2014: Making Connections

Although I’m not pretending to have any real understanding of social interactions in general — in fact, as I often mention, I go through life feeling like I really do’t know what to do in a lot of “everyday” social situations — I find the way little communities and cliques develop to be fascinating, both to observe from the outside, and to be a part of from within.

I have a few examples in mind. First, and most prominent, is Twitter. I’ve drifted from group to group a bit since I originally joined Twitter a number of years back. Originally, my use of Twitter was primarily to have a means of talking to my online friends with whom I used to interact on 1up.com. After “The Great Exodus”, when 1up’s specialised forums were mashed together into a NeoGAF-style monstrosity of just “Games” and “Not Games”, a significant proportion of the community left the site’s forums, and many of them found themselves on Twitter. Over time, people changed, moved and became involved in different things. Some gave up on Twitter altogether; others started using it for professional purposes; others still “rebranded” themselves.

I fell somewhat into the latter category. After suffering a fairly serious instance of doxxing and harassment back in 2013 — see, it’s not just women it happens to, contrary to what the media would have you believe — I left Twitter, initially intending not to return, but after realising what a pile of crap Facebook is for actually interacting with people in a meaningful manner, I returned. After realising that the interminable social justice yelling on Twitter was setting off my depression and anxiety, I left again. This time when I came back (they always come back) I decided to “reinvent” myself a bit, and follow fewer of the people I felt I “should” be following, and instead focused on people who posted things I found interesting or enjoyable to interact with. Consequently, these days I find myself on the fringes of “anitwitter”, a subculture on the social network that discusses, posts screencaps and generally enthuses about anime and games. I, as you might expect, fit right in.

Elsewhere on the Internet, the Discord server I mentioned the other day (which, dear reader, you’re still welcome to come and join) has been developing slowly but surely, but it’s our Final Fantasy XIV Free Company server that is perhaps the more interesting example. Taking cues from the in-game friend who introduced me to Discord in the first place, I added an “NSFW” (Not Safe for Work) channel to the server. It immediately became the most active channel in the place, though initially people weren’t quite sure what to post in there, i.e. whether or not it was okay to post filth. (It was, though someone stumbled accidentally into it and complained a bit at being confronted with a wall of hentai, so we’ve since made it invite-only — community management at work!)

What’s interesting about the NSFW channel is that the usual boundaries of “politeness” that are up when interacting with other people online in real time — in my experience, anyway; I tend not to hang around with the sort of people who hurl insults and abuse at one another — are nowhere to be seen. I don’t mean that people are rude to one another; quite the opposite, in fact. The NSFW channel is a place where everyone can be open and honest about the things that they like, and where no-one judges one another for the things they talk about and post. (Or, if they do, they keep that to themselves.) It’s pretty refreshing and liberating, actually, and makes it abundantly clear that there should probably be more places for people — particularly, it has to be said, men — to be able to talk about things like sex, fetishes and all that sort of thing without fear of judgement or anything like that. I shan’t go into any further details than that, but suffice to say we’re all having a jolly old time in there.

Anyway, yeah. Online communities. Just as interesting as real communities, I think you’ll agree…

#oneaday Day 998: Generally Generalising

First up, read this. It’s an impressive piece of investigative journalism regarding a Reddit user known as “ViolentAcrez” — a notorious user for his practices of posting creepy photos of often-underage women without their consent. The piece describes the reporter Adrian Chen’s (successful) attempts to unmask ViolentAcrez and publicly shame him for the things he has spent the last few years doing.

Fair enough. As a number of people have said in relation to this story today, the “free speech” so beloved of Reddit users does not mean the same thing as “free of consequences”. And while Michael Brutsch, the man behind the handle “ViolentAcrez”, has not technically broken any laws with his activities — he wasn’t posting child pornography or anything illegal, simply reposts of images that were already in the public domain on Facebook and other services, and later voyeuristic images taken without the knowledge of the people depicted — the fact stands that his behaviour was more than a little creepy, inappropriate and actively harmful in a society that is, for the most part, actively trying to improve attitudes towards women.

