Warning: This is relatively long Gather essay. You are free to skip the content, give me 10 stars, and exit the post. Any “courtesy comment” is appreciated as well!
Remember when we were in high school? There were the cliques…the burnouts, the nerds, the cheerleaders, and jocks? It was social suicide to say something stupid and we all wanted to be thought of as “cool”, even if we weren’t. Sometimes I feel like the social media craze puts us into a world wide high school, once again feeling high on popularity or insecure from the lack thereof. Are we a cool kid, one that will be ridiculed, or one that will just be invisible?
Of course, it’s not really the same at all because just by virtue of the fact that we are on the computer gathering “virtual” friends rather than “real” friends, puts us at risk of being considered a loser by a lot of “real” people. This is a big advantage for those of us computer geeks, because by eliminating the “real cool” people from the cyber world, we just have to be cool amongst similar cyber-junkies. In other words, we have to be cool geeks. But even I…self-proclaimed computer-addicted-geek that I am…have to question my motivations behind the inordinate amount of time that I can waste “socializing” with virtual friends.
Gather is just one of about a gazillian social media sites that are out there invading the cyberworld. Facebook seem to be the most popular…at least with my age group. I know MySpace is big with the younger crowd, but from what I know of that one, joining in really would be like stepping right into the virtual high school scene. No thanks. In this very-non-Gather-like-because-it’s-too-long essay, I’ll stick with discussing the Gather social scene, since, after all…anyone reading this (and I’m sure there won’t be many) is familiar with Gather.
With Gather, ya gotta love the points. Yes, most of us do have a little point-whore in us. It’s funny what we’ll do for points. It can be very addicting, especially when those points are worth money. After some very scientific experiments I deduced that if I spent 15 hours a day on Gather I might be able to earn a Borders gift card in a month. It was with this realization that I determined losing my job due to a Gather addiction would not be wise. It was time to stop the point-whoring and simply use gather to improve my writing skills. (Yeah…..right…..)
I’m here to tell you that using Gather to improve your writing skills is not a great idea. Most people don’t want to spend too much time reading. This is about in and out…fast…make your comments quid pro quo and move on to your next friend. I feel guilty writing anything more than a few lines because I know my “friends” will feel obligated to read it… (hence, please accept apologies and permission to skip to the end any time.) I may get labeled as one of those long-winded people that drones on and on with long posts (worse than someone who writes too many posts). I get left with an embarrassing 1 or 2 comments from those loyal gather friends who were stuck with reading my too-long post. (Thank yous in advance to Marianne and David Salyer.)
So, if it’s not about the points and not about the writing, then what else is there that’s so addicting? The answer?..... It’s the “friends”! (Oh, btw IGNORE THE STAR RATING! It means nothing!! Do not get bent out of shape if your star rating is low on some post!) But, I digress…Back to virtual friends. Supposedly, the more friends we have, the more comments we get, and the more popular we feel. The problem with this is that many of these virtual friends (in fact, almost all of them) are people you never met before and really don’t know you from Adam. They have lots and lots of other virtual friends and they have trouble giving you the support you need (in the form of comments and stars and pings and fuzzy warm feelings) if you clog their feeds with lots and lots of summerpics or long posts such as this one. Yes, I still have enough point-whore in me to have put up about 50 summerpics simply for the points. If you are my friend, please do not feel obligated to view, rate, or comment on those. I’m simply being a point whore. Similarly, it is hard to find the time to reciprocate in similar style to all of the many, many point-whores out there. I freely admit to avoiding long posts, summerpics, and substance-lacking Gather fodder.
Of my 300+ Gather friends, there are probably about 10 that I put in a category above the typical virtual friend. It’s either because they’re funny, sweet, loyal, or that I just truly enjoy their content. There’s that small subset that have either commented in a very thoughtful insightful way on one of my articles or have touched me with their own writing. David Salyer sent a contribution for Leukemia and Lymphoma when I was fund-raising and I’ll never forget that generosity. Kevin V. is so supportive and thoughtful, not just of me, but with every post or comment that he makes. Marianne is amazing! I can’t believe how she can manage to read so much and be so loyal to so many gather friends. Doyle and Monkey…fairly new to my little gather tribe that I watch…are witty and fun. La Bellota….I don’t see her much on gather anymore….but she touched my heart at a time when I was low, and I’ve become an off-gather occasional IM-buddy with her. Then there are my Gather Flirt Buddies, the “tree” David K, Paul G, Doug H, and Kerrell who pops in now and then. There are a few more….David Rochester, Carolyn Madden, and others who I’ve enjoyed since I joined Gather almost 2 years ago. There are more, of course, but these are examples of people that draw me back to Gather and keep me hooked.
