Serious title. Suddenly I realized:
There's internet 'pillars' such as YouTube, Facebook and 4chan that a whole lot of people contribute content or simply lurk right? The communities formed are unaware of each others existence to an extend right now. There's also 'secret' elitist communities (like I consider 4-ch to be - or the 4chan textboards) that have to do with cultures or hobbies.
You can't force a sudden awareness - it happens on its own. It's an autonomous system of communities that grow, learn and become aware of each other. (Jensen's words from the movie The Network come to mind http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/quotes)
Moreover, coming to the title of my post, there's the I on the internet. That is, the self that is reflected. [b]You are what you browse.[/b] For example, when I browse 4chan I'm playful, naughty, horny. When I browse 4-ch I feel the need to "shut myself in" and communicate with other shut-ins (not trying to insult anyone here), and I simply do not use Facebook, which could say something about what kind of person I am socially...
There was a spark that grew into this post. I wrote as I thought about it. This has to be studied! Discuss.
Oh WakabaMark I forgot about you...
The revelation here has evaded me. These are just the basic tendencies or social groups, no?
fixed action patterns are never suppressed, they are simply taught to act within appropriate social contexts.
But can you really call this a social network? They are usually just communicating with a multifaceted machine
This thread makes me want to rewatch Lain.
So basically people generate different personalities to different websites.
Imo it's more like the plot of GITS:SAC.
But back to op, you can't compare chans to facebook. FB is just wanking contest with your friends, as LJ or MS used to be, maybe even ICQ/MSN before that.
Twitter is a celebrity circlejerk of which youtube is only half, the second part being kinda chan (the comments. THE COMMENTS!) for average joes. Reddit started as a nice improvement over digg, but will eventually meet the same end - drowned in it's own karma swamp.
Multiple personas is a natural thing. You talk different in school, to your parents and to your friends. But chan is the only place where you can pretend to be anyone you want.
But indeed herd behaviour dictates it all. Chans are the only herd which is not tightly controlled by shepherds, one may say, they/we're a feral bunch.
>>6
You say that chans are the only place where we can pretend to be someone else but what if we actually become the person we're pretending to be and the persona we use offline is actually the fake one?
This makes me think of the end of Evangelion (the anime, not the End of Evangelion film)...."This is the Shinji that you know on Facebook. This is the Shinji you know on Twitter. This is the Shinji you know in real life..." etc.
I kind of half-realized this in middle school; I noticed that I acted different in front of my friends and in front of my classmates, and my parents, and teachers. Then, when I went to college I realized I was different with my college friends than I was with my middle or high school friends. I think people mostly have herd tendencies, and I feel like most social groups (IRL at least) have a leader (or leaders) who set the tone for how the group will act.
One group of friends from when I worked at a bar were all loud and crazy, so when I hung out with them, I was loud and crazy.
At home, I'm boring and quiet.
I think humans are just like this. We are pack creatures, like it or not.
Some of us adjust to a solitary lifestyle, and we are adaptable, but in a group, I think most people would take on the role the "leader" has prescribed.
Sorry for tl;dr.
>>1
ITST. You can gather a lot from a persons youtube habits (comments, favorites etc) for example. An internet-profile of sorts. I think people reveal their true selves when 1. no fear of repercussion is present 2. habit and convenience trumps practical long term investments.
About the "Net MPD" thing, I think going to be a thing of the past. Nowadays everything is integrated into apps, shared commentary platforms, standardized communication forms etc. So the different environments creating different social personality breeding grounds will disappear as well. The internet is shrinking, ISTT.