I’m not denying any of this. While I find the tracking down and public shaming of a notorious Internet troll a little creepy in and of itself, what Chen did in the name of journalism is a far cry from what Brutsch has been doing for the past few years — and probably for the best in the long run. Brutsch will certainly think twice — or at least be a lot more careful about his “social media footprint” — before trying anything like this again. There’s a lesson to be learned in all this — if you’re a dick on the Internet, sometimes it will come back and bite you in the ass.

There is something that bothers me about this story, however, and that’s been the reaction to it. Specifically, the negativity directed towards the entire Reddit community as a result of this story and surrounding issues. For those who haven’t been keeping up on this story over the past few days, a number of Reddit subforums, or “subreddits” as they’re called, completely blocked all Gawker links in a showing of solidarity for Brutsch who was, despite his behaviour, regarded as a valuable member of the community and a “necessary evil” by many — while he was a notorious troll, the Reddit staffers made active use of him to police the less salubrious parts of Reddit and ensure that nothing that actually was illegal was being posted. A “man on the inside”, as it were.

Because certain parts of Reddit decided to show their support for and/or actively defend Brutsch’s behaviour on the grounds of “free speech”, apparently all of Reddit is now something to be reviled — a “cesspit”, as I saw it referred to earlier today.

This is the bit that makes me uncomfortable — an entire community being blamed and ostracised for the behaviour of one man in particular, and also for that of those who support him.

I’ve been on Reddit. I haven’t been on there for a while but I enjoyed a brief stint on there a while back. I joined some interesting discussions on a variety of topics ranging from gaming to TV shows via funny pictures and an accidental excursion into naked photographs that users had taken of themselves. (In the latter case, the notorious “gonewild” subreddit, the majority of comments were in fact, body-positive — particularly on the pictures of those who had been brave enough to post a picture of their obviously-overweight body — rather than perverted, which I found to be interesting. Also, it genuinely was an accident that I found myself in that subreddit — Reddit’s main screen gives little to no indication what “gonewild” is all about. In retrospect, I should have thought about it a little more before jumping in, but hey, I’m pretty hard to shock. But I digress.)

I didn’t spend long enough to make any particular friends there, but I have heard plenty of stories of people getting to know each other and making lasting friendships or relationships through the site. There are plenty of stories of Reddit communities pulling together to support others, too — stories of helping people through difficult times; stories of helping people who are struggling for money; stories of, in short, human helping human. I know at least one person personally who is using a specific subreddit for support in getting help for some of their personal problems and issues. There is plenty that is positive to say about Reddit.

And yet for the obnoxious, totally inappropriate actions of one man and his supporters — some of whom, it seems, have been or are on Reddit’s staff — apparently this entire, incredibly diverse Internet community should be ostracised.

Something really doesn’t sit right with that for me. To generalise one of the largest communities on the Internet as all being scumbags like this just seems both dangerous and unfair. I have plenty of friends who enjoy using Reddit for completely innocent purposes, be it discussion, promotion of things they have been working on or discovering interesting new reaction .GIFs. I know that they’d be the first to distance themselves from the sort of behaviour that Brutsch has exhibited, and yet if you were to take what a number of commentators are saying at face value, you’d have to brand these people as deviant perverts and assholes, too, simply by virtue of the fact that they’re Reddit users.

This is not helpful.

I’m fully aware that I’ve been guilty of this sort of thing in the past — not specifically with regard to Reddit, but with 4chan. I’ve referred to that place as a “cesspit” before and certainly it has more than its fair share of trolls and unpleasant people there — but equally now I realise that there are also plenty of other people who just make it their hangout of choice. They, subsequently, become guilty by association with the “/b/tards” who are responsible for the majority of objectionable material and behaviour on 4chan (and, by extension, the rest of the Internet. And they’re probably pretty pissed about that.

