Talking in an empty room

[cjsmith]

Social media:

MeWe: You’re alone in a well-appointed living room. Say something if you like.

Here: You’re alone in an empty, dimly-lit brick and steel warehouse. Occasionally you realize that no wait, there IS someone else here, because if you say something, a voice speaks up to reply. (Thank you, amaebi, for being here.)

Twitter: You're in a room full of televisions and all of them are changing the channel once per second. There are no people in the room.

FB: You’re at one of those street fairs that’s so crowded you can’t move. No matter how loud you shout, no one can hear you.

Do some more? These are the only ones I know.

Edit Instagram, with credit to joedecker: You're alone in a room with mirrors covering all the walls. Boy, are you attractive.

Comments

[nosrednayduj]

Sometimes I miss mudding. LambdaMOO really was like having real friends. I got together IRL with mudders from distant places when I visited, and hosted mudders who were visiting Boston, that I'd only ever known through the mud. I don't think I would do that with random twitter followees. (There's that word again.)

[cjsmith]

I never mudded, but some usenet was real-friend-ish, as were a couple of mailing lists and some corners of LiveJournal.

[lcohen]

in terms of converting people i first met online into real-life friends, LJ/DW of the past didn't do too badly for me--i would sometimes friend people who i saw posting to the journals of friends who seemed interesting with good luck and then meet them in person, later. whereas i think i have two FB friends who i didn't first meet IRL and THEN friend--both of them foreign shapenote singers. i met a lot of people online through usenet and then IRL. on twitter, i follow a lot of people i don't know and have no intention or desire to meet--mostly people who post about sports/politics/literature in a way i like.

people may not recall this but early on, okcupid had a much stronger "get on here with all your friends and interact with them here" vibe which is how i got onto it in the first place, long before i used it as a dating site. i met and made (platonic) friends with several people there--people i'm still friends with today.

[cjsmith]

I never understood that about OKCupid until it was no longer at all true