It took me a good amount of time to get used to the space, and even longer to find anyone to interact with. I was immediately reminded of how fortunate I am to have grown up in the age of 3d online environments. Eventually, after a long series of I was able to land myself in the Cantina. Here I was immediately met with:
tomtom33: Lance_Bass is gay!!!!
tomtom33: Lance_Bass is gay!!!!
tomtom33: F*** U fagoot
lando_calzone: shut up tomtom
So you can see how instantly I had found examples of warm and cold characteristics online. I can't say much more on tomtom33, although I imagine I'd find him disagreeable and introverted, because he left the room after his three brief messages. I guess you can call me guilty of the hyperpersonal model for coming to such assumptions with so few messages, but I'm willing to bet that my first impression is pretty accurate.
I decided to MORF my defendant, lando, already assuming he was a nice guy. he didn't understand "MORF?" but responded to my A/S/L with 12/m/earth. I told him I'd never used a MUD before and asked if he frequented them. He said he spends a lot of time in muds, but not this particular one, that he was trying it for the first time, and found it pretty worthless.
We talked for about 20 minutes. He never really spoke unless I prompted him, but always answered politely. He wouldn't tell me anything about himself (not even if he liked calzones). This lead me to believe he was an introvert. He was colder than I anticipated, keeping his responses very limited. He showed no neurotic tendencies. He was fairly conscientious. He was always polite, never used profanity, and defended me earlier. It was hard to judge him on agreeableness, because he usually just responded with vague fillers like, "yea.. i guess".
My impressions were definitely more in line with the CFO model. Lando didn't tell me very much, and as such I didn't really have many impressions of him. I gathered that he was shy, and thats about it. SIDE played a role too, because I have a mental picture in my mind that Lando is a nerdy little kid. I made this assumption just on his gender, age, and the fact he was playing around in a MUD. I didn't make to many hyperpersonal impressions through out my experience.
3 comments:
Hahaha. I must say your first interaction is hilarious. The Lance comments are truly great.
Ok. I’ll be serious now.
I believe that using the Hypersonal Model to form an impression of tomtom is accurate. Although, he may have been acting brash on purpose because he knew he could get away with it. The anonymity factor that Wallace discusses could have played an active role in his behavior towards you.
Do you feel you were treated that way because your avatar showed up as male? Do you think the same thing would have happened if your character were female?
It is interesting about how lando_calzone “rescued” (not that you needed it or anything) you from the harassment, yet was very hesitant when talking to you personally. You said he only responded when spoken to and that you had to lead the conversation. I think it is accurate that his true personality might really reflect that of an introvert and that he does not change his personality even within the context of CMC.
While I think it’s possible that Lando_calzone actually is introverted, as Zak suggests above, I think it’s worth considering that your conversation might not have been the focus of his attention. This view may be supported by the fact that you had to lead the conversation and he didn’t respond with too much detail (what you viewed as coldness); perhaps he was busy doing something else?
That’s what I dislike about the impression formation theories – they are more concerned with how one interprets an encounter instead of what actually happened. I would be more interested in analyzing Lando_calzone’s actions than the way his actions are interpreted. Is he really 12? Was he really new to this MUD? Perhaps it’s just my nature to be skeptical of everyone online.
I guess, though, the entire point of CMC impression formation is that one will never really know what the other actually intends, so we have to go off of the cues that are given; how they are interpreted is the concern of the theories.
Steven -
Your blog was hilarious. I found it shocking that you were greeted in such a distasteful manner. More importantly, in terms of your impressions of Lando, based on what I gather, you may have stereotyped Lando just a little. (assuming he was a nerdy little kid based on gender, age, and the nature of the psychological online environment) To be honest, I was forming the same impression of Lando myself. Due to Lando's inconsistent mannerisms, it would be hard to formulate an impression of him that was anything other than neutral or underdeveloped. But then again, maybe he was just really into the MUD? It's interesting how your initial impression of him (due to his defensive save) changed quickly once you tried to have a conversation. Imagine what your impression would have been if Lando had been a bit more open. Do you think you'd be able to get away from the stereotypical nerd vibes? You would still have the same grounds to make that assumption. Just a thought.
- Sherrie Chavez
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