horribly jaded internet people who take nothing too seriously

What I hate is that Facebook statuses really show the divide between horribly jaded internet people who take nothing too seriously (maybe to everyone's detriment) and really naive and "not used to this whole internet thing!" types who aren't used to leg-pulling and detachment as a constant form of online communication.

― Cunga, Friday, August 28, 2009 7:16 AM (31 minutes ago)

So everyone's first thought is 'haha ilx' - but really this attitude seems to be a pretty fitting description of a bigger cultural shift? 7-8 years ago message boards (etc.) didn't seem nearly as universally snarky/transient/ironic as they do today (ilx 2001 vs. ilx 2009 = can mostly be explained by a general anglophone-internet culture shift?)

Also, although I'm sure most of us qualify as both internet jaded and real-life jaded - I think there are lots of people who seem to be participating in this internet culture (like, sending rickrolling links or whatever) without actually being horribly jaded people who don't take anything seriously in real life.

I dunno, it just seemed like an interesting quote. discuss.

http://media.steampowered.com/steamcommunity/public/images/avatars/a5/a5132ebc508a56dd8cf8e9f487efee33408ad5d8_full.jpg

^^gunning for the first response hall of fame

nah it was too obv

I dunno, I don't have too much invested in this thread and I 70% expect it to sink to the bottom of new answers after a bunch of jpgs and youtube videos, but I do hope someone has something interesting to say before that happens

"universally snarky/transient/ironic" = nerdy detachment, no?

but is the fact that you don't have too much invested in this thread a symptom of your own horrible internet jadedness? xp

more like my previous experience making srs ilx threads

i think everyone should be super-emotional and excitable... that always ends real well.

Like the internet enables people who aren't great at communicating with others in person, to communicate with others, and so the way they communicate is going to be commitment-phobic. Plus you have a lot of control over how people see you when they can only see your prose + links, and most people are pretty boring so it's natural to spruce it up with "funny" jpgs. I do all this myself, I'm not just characterizing others. E.g. on my fb page I told my life story in a note so that all the people I was friends with in like 5th grade who've now friended me can find out what I'm up to; but I filled the story with (what I think are) obvious lies just to make it "funny". This seems like the right thing to do, but it's also that I feel uncomfortable/bored telling my life story straight (b/c wtf have I done that's really worth reading about? It's not like I've been living the hobo life or anything).

xp

um, I'm not necessarily promoting that, more questioning whether a large portion of the anglophone world is actually becoming less emotional and excitable?

http://www.mongolia-travel-guide.com/images/boy-pointing-at-plane.jpg

from my experience plenty of those types exist, they just don't post on ILX

i don't know... "the internet" as we know it is actually pretty small. it seems like we're all english majors and failed improv comics, but most people on the net are very sincere and po-faced.

failed improv comics

oh shit you're onto me

If the "not used to this whole internet thing!" types behaved the way in real life the way they do on the internet, you wouldn't be able to move at parties from all the people rapidly backing away from them.

on the real ilx is the only msg board i post to that never has epic pchop threads - even the raquetball forum i post to has them %_% - always wondered whats up w/ that

unless im getting levled i dont think ilx is particularly ironic/transient jaded maybe idk its still pretty lame/earnest abt 70% of the time

pchop

pork chop?

^^^ see

lamp OTM, ILX isn't exactly 4chan.

pre-challop?

pchop

it's like a carhop, but he hops on your PC.

what if you have a mac?

i think a part of the shift (if you want to make the point of comparison 'the 90s' not '2001') is 'ppl who are using internet in place of some absence in their everyday life' vs. 'ppl who are using internet in addition to a pretty normal hand of real-world social interactions'

i find it kinda weird that ilx is now more capable of having enlighterrrrning discursssions about videogames than it is about records

the realization that you went online to check your email and ended up arguing about Star Trek or some shit on a message board for 8 hours is enough to make any sane person jaded.

the realization that you went online to check your email and ended up arguing about Star Trek or some shit on a message board for 8 hours years is enough to make any sane person jaded.

hahahaha

i just wasted like eight mins looking for .jpg of this chick quizzically looken at a laptop that wld top matt dc's post but i couldnt find it :/ buttttttt n.e.way this "shift" is gaytarded & not real imo ppl have always had joke-y low content convos and the impulse to avoid getting all serious business abt "issues" (its called shame i think) its just they have higher speed internet connections now.

