Toward a Philosphy of On-Line Community

[bluenix]

Sometimes you get at the essence of a thing, whether on purpose or accidentally, in a moment of extremity — how someone responds to loss, upset, even betrayal; the way a friend behaves in a challenge of loyalty; anything, really, that catapults us beyond the possibility of a typical or learned response, into uncharted territory.

 

What got me thinking about this was that remarkable post in the Deli which, in a mere 48 hours, accumulated 88 posts and 1700 page views. Given the normal speed of this board, that's extreme. And I wondered what it says about this on-line community, if anything.

 

This isn't about people's interested willingness to participate in a discusson about escort transactions. Heck, that's what this site is about. Rather, it's the seeming general consensus that the board was asked to judge between the accuser and the accused and, even more to the point, the board's apparent assumption of the authority to do so.

 

My question is, was this an escort crisis event, like the Tylenol scare? That is, as consumers, was it NECESSARY to be informed of "the company's" response in order to frame our own response? Or was this more akin to gladiators in the Roman Coliseum, where we posted our opinions as sport, without a whole lot of regard to the career prospects of the accused (i.e. none of our business)?

 

But, then, if it's none of our business, what explains the deep fascination? Is that a gay thing, rushing to judgement? DID we rush to judgement?

 

A REQUEST: If you have to name either the client or the escort, please post your message in the Deli. This thread is not about them.

[Guest WetDream]

Bluenix, as a relative (and welcome) newcomer to the message center you pose an interesting question. As someone who has been around a bit longer, I don't think that it has an either/or answer. For me, the MC is a valuable forum where a variety of things can happen. One can find useful information, be entertained, enjoy the thrill of a good spat, share your viewpoint/opinions with others with a (presumed?) shared interest... You name it; this is a place to be used as the participants' want to use it.

 

There are some sure fire hot issues that gather a lot of responses. Some surprising ones elicit a lot of attention (who would have thought that so many people cared whether or not an escort work a baseball cap?). Since the thread in question involved an escort with a strong presence on the board (and since issues of credibility and professionalism were involved), the quickness and quantity of the postings was bound to happen.

 

What is the fallout from a thread like this? Who knows? My impression is that people rarely change their minds during one of these long threads. Positions tend to be staked outand arguments repeated until everyone that wants to comment has had a chance to do so. Those that want to continue the discussion do so. Sooner or later it dies a natural death.

 

It is an interesting process. Sometimes I like to participate. Sometimes, when I don't feel I have anything to add, I enjoy sitting back and watch the action take place. I do feel that there is a community here, but a far smarter person than I will have to analyze exactly what it is and what it does.

[phage]

As soon as the post hit the board I knew it was going to be a hot topic and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. The title alone guaranteed the many posts and views.

 

The part I found fascinating – besides some of the unabashed, uninformed declarations of who was right and who was wrong – was that everyone was so true to form. There was the attack pack, the logical guys, the lawyers, the mediators, the escort groupies, the escort slammers, etc.

 

I played a stupid game with myself and tried to predict what the guy was going to say before reading his post. I was pretty much nailing eight out of ten of the monikers I knew. Not the details of course, but the general position they were going to take. I’m not saying anyone was predictable or boring…just that I found it very interesting that personalities come through so well on this message board that you can anticipate some of the reactions.

 

I’ve never been involved with a message board community before so maybe this is common. Regardless, there are some very distinct and very interesting cyber personalities here.

_

[Scorpio]

I don’t believe the fascination with the subject at hand can be described as a “gay thing” – more likely a “human thing.” Take for example an auto accident. Traffic slows down even slower than necessary so everybody can get a glimpse of the tragedy – or as it’s sometimes called “rubber necking.” But I don’t think that’s an exclusively gay trait.

 

The question remains whether there was a rush to judgement or not; and as in all things, that is a matter of opinion. Take any newly revealed scandal be it political (Iran-Contra, Whitewater) or sexual (Clinton-Lewinsky, etc.) and people are bound to start forming and expressing opinions first and asking questions later. These opinions are generally based on our own preconceived notions about the personalities involved, our personal beliefs or situations from our past that may have been similar. Having reviewed the thread in question and having dealt with some of people who responded on a personal level in the past, I found that their answers were consistent with what I know about them. Whether they were appropriate to the situation or not is again a matter of opinion. But what I do find both fascinating and unnerving is the inclination by some to demonize or assault the character of any person, who is of a different opinion from them. That is quirk of human nature (which I have probably been guilty of myself on occasion) but I’ll never get used to it.