Are these people real “friends”? Are we wasting real life spending time with virtual friends? We know there are real people behind these posts and comments, but will we ever really meet them? Really connect with them beyond a computer? Would they miss us if we disappeared from Gather? If something tragic or joyous happened in their lives, would we even know? Would we care? I don’t know when a virtual friend becomes a real friend. I have “real” friends, people that send the yearly Christmas Cards, who know me less intimately than many of my “virtual” friends. At times I imagine I have a plethora of friends…whether I know them from real life or the virtual world. At other times I wonder if I have any “real” friends at all. Who really knows me? And who do I really know?
It seems to be this pseudo-boyfriend I call “Laptop Guy” that I confide in most. Journals that might make it into cyberspace and might possibly connect me to a virtual friend. Whether it’s virtual or real life, the connection….the sharing of self and the support we can give one another…I suppose that’s what we crave, and that’s what makes a friend real.
And if you made it to the end of this long post, you really are a friend! Now give me those stars and get back to point-whoring!
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Comments: 28
Of my 500+ connections, I personally know (meaning met or are real life pals already) maybe 30 or so. I can attest that those are bonafida real friends. The rest of the 10-20%, I would really like to meet/get to know in person cause I am positive I would like them.
I do feel Gather friends are real friends. Even if you have never met them. Some are phonies yes..But you have those in real life as well.
I do enjoy the cash I get from Gather....I also enjoy the diverse group of people, their opinions and posts. Even if I don't always agree with them. I have learned alot coming to Gather..politics in general.
I do feel Gather friends are real friends. I have created a special subset for connections that stand out from the rest. I do notice when one has not been around for a while and am sad when something bad happens to one of them. I learned that one of my connections here had committed suicide and it affected me the same way it would have if it had been any other friend or connection.
The points are nice but I enjoy the Geocaching photos by Marianne, the interesting stories and photos of Mariana T, your very witty posts, and many others.
I tend to feel the friends I have in the cyber world would be a friend if we ever met. I think Gather is just another way of communicating with those that are in different parts of the planet.
Well, this is probably one of the longest comments I have ever left!
Nice article!
And didn't I peg it? Marianne and David already leaving comments! My real virtual friends! Thanks to all of you that left comments!
I think Gather friends are as real and as superficial as "real life" friends.
First, as to the points, I truly could care less. Many people are here only for the points and for most people, it's at least a big motivator. There's nothing wrong with that, and when I earn a gift card, I'm not going to throw it in the street. But, yes, if you do the math, it's a lot of work at a meager rate of pay.
My Gather friendships were real enough to scare me back into psychotherapy. My therapist, Dr. Hines, is not familiar with social networks, so, in a sense, I'm educating her on the subject. She has asked questions such as "How do you know Isis is not a man?" and "How do you know that Isis and Chana are not the same person?" Well, if you pop into a random chat room and someone named "Candy" says "Hi, I'm a very cute 20-year-old woman. I'm lonely. Do you want to have sex with me?" you'd be justified in thinking that "Candy" was probably full of skit. On the other hand, if you read and correspond with people on Gather over the course of weeks or months, you grow to know them and trust your sense of who they are.
Dr. Hines also said that it was all well and good to have online friends, but I couldn't get to know them well, as I could with a physically present person. There I had to disagree with her. I am extremely shy at the best of times, and after breaking up with my last girlfriend in 2005, I've been pretty isolated, mostly by choice. I work in a very small company, so there is virtually no chance of making new friends there. My best friend, Tonya, quit a few weeks ago to prepare for her wedding.
There's been a pattern in my life whereby I can only get to know people through correspondence. Before the Internet, it was by long, hand-written letters. After I've come to know someone through correspondence, we can move on to telephone conversations and then an in-person meeting. I don't think I could ever meet and become intimate friends with someone just by face-to-face conversations.
For most of my first year on Gather, I spent my time leaving brief comments to photos and playing some point-garnering games. My friends were very nice people, but I didn't really know that much about them. All that changed when I was friended by a Gatherer named Isis. She is a very real, intelligent, loving woman with a beautiful soul. She scared the heck out of me. I wasn't sure I was ready to abandon my isolation and re-enter the world of the Humans. That's when I went back into therapy.
Well, Isis is now a good and, I hope, lifelong friend. She has a boyfriend now (there's that word!). We speak on the phone, but I suspect I'll never have the pleasure of meeting her face-to-face.
Isis did open a door for me. I've met a few other people who have become very real friends.
