Okay, to all that are reading, please keep in mind that I'm a frequent forum user of different boards and a online gamer.
I'm here to hopefully clear some air in this argument of how "online life" should not be taken seriously.
To do this I will use a recent example from an online game forum, it was to do with Mr.X arguing with Mr.Y. Mr.Y was abusing Mr.X about a personal situation regarding the death of a familly member, and becuase Mr.X had gotten rather upset about it, Mr.Y started laughing, basically like "LOL awwwh go cry moar faggot, if you take online serious, then you shouldn't be here, it isn't real." -AHEM, WRONG!-
Im using this example because it is the easiest case to point out my meanings. And here it goes:
As i have witnessed, once people log on to the internet to use it's services, wether it be, online gaming or just browsing, then they enter what is commonly known as a "online persona", once that person has entered this persona, they abolish most sence of insecurity becuase, there is no face-to-face confrontation, and you can say mostly what ever the hell you like and get away with it. There is a significant boost in confidence and even in some cases speach and typing patterns will alter. This said, i beleive that an online persona, makes you the person you have ALWAYS wanted to be without having to hide behind fear.
Just because your broadband connectivity light is blinking on a router, it does not mean that what you say will not affect other peoples thoughts.
Take the argument I stated earlier, if someone had said this to you out on the streets, most of us would deffinately freak out and usually resort to a violent outburst, however people say stuff like this online and expect the other party not to be bothered by it.
This online persona, makes us more real than we have ever been, it makes us the person we want to be, and it brings out most of our true colours, just becuase you're sat at your computer and in a bad mood becuase you have either been picked on or abbused in some way, does not make it okay for go online and find some random to rip the piss out of, and then make up some sad excuse like "its the interent, its not real, get over it".
People should not have to be subjected to this sort of crap, just becuase some insencitive prick decides that its okay for him to do so.
So next time you're on a forum, and hoping to flame so guy who is suffering, ask yourself, how would you feel given the cirsumstance of his situation.
Online or not, we all still have feelings, and they dont dissapear once your computer has been assigned an IP address.
