Online Spaces

When I started this blog, one of the sub-resolutions I had going along with it was “put myself out there on the internet more”. This wasn’t, like, a “get involved in social media” sort of deal, but I have noticed this tendency of mine to stay on the periphery in social situations and the barrier of a computer screen seemed like a good way to get used to, well, not doing that.

I mean, the inevitable problems are still the same; there’s an already established in-group in online communities, and I’m not sure anonymity has really helped in overcoming that. Usernames, after all, are almost as ubiquitous as actual names in certain circles, and while the option to just create a new account isn’t prohibited (and sometimes, oddly, even encouraged), that does mean pretending to be a new person, and I’m not sure I’m able to do that for long periods of time.

What’s weird, even to me, is that I still don’t intentionally link my name with my online username. That doesn’t mean they aren’t connected, but I tend to avoid drawing that connection if I can help it. So I’m still playing someone, even if that someone is just “me, but online”. And “me, but online” still has all the trouble real me has getting into an “ingroup.”

I don’t have a solution to this or anything, though it is slowly getting better. I guess this blog post becomes a progress update, in that case? In which case, progress is okay. We’ll see what happens.

-F