Article 3062 of fa.future-culture: Path: ifi.uio.no!internet-mailinglist Newsgroups: fa.future-culture Return-Path: <ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu> From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (non-carbonated) Original-Message-Id: <9303080158.AA15549@nyx.cs.du.edu> X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University of Denver. The University has neither control over nor responsibility for the opinions or correct identity of users. Subject: isn't this where we came in To: future@nyx.cs.du.edu (FutureCulture) Original-Date: Sun, 7 Mar 93 18:58:22 MST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Organization: Internet mailing list Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 02:03:45 GMT Message-ID: <1993.66.020345.13348@ifi.uio.no> it hurts anyone who's ever loved the net, loved all that is, inevitably comes across those points in the cyclic delicate balance of things where you feel an incredible loss, like finding out a family member will be in a coma for the rest of their life. the person is there, but not there. i had such an experience with the net last nite. i was with a friend of mine, it was a typical hangout on irc on #leri, the channel i'm on most. i was showing my friend the basics of irc and stuph, and then soon after, she was addicted, you could see it in her eyes. she was hunched over the keyboard, focusing everything on the blue text of my monitor here. she was /msging maybe 3 or 4 people at once and still talking with everyone else on the channel. it was typical irchaos. when i first found irchaos, i panicked and fled, hardcore ("run away! run away!" holy grail).....yet she stood there strong through it all , her first time on irc, her first time in irchaos, and she had everything all sorted out. until one point, when irchaos seemed to peak. someone who wasn't on the channel /msged her, making some comment about my random IRCNAME of the day. the way my aliases are set up, and because of the inevitable razorblades of chaos, a serious sounding message ("talk to me, i'm here for you" that sort of thing that is really common on IRC these daze for some reason, or maybe just the circles i associate with on it) ended up going to this total stranger.... i've said before, i feel these wires. i felt it then. i could see myself in wherever this total stranger was, receiving this message "talk to me, i'm here, i'll listen, i care".....a heartfelt tug, and quickly the invisible walls of cyberspace take over...the anonymity of the wires prevails, and a subtle but innate feeling of power, the constructs of patriarchal society become realized in reactions to a one-line text message on a random computer screen, a message that is1;11c truly an outgrowth of chaos with no logic or reason to provide direction. at this point i should probably say something about my friend i was with. she has been raped, she has been abused, suicidal. she takes everything in. she creates love where there is none, she finds goodness through any wall of any height. she is so tuned in to putting everyone else before herself. she invented caretaking, not just as some fucking "psych self-help book of the week" word, either.... she is caring incarnate, i sometimes feel. if love had a name.... so, anyway, this total irc stranger pounced on this opportunity of course, pounced on open arms. i had seen blatant sexism on the net before, and in irc in aprticularly. it quickly became commonplace to see how people's tones changed when they found out the person they were talking to was a woman. that in itself is fairly horrid and all-too familiar, but it's nothing compared to the traps that some people have in their cyberspace anonymity walls, as we were sadly about to find out. within 30 seconds, literally, this guy was talking about the size of his dick, how he couldn't cum, all his sexual frustrations played out to some anonymous recipient, all because of a one word answer to the private message "are you a guy or a girl?". my friend, ever mother theresa, stayed with it, even when myself and others were telling her how to ignore this guy. at one point, she pushed me back when i tried to grab the keyboard to do an "/ignore msgs" on him. goodness hurts. the people on #leri had some basic idea of what was going on, and a few people were so wonderful by standing by her side, /msging this guy and telling him to stop it. the people on #leri obviously don't know the circumstances of my friend's life, even, and it was so beautiful to see how people reacted, how they come to the aid of a "irc newbie" so quickly and easily. i can't thank enough a couple of people for this, and i hope you know who you are. thank you. at any rate, in context of the feelings i would feel for the next few hours, everything i have just said is basically moot. he continued to msg my friend, and he seemed shocked by these msgs coming from people on #leri. see. he didn't know. he didn't know. he didn't know. he didn't know who he was talking to, all that she had been through, all that she had suffered, all her personality, her emotions, her feelings, her thoughts. the wall was high. he didn't know that certain words he used reminded her of the guy who raped her. and he didn't know that he could stick knives in her heart, and she would find something positive, unique, and special about him. and it would be true. that's what hurts. he didn't know. that's what hurts. he didn't know the oppression he was invoking by the freedom she was showing towards him. maybe that's just more issues fr my friend to work on, but, we are all human. we are all individual people, feeling, loving people. his intensions, as far as he was concerned, and as far as he could search within himself, were good. he just wanted someone to talk to. he just wanted someone to be there. and yet again, my friend became the dust under the doormat, as far as feeling is concerned. he didn't *know*. he stayed behind his wall, he didn't want to feel the wires, he wanted to fuck them. the net is so beautiful, there are people out there who just want to fuck the net. fuck it and leave when they're satisfied. i've seen a few of them, these net fuckers. it's what's so sad, they don't consciously do it. they tease the net a bit, games of infatuation begin from both points of view, and then you can look back on the whole thing and see a crossroads. do you love the net, or do you just want to screw it. do you give, and how much, or do you just take and absorb. you could post more than i do, you could run 5 mailing lists and read 50 and post to 5 Usenet groups regularly and IRC daily and still fuck the net. you know what bothers me. what pains me. the power struggles and structures of certain IRC groups. like, gee, wow, irony, #cyberpunk. these bots that auto-op certain eLiTe people, bots that send out messages that say "you are lame". hackers that fuck up beautiful systems for NO FUCKING REASON. i don't mind hacking at all if it's give and take, if it's adoration and respect, but i do mind abusive hacking. these are walls. cyberspace too oft seems a double-edged sword, in that we are given so much freedom to pick and choose and do what we want with all this information. you don't even have t step back too far too see what people's true subconscious and conscious motivations are. do they talk to themselves or do they communicate, do they /mode +o or do they /say things, do they distribute loot in MUDS and stop to chat or do they just keep questing, do they explore or do they whine, do they contribute or absorb, what does everyone do with this "power" of information? have you ever "put" anything when you ftp? do you flame or do you offer new ideas and waze of looking. if someone asks you for a FAQ, will you give it to them even if you're busy doing something else? connection is at minimum a two-way thing. so if you ask yourself "are you connected?" , the question is do you share or not. and are you comfortable with your "niche" on the net? i used to lurk. i really don;'t understand why i did. i want that time back, now. i want last nite back. i want to talk to this guy, tell him to caress these connections he's building (known or unknown), to watch where he waves his keyboard around. there's no difference ultimately between how he acted and going into #nam.vets and saying "incoming". i can't netrip since this happened, i've lost it because there's bad intentions on the net now. i guess i have to give a lot more to the net to be able to reach that state again. i hope everyone does the same, because i think it's a beautiful place to be, to feel the wires. please don't fuck the net -- andy