 

In perfect world, the participants would have remained quiet until both parties had expressed their side. However, this is not a perfect world. And I doubt that would have changed the responses generated. I think those that were inclined to remain neutral would have remained neutral. Those inclined to favor the client would have still favored the client and those inclined to favor the escort would have still favored the escort.

 

So did we rush to judgement? Probably, but at least we acted consistently with our human nature – for better or worse.

[Guest]

>

>But, then, if it's none of our business, what explains the

>deep fascination? Is that a gay thing, rushing to judgement?

>DID we rush to judgement?

 

The original poster asked a question, and he got opinions, some of which I'm sure he liked, and some of which he didn't. I'm not quite sure why you feel it might not be the business of message center readers when a question is publically posted on the message center. It's not a gay thing, it's an Ann Landers thing. Someone asks for advice, and he gets it. Sometimes I like to ask for advice (I've gotten some pretty long strings started myself). I hope to get some useful ideas.

As for the rushing to judgment issue, there's nothing wrong with saying "If the facts are as you state them...". It doesn't imply you necessarily believe one guy and not the other. You're just answering the question with available data. As an aside, I found the long delay in the escort's response rather curious.

[Guest Hungman9]

>The original poster asked a question, and he got opinions,

>some of which I'm sure he liked, and some of which he

>didn't. ...Someone asks for advice,

>and he gets it.

 

Nowhere in the lengthy original post does he ever ask for advice. He begins by telling us other escorts he's hired, he then tells his side of the story, and ends by saying he hopes other clients have learnd a lesson from this. If you're referring to the rhetorical title of the post as a plea for advice, that's pretty stupid.

 

>As an aside, I found the long delay in the escort's

>response rather curious.

 

Let's see. The original post went up at 8 PM and the escort posted at 11:30 AM the following morning. How shocking that a popular escort might have been working or taking the night off, and not sitting at his computer with nothing else to do. Positively outrageous, huh, Unicorn?

[bluenix]

>Nowhere in the lengthy original post does he ever ask for

>advice. He begins by telling us ---/snip/---

 

>Let's see. The original post went up at 8 PM and the escort

>posted at 11:30 AM ---/snip/---

 

 

Okay, guys. I know I can't stop a thread from being hijacked, but, I repeat, this isn't about the escort and the client.

 

It's about, as WetDream writes, the way "people rarely change their minds during one of these long threads." Why is that?

 

It's about what phage wrote. "Everyone was so true to form. There was the attack pack, the logical guys, the lawyers, the mediators, the escort groupies, the escort slammers, etc." To whatever degree that's true, what is that dynamic? Sub-communities of inclination or a sort of tribalism?

 

It's about Scorpio's observation that what he finds "both fascinating and unnerving is the inclination by some to demonize or assault the character of any person, who is of a different opinion from them." To whatever degree that's true, it reminds me of Lord of the Flies, where tribalism spins out of participants' own control. Why can something like that happen so quickly in an on-line community when the same thing would never happen where a community meets in a physical setting? Or would it?

 

Gotta run. Later.

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>My question is, was this an escort crisis event, like the

>Tylenol scare?

 

I'd say it was more like the Milli Vanilli scandal. :+

 

>That is, as consumers, was it NECESSARY to be

>informed of "the company's" response in order to frame our

>own response? Or was this more akin to gladiators in the

>Roman Coliseum, where we posted our opinions as sport,

>without a whole lot of regard to the career prospects of the

>accused (i.e. none of our business)?

 

You know, it doesn't seem like an either/or question to me. It was helpful, and I would even say important, to get The Company's response to The Consumer's complaint/warning, so that people could at least decide whose story made the most sense to them (of course "made the most sense" is probably shorthand for saying "conformed to their view of the world," but what are you gonna do?). However there did seem to be a bloodthirsty streak to many of the posts, both those in favor of The Company and those in favor of The Consumer. Still, nasty, idle posts on the Internet are probably a better way to let that instinct out than actually making people fight to their death. Yes, there was the real potential for harm to The Company, but I suspect that in the end The Company lost some potential new customers and at the same time gained some new ones, so it probably evened out in the wash.

