emulating personal experience, this effect gets amplified. Hence, why people start great flame wars over game X not being liked by person Y or whatever(though that's another thing entirely, and more to do with the delusional thought process that if something you like is "bad", it reflects badly on you as a person, since you treat it as "belonging" to you. Though this is a problem with society, capitalism and namely "conspicuous consumption". Just that it gets exemplified when it comes to games).
This gets further espoused by the fact that the internet is run by nerds. Sure, there are sites exclusively populated by movie buffs, or exclusively by philosophers or what-have-you, but the dominant trend across the majority of sites is nerd-dom. This is again, another factor that further emphasises the echo-chamber effect, because the whole point of being a nerd is showing intense enthusiasm towards a specific hobby. The earliest forums and discussion boards were run primarily by the classic definition of nerds: tech buffs with interests in games, rp'ing, etc.
As a result, even with this mass designation of games, anime, fantasy etc. that is constant across the majority of the internet, each community falls into it's own niche that it is intensely dedicated to. Yes, people like games, but say, IGN has a preference for Halo, PCGamer is exclusively PC, Eurogamer is focused on Europe(as indicated in their respective titles). Like with gated communities, these niches can also become stagnant due to the lack of an exchange of ideas. It's good that sites like ours tend to mix things up a bit(as are many sites in general by this point), but there are still domineering mentalities across every single one.
Therefore, things tend to stay locked-down, so when hostilities do arise(or even contrary ideas), shit gets pretty explosive. It's this almost-unification-but-not-quite-absolute-unity that begets these sorts of events like 'recent controversies'. It's not the internet itself that does this, but the way in which people treat it and use it, same as with facebook(though that stuff is designed around vanity and breaking down human communication until everyone might as well communicate through grunts and squeaks for all the good that happens with it. Even as I might jest that I detest those sites, I see the value in them. I just don't see the value in the communities which use these sites in a manner that instead of "choose how you use this site" we now have tacit agreements as to how to "use" facebook: that pisses me off).
As for what would take for that sort of unification...I don't know. I retain hope that we will eventually link hands and complain about games instead of having some extraneous event force us into doing so. In theory, if a game was released, one that absolutely everyone likes and has played and has attached some of their own personal meaning to, perhaps we'd gain a better sense of camaraderie, but that's naive. Not only is the idea of such a game unrealistic, but due to the commercialisation of gaming ensuring that even with stuff that everyone is playing, there are massive economic barriers that would prevent this sort of coming together. Movies didn't have this problem due to standardisation: a ticket costs relatively the same throughout all cinemas, but games are not only more expensive, but also range wildly in quality and accessibility(having a dedicated games machine for example, though that is starting to slowly go away) not to mention the way that we assess a game's worth...but that's a discussion for another time.
TL
R No, web culture shouldn't die, it just needs to grow up or get shaken up by a huge, external cataclysm.Well I have to admit watching it all go up in smoke would appeal to a sadistic element within me, the logical part of my brain is pointing out that it wouldn't make anything better. In fact it might make things worse without any established rules and all the steps we've taken, no matter how small, being erased.
I can see where you're coming from, but it wouldn't help.
At best you'd be hiding the problem. Sweeping it under the rug as it were.
The real problem is that this is a straight-forward extension of human behaviour in general.
It's just, the internet exposes that more clearly, and draws attention to some of the worst aspects of human behaviour.
It also highlights the obscure, the unusual, the strange...
All of which existed before the internet, it just was much more hidden, and hard to spot.
Hiding a problem is not the same as solving the core reason the problem exists...
And what you're advocating amounts to little more than 'out of sight, out of mind'...
It would accomplish nothing, but simply make it easier to make it look as though things are all just fine.
At best you'd be hiding the problem. Sweeping it under the rug as it were.
The real problem is that this is a straight-forward extension of human behaviour in general.
It's just, the internet exposes that more clearly, and draws attention to some of the worst aspects of human behaviour.
It also highlights the obscure, the unusual, the strange...
All of which existed before the internet, it just was much more hidden, and hard to spot.
Hiding a problem is not the same as solving the core reason the problem exists...
And what you're advocating amounts to little more than 'out of sight, out of mind'...
It would accomplish nothing, but simply make it easier to make it look as though things are all just fine.