Owen: The internet…seems to have irreversibly broken the way I interact with people in real life. …I’m not proud of this at all. …The problem with viewing people in real life through the lens of the internet’s that you tend to take hobby compatibility as a given right more than a bonus.
ETERNAL: [E]ven if my social interactions in real life aren’t the greatest, I can’t bring myself to worry. And maybe that’s because I have the internet. …Ultimately, all of us bloggers are human beings, and when we talk about anime, it’s always through the eyes of a person, and each of us has lived through different experiences. It’s easy to look at us as a collective pile of usernames, each with the same lifestyles and personalities, but the reality of the matter is the exact opposite.
Derek: We have to ask ourselves the question: Is the internet really all that different from real life? Of course, I mean in terms of human interactions, rather than simple appearance. …The idea is that, instead of a mask that hides us, the internet frees us.
I like the split the discussion took. Both sides are linear: “actions in reality are a direct consequence of digital occurances” or “digital occurances are a product of certain social circumstances in reality.” Derek insightfully points out that, while the internet opens up possibilities, we must inextricably adhere to our human tendencies – would they be anything other than human?
One interesting thing I noticed was that some spoke of “communication”. We must take care to remember, however, that specifically in the ’sphere, it is not communication that is most significant, but being. Being is not a prerequisite for communication – communication is a prerequisite for being. In the ’sphere, you cannot be unless you write and are read. If no one reads your blog, that makes you not a digital individual but simply a person who keeps a private online journal. Our public identities are predicated upon this collective society, and it is a discursive system of acknowledgment that grants us individuality. So in a world intrinsically reduced to mere letters, what more can we do than produce these mere letters?
also see
lelangir, how content-oriented spheres produce specific nexistences