I think there are still earnest internet users populating live journal.

Invisible, not transparent.

This year, despite trials and tribulations (and perhaps even because of them) has been a landmark year. A year of reckoning.

It's not over, not by far. But I've come so far sometimes it is startling.

I quit drinking coffee, and all caffeine, over 2 weeks ago. I never thought I was capable of such a thing, but there it is.

easy target though innit

Like the internet enables people who aren't great at communicating with others in person, to communicate with others, and so the way they communicate is going to be commitment-phobic.

this is funny though cos the internet is now full of people who are also great at communicating with others in person, and aren't "not used to this whole internet thing!" either - yet the dominant conversational tone still seems to be jaded, sarky, etc, etc.

"the internet" as we know it is actually pretty small. it seems like we're all english majors and failed improv comics, but most people on the net are very sincere and po-faced.

Well, sincere, anyway. "Ok, hubby keeps telling me that I need to go to bed because I have a busy day tomorrow (of course, he's right (this time)) but I think actually he's wanting to play FARKLE...whatcha think?" I think you're dull and could really lose a few, long-lost friend from elemantary school. Whatcha think about that?

I think the internet makes you jaded, after not too long. Some become ironic and funny, some just get pissy.

xpost - the ppl who are "great at communicating with others in person" aren't generally the ones who would really think, "man, i must spend six hours this week arguing with a message board i post to about agnosticism"

what does that say about people who start and post to a half dozen Radiohead poll threads?

That the only reason they come to ILX is the talk about Radiohead.

haha yeah i dunno how poll threads fit into this thesis

A Pchop At A Wedding

I think a lot of those poll threads are relatively earnest ... well, except for the joke ones.

this is the thread that will break me. this is the thread that never calls back. this is the thread that stares out from the mirror each night before bed....

yeah but the difference between 'earnest 2009' and 'earnest 2003', if you look at some of the old in-depth music threads, is kinda striking

xpost

xposts, to thomp: yeah but in the bits of the internet my conversationally-non-awkward friends write on - things like facebook wall posts, say, which are an adjunct to everyday social life - they don't write straight-up sincerely, they adopt the internet's general tone of post-everything.

xxp This thread is Spartacus. This thread is Malcolm X.

how much of it is a general shift in internet culture vs. ilx, though? To me, it seems like it's due more to the fact that so many people have been around for so long and have developed, in some ways, a more sophisticated mode of communication.

You mean about the internet, or about ILX?

c sharp major i think facebook updates is the self-selecting group of 'people who still write facebook updates'

i think maybe ilx is a bad bellwether because the start of ILM and the first year or so of ILE maybe it seemed to perceive itself as having, like, a particular cultural project? — any of the three surviving original posters may come along now and tell me that's ridiculous though

xp kenan: the difference between ilx in 2003 and 2009.

Hmm; almost everyone I interact with on the internet outside of ILX is pretty earnest. I don't know anyone on ILX in rl though and I know everyone else I interact with on the internet in rl. The part of ILX I find the most head-scratching isn't the ironic part, but the amount of self-loathing people seem to have about their posting here. It seems pretty dramatic sometimes for what amounts to a place to hang out and talk about music or the news or whatever.

"Internet people write like THIS..."

the hung a man at dawn today, in the square. he looked like my brother and died like my wife furious and quick.

where do you stand on usage of the equals sign to mean something like 'demonstrates', suzy?

Difficult to misspell an equals sign.

