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Another thing I've noticed about internet culture is that there are many posers online. People who pretend to be something they are not.
People who pretend to be veterans are my pet peeve. We've been an all volunteer military since 1973. Even with the large number of people in the military during the cold war, the percentage of people who have served is but a tiny percentage of the population. Out of that small percentage of the population, the number who served in combat arms is even smaller. The average tooth to tail ratio is about 9-1, that is about 9 people in a support role for everyone who does the actual fighting.
Now there is nothing dishonorable about serving in a support role. Yet for some reason, it's not glamorous enough for a few people, so they feel the need to embellish their record. I don't know why, to impress girls, and other people, to show how tough they are? It doesn't really matter.
That is a problem on the forums I moderate on.
Here are some tips to spot a poser. Answers like "I can't talk about it" or "I don't want to talk about it" when you ask questions after they bring it up. Vague answers about where they served. Vague answers like "All over" should be clues that maybe someone isn't being honest with you or him/herself.
Yes there ar eposers in the real world too. But they seem to be moreprevalent online.
I found the internet in about 1996. I soon began interacting online through an email list. Things have changed a lot from when I first started.
In those days the internet was just begining to become mainstream. You could be reasonably certain that the people you were interacting with were of a certain economic and educational level. PCs and internet access just weren't available to everyone. This made the level of discousre much much more polite then we see today. People routinely put their adresses and phone numbers in ther signatures.
As the world wide web spread out and internet connectivity became avaible to more and more people, the level discourse got better (because there were more experiences and viewpoints brought in) and worse (because the increased number of people with internet access brought people with baser attitudes into many online communities).
I moderate on three forums, two of them for professionals and one for the shooting community. Through the email lists and the forums I've met a lot of people, some I've actually met in person and become close friends with, some who I've visited on the phone with and some who are just cyber friends.
One trnd I've noticed is that people online often exhibit behavior that we used to talk about in riot control class. The loss of inhibitions because they feel they are anonymous. Many people feel free to say things online they would never contemplate saying to someone face to face or even on the telephone.
fubar is my first social networking site. So far it's proving to be interesting and fun.
