Forever and ever, as far as I can remember being into online gaming, there was always something about the relationships with people online that you can't replace with someone of the flesh. More specifically, through a video game. Although I have met many people through the internet over the years, the ones that I feel hit closer to home are the ones I met through gaming. Here's my analysis;
Social Networking Relationships:
- Your looks say who you are
- You use people to get yourself popularized
- There's no way to really get to know someone because there's always a facade
- Rumor City
- It's basically Los Angeles and if someone takes something the wrong way, you're fucked
Online Video Game Relationships:
- You must cooperate to achieve a goal within a matter of time
- There is no face; just text, pixels, and a voice
- Peoples' personalities stand out more than physical features
- There's a sense of community to help one another, work together in teams
- You can leave whenever you want
-- I compare the two, because they are similar in the way that we communicate w/ others, but not the relationships that are formed.--
The irony of this is that those of us gamers that are guilty of "not having a life" form lasting friendships through these kinds of video games that makes me wanna run around in Hollywood going LOOOOL at your fail backstabbing real-life "friendships".
I'd also like to address why I'm such an introvert. It's not just because I rather not spend money to be in the company of vain, backstabbing, drunken, assholes that are full of themselves and all look alike, no. It's because now a days, many of these networking relationships are so shallow. Truly, they are. The very term "friend" has been degenerated to define a person you've encountered over the web, as well as defining a person who is close to you that you genuinely care about and feel Love for. It's, in my opinion, sickening.
Sickening; when someone who doesn't know anything about me, refers to me as a friend, because I'm a number on their profile. Sickening; when someone refers to "Rotny" as their friend because they're a number on his profile. And this is all stemmed through the ideal that attractive people are worth being connected to, because they are more attractive to the eye, making yourself more attractive for being in connection with attractive people, as well as socially attractive people, and not just physically attractive, but attractive to where they themselves have connections--which makes them attractive. It's all a race to be the most attractive person in a circle of attractiveness. All from social networking. SO....
Online Gaming communities sort of hold that standard, but in a way that demonstrates capability to complete a job better than the other guy in the raid, making them more attractive to bring to the next raid over the other guy that doesn't perform as well. But this is negated through community working together so that everyone is on par with each other, to achieve a goal for the entire group of people.
Online relationshps within video games are more attractive to me because there are no faces. There's no popularity contest. There's no personal attacking towards ones' lifestyle, no rumors, no catty bullshit, no racing to get numbers (or "friends" -- unless you're a sell out like The Guild), no real judging about who you are and what you want to do. In these games, the personalities of all my guildmates I've ever met all shined so much more to me than the people I've "met" over the internet since FaceTheJury erupted. And also the fact that we all have this huge thing in common-- the game. That's all they have. And you pick up on that immediately. You can tell what kind of person they are because you talk to them all day, many times a day during the week, and you all work together. It's actually pretty amazing in retrospect.
I decided to write about this after my recent situations in my guild within Rift. One guildmate in particular has taken to me and has become very fond of me. As protocol, I am uninterested, cold, distant, and hesitant to engage. I recently hit the level cap, and have come around to being more socially accepting within the guild. Yes, even in multiplayer online games I am a hermit - ironically. However, noticing the elation in everyone's voices and reactions to things I've done, and others do, and the cheers, and congratulatory comments and praise, and offer to help one another, it's just hard to not want to accept. It's such a positive, welcoming, warm, loving, friendly environment to be in that you don't see every day in the real world-- in a game!! Everyone wants to help each other, and know how each other is doing. On my way to work every day I get honked at, cut off, flipped off, worry about money, wonder if I'm gonna eat or not, and just shit that I should not have to worry about. I just wanna be content. This is simple, every day shit. No one here gives a shit about you unless you tell them how good they look. Then you're bffs "for a minute". It's things like this that make me inclined to stay home on a Saturday night. Not that I don't see that in real life, because I do. But these are interactions that happen on a day to day basis. Every day. Would I rather spend money to hang out w/ people I don't really have anything in common with for the sake of getting more pictures of myself on the internet, or hang out at home with my other half playing a game w/ other people that want the same things I do?
So this guildmate has put me into a different perspective and reminded me of the other things I really love about these games. It's the relationships you build w/ these people, on a whole different level of just being hot on the internet in one way or another. Hot meaning selling yourself, advertising yourself. Nothing wrong w/ that at all. However I think it's kinda selfish to give people the illusion that you're their friend when all you think of them as is another vein to get yourself out there. It's these faux relationships that keep me at bay from wanting to socialize w/ the populace of 2011.