My Gather friends are real people. Some are close friends, some are acquaintances. I love my close friends very much.
If the Internet were to disappear tomorrow, I'd buy a box of stationery and a nice pen, and I'd start writing letters.
Take care,
Doug
Thank you for taking the time to write such a heartfelt comment. Similarly, I just spent the last half hour writing a long reply, only to press Submit and have it get lost! (I guess I took so long that gather logged me out. How frustrating!
So now I'll be a little quicker. Basically, I wanted to say that I agree that you can grow to love a person that you originally meet online. However, I do think that unless someone has actually met, face to face, they do not truly know the other person. There are so many ways we communicate with our bodies.... our eyes, our voice, our mannerisms, our touch... you can't experience these through the written word. You get closer with phone calls, but I think you need to meet to truly know another person.
I was once shy like you, and opened up so much more easily via email. But, I'm getting better, and now I'm a firm believer in trying to meet people face to face whenever possible. Try to move out of your comfort zone and go out and smile at people....ask them about themselves...soon you'll find yourself connecting with real people as easily as you connect virtually.
I agree with you completely about the body language, facial expressions, etc. A relationship that never moves beyond email is severely limited.
Yes, moving out of the comfort zone is a very good principle. Thank you for reminding me.
Take care,
Doug
The issue of "virtual" friends vs "real" friends, is something I've thought about too.
The internet, being revolutionary technology which is changing the way we make a living, is consequently changing the way we are educated, the way we think, our values, and all of that. It is also changing the nature of our friendships.
It used to be that we talked with our good friends about what was important to us, because...well.....who else would we talk about this with? But now that we can talk about our passions with the like-minded in the blogosphere, it's no longer so important that we talk about them with our "real" friends, with whom we'll merely talk mostly about trivia.
Just as knowledge is becoming more and more compartmentalized, so are friends, whom we'll compartmentalize into "real" and "virtual".
I must say, I'm very, very gratified to be mentioned among your "friends".
Even though you may be tempted to question how "real" anything is in CyberWorld, rest assured, I'm as real as real can be. (Once upon a time I was just a wooden-headed little figure dancing on strings in the workshop of an old fellow named Gepetto. But then a miracle happened--even though some people still call me "termite bait"--and I became a REAL boy.)
There's nothing I'd like more than being able to meet you "in the flesh", so to speak--though I fear you would most likely be seriously disappointed (read, flee screaming in terror).
And no, Yvette, it is most assuredly NOT about the Brownie Points. And I strongly encourage you to continue working on improving your writing by "posting" here. It's only a matter of time before we see your smiling face on the end-flap, or back cover, of a book jacket. And then we can all say, "I knew her back when...."
I certainly would miss YOU if you disappeared from Gather. I would undoubtedly spend countless nights tossing and turning in my lonely little bed, tormented by the question, "What happened to Yvette?"
Anyway, I want you to know--you can always depend on me, sweetness (as long as you don't need to borrow money, anyway).
First of all, I'm sure I would never be disappointed if I met you "in the flesh". You are a very intriguing and interesting man, even though you did stand me up that day I waited for you to arrive on my doorstep.... You can be sure I've been tossing and turning ever since.
But now that you've given me a big TEN, not to mention the reference to my delicious little toes, I can sleep easier. Remember....I'm still looking for someone to play the part of Mr. September. :-)
Sweet dreams, Tweed.
On friendship. I have found alot of interesting and intelligent people on Gather. I live in the middle of nowhere, near a small town. These people help to feed me (and I am not talking about carrots here). They have at times challenged me and at other times entertained me. I loved Sharon's first Summer Pics article. Not only did it make me laugh until I cried, it also echoed a feeling I was having about the whole promotion and inspired me to do one of my own. I have spoken to on the phone and communicated by IM with two people on Gather. Plus by e-mail with them and a couple more people. I may not seem like it on Gather but I am reticent to get close to other people, I guess because of things that have happened in my life ambivelence has become part of my character. I have found people here who I can feel comfortable with being me, meaning silly me and serious me, not just this part or that part.
Do I know everyone on my friends list? To be honest no. I have the intention to, but am slow keeping up. Are there people on Gather I care about? Most definetly. Do they care about me? I hope so. Maybe more of my ambivelence here. Would I care if I lost a Gather friend? Now I can answer that question. I couldn't when I first replied. Yes, I would care. Because of a misunderstanding this has happened to me. I miss this person very much and wish them much happiness. I hope we can work this through and start to communicate again. It has taught me a lesson though.
Yvette, thank you for your article. I found it very interesting. It and the comments gave me something to think about. One of the reasons I am on Gather.