My friend met a guy on Myspace about a year ago. He was a participant on MTV’s show “Yo Mamma”. Shortly after his 15 seconds of fame, she discovered that he had a Myspace page. One day she randomly sent him a message, commenting on something she noticed on his page. As the days went by, their interactions became more frequent. Online, his persona reflected the same confidence, intelligence, and wit that he presented on television. She made concluded this based on the content of his page. He had an eclectic taste in music, was well read, and seemed to be very social. She also discovered that he lived not too far from her on the Lower East Side. They ended up meeting in Central Park on their first date. To her surprise, he was a lot more easygoing and reserved than his online and television persona led her to believe. Also, he did not seem as witty and did not make as many sharp remarks in person. Instead, he was quiet and did not really have anything interesting to say.
Based on her experience, leaving virtuality fit with the factors and results discussed in the Ramirez & Wang paper. According to their study, individuals who first met FtF interactions and then shift to CMC exhibited “enhancement” effects during their relationship development. Individuals who met at first in CMC and then shifted to FtF interaction exhibited disappointment and negative effects. Since she was dissatisfied with the guy upon meeting him in person, it is apparent that her relationship supported this theory. After she and the guy started talking more in CMC and decided to finally meet, (i.e. shift to FtF), the relationship took a toll for the worse.
Her experience also supports Walther’s Hypersonal Model. Walter states that CMC factors lead to inflated perceptions of partners because in CMC one can selectively self present themselves. Because of such selectivity in what is presented in CMC, when one abandons CMC and shifts to Ftf they lack this same degree of control over what information is being presented. As a result, their impression of the other person is "deflated", which leads to disappointment. The guy was able to selectively self present himself on Myspace and TV, and exaggerated his positive attributes. Although my friend hoped for a love connection, what she ended up with was a lousy date and a wasted outfit.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
She Blocked Him: When Myspace Love Goes Wrong
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Great post! What an interesting story. I guess I’m not surprised that someone could be less witty in person than online due to shyness, however, if the Yo Mamma kid had managed to express a sense of humor on television – what was holding him back on his date with your friend? In the same way that the internet is asynchronous, maybe he felt his television persona was also. What I mean by this is that he didn’t have to be afraid of the audience’s response when acting on television, as it was delayed and indirect. Perhaps the synchronous nature of FtF interactions allowed his shyness to show through.
Another interesting thing to note is that your friend went out of her way to talk to this guy and meet up with him – do you think she felt she knew him because of their online interactions? Or because of who she thought he was after watching him on TV?
Finally, I believe the Ramirez & Wang studies were all a transition from CMC to FtF. What varied was that short CMC interactions led to enhancement effects in FtF, whereas longer CMC interactions led to negative FtF effects.
Great Post! I definitely went through a Yo Momma phase and some of the personalities on the show were just ridiculous. I found it interesting that the guy from Yo Momma was not interesting in person since most of the people have to be interesting to even get noticed on the show. Selective self presentation is key in his Myspace and TV persona. It is unfortunate that your friend was disappointed with the first meeting. It really is weird that he seemed so witty on TV but had no sense of humor in person.
Seriously, cut the guy a break. He's not a monkey performing for your friend's pleasure should she snap her fingers. And there is no such thing as a wasted outfit unless you're presenting a false view of yourself, and that's just a waste of time.
Who out of all of us little people living in glass houses is exactly the same every moment of every day? Every person is multifaceted, and as such they exhibit different aspects of themselves on different days. I've also gone out on days after terrible shit has happened and not been my usual bubbly self.
Yes, self presentation alters based on context, but you cannot write a person off for one off day. Several, yes. Habitual fuckwit behaviour, absolutely. But being quiet and reserved on one occassion? Get a grip! Extraneous theoretical contemplations on the sociological nature of interpersonal interactions, synchronous or not, expressed in multisyllabic terminology is unnecessary in explaining a very basic maxim of human behaviour: we feel different all the time, so we act different all the time.
Ooh, what a nice little rant that was. I feel much better now :-) Ta.
Post a Comment