Online relationshps within video games are more attractive to me because there are no faces. There's no popularity contest. There's no personal attacking towards ones' lifestyle, no rumors, no catty bullshit, no racing to get numbers (or "friends" -- unless you're a sell out like The Guild), no real judging about who you are and what you want to do. In these games, the personalities of all my guildmates I've ever met all shined so much more to me than the people I've "met" over the internet since FaceTheJury erupted. And also the fact that we all have this huge thing in common-- the game. That's all they have. And you pick up on that immediately. You can tell what kind of person they are because you talk to them all day, many times a day during the week, and you all work together. It's actually pretty amazing in retrospect.
I decided to write about this after my recent situations in my guild within Rift. One guildmate in particular has taken to me and has become very fond of me. As protocol, I am uninterested, cold, distant, and hesitant to engage. I recently hit the level cap, and have come around to being more socially accepting within the guild. Yes, even in multiplayer online games I am a hermit - ironically. However, noticing the elation in everyone's voices and reactions to things I've done, and others do, and the cheers, and congratulatory comments and praise, and offer to help one another, it's just hard to not want to accept. It's such a positive, welcoming, warm, loving, friendly environment to be in that you don't see every day in the real world-- in a game!! Everyone wants to help each other, and know how each other is doing. On my way to work every day I get honked at, cut off, flipped off, worry about money, wonder if I'm gonna eat or not, and just shit that I should not have to worry about. I just wanna be content. This is simple, every day shit. No one here gives a shit about you unless you tell them how good they look. Then you're bffs "for a minute". It's things like this that make me inclined to stay home on a Saturday night. Not that I don't see that in real life, because I do. But these are interactions that happen on a day to day basis. Every day. Would I rather spend money to hang out w/ people I don't really have anything in common with for the sake of getting more pictures of myself on the internet, or hang out at home with my other half playing a game w/ other people that want the same things I do?
So this guildmate has put me into a different perspective and reminded me of the other things I really love about these games. It's the relationships you build w/ these people, on a whole different level of just being hot on the internet in one way or another. Hot meaning selling yourself, advertising yourself. Nothing wrong w/ that at all. However I think it's kinda selfish to give people the illusion that you're their friend when all you think of them as is another vein to get yourself out there. It's these faux relationships that keep me at bay from wanting to socialize w/ the populace of 2011.
I think that I can even grow to Love these people if they stick around, and possibly endow them with the title of Friend. Which to me, should be a title earned, and not handled out so carelessly. Of course, there are different variations of Love, but because I'm sure someone took that out of context, I figure mentioning that would be necessary.
I have many acquaintances, and few Friends. The first step to understanding this shit is to not be offended when someone refers to you as an acquaintance. It's not a title, it's a status. Warning: This requires some maturity and patience. If you have neither, you will probably hate this entry and feel insulted. Please refrain from reading further and exit this page by clicking on the top RIGHT corner of the monitor. If you have a Mac... well, I don't care. If you understood, I am probably in good standing with you, and don't wanna shoot my ears off when we are in the same room.
Anyway, basically what I'm saying is... in my experience, a lot of these relationships in the games I've played have been more stimulating than the ones I have in real life. I'm going to repeat myself, just in case anyone finds the word "stimulating" as an insult to their personality and self esteem. ... in my experience, a lot of these relationships in the games I've played have been more stimulating than the ones I have in real life.
but I can also blame chemistry between two people, or the fact that you have to buy out the day to enjoy it w/ someone outside the house. Think about it. You can't just go somewhere w/ someone and enjoy yourselves w/out money unless you wanna come off as something less than you are because other peoples' opinions of you matter for some reason. What does that say about our society?
I pay $15/mo for this game. That's... what? Not even enough for dinner for two at Denny's.
I wanna end this journal entry with the hopes that I made someone think about the people they interact with. I do. Every day. I'm either glad of it, or annoyed by it. Guess why Rotny deleted his online profiles? Guess what he's doing now? Guess why I invested over $300 into a gaming convention, even though I'm sorta broke all the time? Because the people you make fun of for being video game nerds are a hell of a lot cooler than the douchebag that cakes his face w/ make up and only cares about making money off you by pretending to be your Friend.
Principals; Y2K lacks them.
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