As soon as I logged into the chat room I became “Robby”, a twenty-four year old guy from New York City. At first I was receiving a lot of messages from people asking me my age, sex, location. When I told them my “information”, I would ask them to share their asl with me as well. Many were thirteen or fourteen year olds. Some of these young kids wanted to talk to me, but others told me I was too old and cut off any and all contact with me. A couple interesting things happened to me while I was in this chat room. First, another man messaged me and asked me my asl. I responded with “24, male, nyc. You?” he laughed and wrote that he was also a man. He said good luck, clearly talking about finding a girl, and then our conversation ended. It seems as if people are only in chat rooms to find someone to flirt with and or form a relationship with. This one kid I was talking to told me he was one hundred years old. I responded by saying I was one hundred and one. We continued joking about this for a while, and then conversation dulled down to nothing. Right before I was about to exit off the room, this girl messages me and said “hey, asl?” I told her my fake information and she said she was eighteen years old from Australia and modeled bikinis. She started calling me a hottie and begged me not to leave when I told her I had to go. She said that she is talking to so many men right now she didn’t really know which one I was, but she was persistent that I not leave yet. I told her goodbye and exited off quickly. I thought it was interesting that she had never laid eyes on me before and she was calling me a hottie.
I could never have lied about my gender, age and location had I been in a video chat or even more, in a face to face interaction. Through text (CMC) is the only way that I (and anyone) can lie about myself and get away with it. My self-presentational tactics were put into place in my conversations with people in the chat room. When I was talking to people, I would not tell them everything about me, but just certain aspects that I thought they should know. Most of the information I told them was a lie, but that was just to protect myself from creepers online. For example, when I am talking online to a stranger and trying to get to know them, I am not going to go through the list of all my negative qualities. Instead I am going to focus on my strengths and interests. I could have easily added a smiley face to my words if I had wanted to, adding to my personality, however I chose to leave those out. I did not get into deep conversation with anyone, but I would have told them my associations if they had asked. I would have told them my political stance, and other information that allows them to know me better, all while remaining anonymous.
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2 comments:
“When I was talking to people, I would not tell them everything about me,…”
“I did not get into deep conversation with anyone,…”
This is interesting and I wonder if it may have been related to reciprocal self-disclosure. You weren’t disclosing any information and therefore neither were the individuals that you were talking to. Of course, that is with the exception of the “hot bikini model” from Australia. Chances are the bikini model was a boy anyway. Also, the fact that you chose to leave out smiley faces and other cues more than likely had an impact on the individuals in the room and whether or not they decided to talk to you. It ties in with the Social Presence theory and you probably had a decreased social presence as a result of your actions. I wonder if you did include smiley faces if people would assume you were a girl and start to message you. From what we’ve seen with some chat rooms so far, they would just be looking for an attractive barely legal “girl” to talk to them about the “modeling shoots” on the beaches of Australia anyway.
First off I would like to say that I found your post very interesting. Your analysis of your online persona sounds a lot like I am online. The one part of your post that I found especially intriguing was when you spoke of the person who said that they were a hundred years old. This brings up a very interesting question in my mind. Since you know that the person you were talking to was not really that old, what are the effects on communication when you that the other person is lying to you. It would not be considered deception since it is not an intentional alteration that is supposed to be taken as truth (you know the chances that the person is a hundred years and on the Internet is almost zero). Would one be less likely to be truthful and share information since they know the other person is lying to them; or perhaps they would be more apt to share things because they know that the person is at least not seriously trying to be something they are not? This may sound confusing, but I know I would doubt that someone I am talking to is really the gender and age they say they are. Due to this, I would be less likely to be open with them. Personally, I would be more comfortable talking to the person I knew was lying.
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