mediated personalities

[curgoth]

A lot of people have been talking about how they use thier journals, recently. About meaningful content vs memes vs bland recountings of daily events.

When his blog was active, William Gibson talked a fair bit about mediated personalities - how sometimes he was surprised to encounter the mediated William Gibson, and how different that person was from the self he usually related to.

What we do when we write in our livejournals is creating a mediated personality of our own - we shape how our readers see us when we pick and choose the thoughts and events in our life to write about.

If you ever thought telepathy would solve the world's problems, look at livejournal more closely - when people can read what other people are thinking, what's bugging them, etc., we tend to get Drama. As LJers progress, many of them begin to more heavily censor thier journals to avoid Drama. This tends to mean posting less about intensely personal feelings and experiences, which in turn mediates the personality that readers experience.

The person you all know as curgoth is not exactly the same person I think of as me.

(this may be what happens when I start reading more non-fiction humanities books, and drinking caffeine.)

Comments

[corbet.livejournal.com]

> when people can read what other people are thinking, what's bugging them, etc., we tend to get Drama

I said almost this exact thing to someone today. :)

Okay, and now off to tangent-land. Bear with me, it's late and I might be rambling. *g* LJ is an interactive medium -- we post, others comment. Unfortunately people are more likely to comment on 'extremes' -- thoughts and statements that reflect peaks of emotion -- than on more mundane 'balanced' posts. And why does it matter that people comment? Well, comments reinforce posting behaviour...especially since few people (in my experience) ever comment with blunt responses like "you're full of sh*t" or "geez, would you take this offline?" We're more likely to get "(hugs)" and suchlike. These positive responses encourage dramatic posts, whereas low-commented 'balanced' posts get less reinforcement. Does this make sense? After all, comments are our only proof that anyone's reading (i.e., paying attention to us).

Hmmmm...maybe we need to encourage and offer better feedback, if we want different types of posts?

And also, if we want to present a more realistic image of ourselves online, do we need to make an effort to post the everyday mundane in addition to the extremes?

Oh yeah, it's late, and I'm rambling. Sorry, I'll stop now. :)

[neeuqdrazil.livejournal.com]

This makes a lot of sense. And I can see it in the way I post, and in the way that I respond to posts...

Much to ponder.

[night--watch.livejournal.com]

Well, comments reinforce posting behaviour

A good point. When I read about someone else's trauma, that response (*hugs*) seems appropriate... like by not saying anything, I'm not acknowledging/sympathizing with them.

people are more likely to comment on 'extremes'

This certainly seems to be the case in most of my posts. Though within a certain range -- often my "real" posts, the hard-hitting introspection -- they garner almost *no* response. Intriguing.

I think it's when someone else's buttons are hit, regardless if the post in question has anything to do with them. Button-hitting is pretty easy in a textual medium, too.