The same thing is happening with Reddit. As much as Reddit would like to market itself as a “social news” tool, let’s not be under any illusions — it’s nothing more than the world’s biggest forum. Like most forums, it has tons of subcultures and cliques, most of whom stick to their own neatly-carved niches for the most part. Some of these subcultures and cliques are objectionable in nature, and it’s up to the site admins and moderators to determine what to do about that — something that they haven’t done a great job with so far, and something they need to work on.

However, the mere presence of some objectionable subcultures and cliques does not mean that the entire website as a whole is somehow objectionable. It’s the same as saying that a particular city is a “cesspit” because, say, a greater-than-average number of registered sex offenders live there. Or the same as saying that all people who like a particular thing are a bunch of assholes. Or, in fact, the same as almost any other unfair, unsubstantiated generalisation. It’s not helpful — all it does is turn everyone outside that group against them, and everyone inside that group becomes defensive. The two sides inevitably clash, and things just get worse and worse rather than better. It doesn’t help anyone.

So by all means think that Michael Brutsch is a creepy old pervert whom you wouldn’t want anywhere near your children. By all means criticise those who supported him — including members of Reddit’s staff.

I agree with you.

But take a moment to think of the thousands — more likely millions — of people who make use of Reddit on a regular basis and have absolutely nothing to do with this before you start branding the entire community as pond life. Would you want to be made guilty by association with something you had no involvement in whatsoever? I doubt it very much. So quit doing it to others.

#oneaday Day 909: The Internet Is As Big As You Make It

Over the years, my Internet habits have changed significantly. This has been at least partly due to changes in technology over the years, but I still find it an interesting observation to think back on how times have changed since I first “got online.”

My earliest experiences were with CompuServe which, for the unfamiliar, was somewhat like an online “walled garden”. It included much of the things we take for granted on the Internet today — email, topic-specific forums, places to download stuff, real-time chat and probably, if you looked hard enough, something which could be used by someone as porn. Initially, you were limited to talking only to other CompuServe subscribers, but over time access opened up: firstly to allow emailing to Internet email addresses, and eventually to access the Web proper. I remember vividly trying (and failing) to get the browser Mosaic to work with CompuServe.

At this time, since I was just a kid and living at home, my Internet (or equivalent) access was severely limited. I had to plan out what it was I was going to look at (usually the Gamers’ Forum and occasional delves into the “CB Simulator” — aka real-time chat rooms — to try (and fail) to pick up girls. (a/s/l?)

Over time, the Internet opened up to all, and we were all able to gain access to the information we wanted and some we didn’t. The best free porn sites were (apparently) passed around in the schoolyard; the best sites to download shareware games were common knowledge; little communities started to spring up as people figured out things like “forums”, “personal homepages” and “search engines”.

Fast forward to today and, with an Internet that is growing at a frightening rate, I find myself limiting what I’m doing to a very small number of sites. Despite becoming increasingly irritated with it, I check Facebook. I check my GMail. I check in on the Squadron of Shame Squawkbox if there’s been a new post. I write this blog. Occasionally I might check a gaming site for news of something I’m interested in, but that’s really about it. I tweet from my phone and everything else that I really want to do is covered by those sites — and Google if I can’t find the information I’m looking for straight away. I find myself going around and around and around the same sites over and over, hoping that something new and interesting has come up in the five minutes since I last looked. (It never does.)

One thing I’ve found myself not using anywhere near as much as I used to is dedicated, specific communities. Every time I find a forum that looks vaguely interesting, I might check it out and post there for a few days and then promptly forget all about it — even if it’s a community I have little doubt that I’d really enjoy being a part of. This is kind of sad, since it limits my contact with people who are specifically in to the exact same things as me, but it’s primarily a result of the fact that forum software tends to not play overly-nice with mobile devices — which, nine times out of ten, is the place where I want to be casually browsing. (Okay, a lot of forums bring up that annoying popup about Tapatalk, which I’ve never tried and might be the best thing ever, but still.)