 

There does seem to be something about the Internet and today's media culture that makes people suspicious if a someone fails to respond instantaneously to an allegation, whether due to being busy or to the desire to carefully formulate a response, sift through a chain of emails to make sure one's getting the chronology right, etc. If someone made a public complaint about me based on events that took two to years to transpire, I'd sure want to take my time and care in replying. Precisely because of the public relations stakes involved, I might even want to run the situation by some fellow escorts and ask what they thought before I replied. It's interesting to see that many would take this as a sign that I must have done something wrong. (I have no opinion about the dispute in question, btw, at least none that I'd like to express publicly). I guess it goes to show that our expectations get conditioned by the rapid flow of information and the rapid flow of misinformation.

 

As a public figure of sorts (I don't kid myself that my "public" is all that large, but that's not the point), I've been learning as I go about the impossibility of controlling one's image, no matter how carefully one crafts one's message. Based on posts I've made on this message center and in my own online diary (sorry, couldn't resist the plug), people have drawn wildly varying conclusions about what I'm like. My Devon persona is constantly being co-created by people who bring their own fantasies and prejudices to what they're reading or seeing.

 

The funniest example of this: some guy saw a picture of me and decided I was an arrogant white skinhead (his evidence: I shave my head, like about, oh, 65% of the gay boys in San Francisco). Then he saw some of my posts on this site and decided I was an ass-kissing pansy and withdrew his offer to be my slave. Then I got into a couple of political debates on the board and, I guess, showed a little more fire in the belly, because he decided I must be a bad-ass after all. I thought this was hilarious and wrote about it in my diary. When my fickle slave flaked again I wrote about that too and then got contacted by someone else who offered to be a more reliable slave. When I arrived for our first appointment he already had some very nice business cards waiting for me. For the record, I like being dominant with some people, I like submitting to others, and I like being vanilla with still others. But I guess it's too much to hope that people could hold all three concepts in their heads at once.

 

>But, then, if it's none of our business, what explains the

>deep fascination?

 

I think you answered your own question... :-)

[Donnie]

>For the record, I like being dominant with some people, I

>like submitting to others, and I like being vanilla with

>still others.

 

Leave it to an escort to work in a plug for his services!

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>Leave it to an escort to work in a plug for his services!

 

And on a website about escorts, no less! Some people have no shame...

[+ Lucky]

Plug your services, plug your philosophy, plug my hole, or my mouth, as some would prefer!

But, really, do 65% of the gayboys in SF shave their heads? What do you think, bluenix?

[bluenix]

>Plug your services, plug your philosophy, plug my hole, or

>my mouth, as some would prefer!

>But, really, do 65% of the gayboys in SF shave their heads?

>What do you think, bluenix?

 

I think it's a typo.

 

:+

[bluenix]

>I guess it goes to show that our expectations get conditioned by the

>rapid flow of information and the rapid flow of misinformation.

 

I'm adding this one to the list. I like 'expectations.' People clearly form expectations about transaction behavior and board behavior, too. And generally we dislike it when our expectations are unmet.

[+ Charlie]

I doubt that the 1700 viewers of the thread had hired or were seriously thinking about hiring this particular escort. They were responding to the drama of a confrontation, which is what draws people to watch so many daytime TV shows. The fact that the escort was a celebrity, whom many viewers feel they know through his numerous past posts, just made it more interesting than usual. I suspected that he postponed responding until all the kibitzers had their say, so that he wouldn't get involved in endless respones to individuals.

[Guest cp8036]

Yes, 65 % of gay boys do shave their heads. Is so they can wear baseball caps.

 

 

Let's start a new thread called Baseball Caps, part II -- Holiday Use of Baseball Caps

[Guest cp8036]

Shameless indeed, and entirely out of context.

 

Escorts should only plug their wares on the NPR.org site and sites about major household appliances.

[Donnie]

>I suspected that he postponed

>responding until all the kibitzers had their say, so that he

>wouldn't get involved in endless respones to individuals.

 

Postponed? That's hysterical. I'm with Hungman. The original post was at night & he replied the next morning. Do you really think escorts sit at their computers 24 hours a day like the rest of you bored lifeless queens? I hope he was banging some old fag's brains out. Just not yours.