≈

-

<

<3

you are all horribly jaded......etc etc

oh shit is shortening etcetera allowed?

xp You don't even KNOW, man! I'm also horribly disfigured! Cut me some slack, ok?!

xpost
yes : tctr

i promise to use this on ilx from now on, and never explain why

I thought suzy was having a jibe at ppl who correct your and you're; the internet makes u dumb, I guess

oh I get it, I thought when you said "ILX doesn't have that 'OMG these people are cretins who can't spell or think, am amazed they can perform simple bodily functions unassisted' thing I get with 95 per cent of LIFE" u were saying tht it was refreshing tht ilx doesn't have those ppl from other message boards who insist on capitalisation and proper spelling and will reply to a post full of yr arguments w/a one word post pointing out yr spelling mistake in line 2

their they're there hidere tctr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U39sZgwSr_s

I don't think she was saying that, but it's otm as well. I mean, fuck a metafilter-style "I think you've split the infinitive there, old chap, your argument is null". I mean, the amount of people here who can spell/punctuate and don't is awes. I wonder what we'd be like if there were posters who actually didn't know the difference and were all YouTube grammar for real.

OTOH we often have people replying to a post full of arguments w/"UH" which can be equally frustrating but also hilarious and totally deflating.

...

tbh, fuck using the 'shift' key on ilx. i know where it is when i need it.

Everything I learned about arguing on the internet I learned from Hunter, age 3.

i like the effort you made to put those quotes on xp

OTOH we often have people replying to a post full of arguments w/"UH" which can be equally frustrating but also hilarious and totally deflating.

I am probably guilty of doing this pretty often but there are some arguments around here that escalate to such extreme levels of absurdity and/or studpidity that sometimes "uh" is the only appropriate response.

i like the effort you made to put those quotes on xp

i actually went to go back and delete them for effect, but that would have been outrageous hypocrisy given the context

well, it's not like you had to hit the shift key to make em.

sure this is it

Abbreviations are good.

I really did mean that we are smart island in an ocean of teh stupid. Sometimes it seems like everyone commenting on the internet - apart from those on ILX and half a dozen other sites I like to revisit - is so bad at the grammar and writing things that I worry how they manage the eating, sleeping and shitting things without adult assistance. I AM LOOKING AT YOU, RIGHT-WINGNUTS!

So jaded.

No, I'm just oooooooooooooooooold. /shuffles off, looking for Zimmer frame

I AM LOOKING AT YOU, RIGHT-WINGNUTS!

No, no, you have it all wrong. Lacking basic skills in our own native language is proof that God loves us. Why else would we still be so goddamn awesome?

there's a political spectrum link to demonstrated grammatical ability on the internet?

Kind of? Yeah, I think there is some correlation between spelling and grammar ability and general reasoning ability.

lol people that aren't left wing r stupid!

I took the "nuts" part to be as important as the "wing".

remind me not to take you up on any chicken dinner offers

hey now

who likes giblets?!

more into the older pigs myself

i'll take what i can get thank you

I was hoping this thread was going to turn into some media studies analysis fest but instead it's about pork

Most translations of the Bible do have the linguistic grace of the standard youtube comment.

ILX: the four wingmen of the APORKALYPSE

(happy ramadan everybody)

did jesus died?

Yes but he is risen!

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/9014/spideygod2pg0.jpg

see i dont have any of these problems on the Innernet™

that comic is vile.

lame/earnest
^^^

Why are they crucifying Kid Rock.
.
.
actually why did they wait so long to crucify Kid Rock

People's real personalities eventually shine through, even if they're being jaded or ironic 90% of the time. It's been fun lurking here and trying to figure out what the true opinions are beneath the masks of various posting styles (and trying to keep straight who all of you people are). I haven't ever seen a message board community that operates the way this one does.

I've noticed a huge difference in posting styles among different age groups. In my facebook experience, the older folks tend to be much more straightforward than the 20-30 year olds. It doesn't seem to be entirely related to the depth of internet experience. It seems like more of a cultural difference. The older people just don't seem as interested in - or maybe even as cabaple of - the kind of "meta" posting that accounts for a huge proportion of the posts on, say, ILE/ILM (especially ILM). I'm not making a value judgement here, but it is interesting.

I found the except of Snark in today's Guardian Review quite interesting, actually.

Dan S. otm above.