It’s mostly a time issue. I have lots of things I want to do every day, and I rarely (no, make that never) get to do all of them. So far as “priorities” go, checking forums, posting things and getting to know yet another online community is not particularly high up the list.

Perhaps it should be. There are a lot of things I am into that I would like to talk more about with others. Without thinking very hard, I can immediately point to both My Little Pony and The Secret World as communities I would like to be more involved with. And there are doubtless more out there. When I think about how vapid and pointless 95% of the conversations on Facebook are, I do sometimes wonder if my “social” time online could be better spent in a more focused community rather than browsing creepy baby photos posted by people I haven’t seen since school.

Perhaps I should leave my own prejudices at the door and jump in to one of these communities to see what will happen. You never know where new friends are lurking, after all.

#oneaday, Day 301: I’ve Read It

I’ve been on Reddit before. I didn’t find it terribly intuitive, and the sheer volume of information on it was daunting and offputting. Sure, I helped support friends’ submissions when I could, but delving into the whole thing proper just seemed like a frankly terrifying prospect.

However, yesterday, I felt differently. Spurred on by this article, which several people had posted to Twitter seemingly independently of one another, I decided to give the community another look. I decided to just dive in and start looking at things, rather than getting analysis paralysis whilst looking at the front page.

And that, seemingly, is the way to do it. There is so much content on Reddit that it is impossible (and probably undesirable) to read it all. So you pick and choose the things that you’re interested in.

Now, I know that there are several people amongst those who follow me who are still utterly bewildered as to what Reddit is and what its appeal is. So, with apologies to those of you who are already well familiar with what Reddit is and how it works, here is, erm, what Reddit appears to be and how it appears to work, after a mighty one day’s experience of use.

Perhaps the easiest way of thinking about it is that it’s the world’s biggest forum. Users can post things, which are either links to other sites or “self posts”, which are simple messages. Attached to each post are two things: upvote and downvote buttons, and a comment facility. Upvoting or downvoting something promotes or demotes the content, making it more likely to rise to the top of the page (or not, as the case may be). And then the comments underneath are threaded, just like on most blogs these days.

It’s in these comment sections that the excellence of Reddit shows itself, though. A far cry from your average YouTube commenter (“u suck!!!!! lol!”), Reddit contributors and commenters appear to be, for the most part, mature, articulate, literate individuals with fantastic senses of humour and some of the quickest punning minds I’ve ever come across. It’s a community that, after lurking for a few days, I certainly wanted to be a part of. Discussion is (from what I’ve seen so far, at least) mature, thought-provoking but not afraid to lapse into a bit of silliness from time to time.

And diverse. Good God, Reddit is diverse. If you have a particular niche interest, you can pretty much guarantee there will be a “subreddit” for it. Whether you’re into gaming, gardening, FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU- comics, porn, music, Uzbekistani sledgehammer dancing… chances are you will find someone there with the same freaky tastes as you. And for those embarrassing questions that you really want to ask people, the creation of “throwaway” sock puppet accounts is actively encouraged to help everyone feel comfortable enough to say what they feel. Many Redditors use their main accounts, though, as the atmosphere of help and support in the appropriate subreddits is, at times, a shining example of what the Internet can be.

A poster I read earlier described Reddit as 4chan 3 days late with a filter for all the disgusting, gross and/or illegal crap. Which isn’t exactly high praise, but I can see their point. 4chan, love it or hate it, originates (or at least popularises) many of the words, phrases and memes we take for granted on the Internet today. But then those who are too scared to delve into the murky waters of 4chan (like me… I’m not ashamed) can come across this stuff without unwittingly stumbling into gore porn via Reddit. Everyone’s a winner.

Oh, just one tip, though… if you’re not interested in seeing a wide selection of user peens (interspersed with a few boobies) then just steer clear of /r/gonewild.