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Identity, PA-style, or: Ah, but how do you know they're who they say they are?
Thirith
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This is something I've come to realise since I started frequenting internet forums that have profile pics: I identify people almost entirely by their avatars. Back in the days of newsgroups, it was their nicknames. These days? Not so much. Obviously over time this improves, but I still realise that whenever someone changes their profile pic, it's surprisingly difficult for me to remember who they are, what they're like, what sort of posts they do. One of the other forums I used to be on more or less moved to Facebook, which means that with, oh, probably 9 out of 10 of them I simply no longer know who they are, even though there's a handy list pinned at the top of the FB group: I look at their pics and they mean nothing to me, and then I look at their real names and I know even less who they are.
Which is why I'm posting this thread, because I'm curious how this works for others: is your concept of others on this forum (or on others) mainly visual, linked to their profile pics? Is it mainly to do with their user names? Is it based on content, i.e. you read a post and you know, "Ah, that's obviously x or y or z writing this." Or is it a mix of all of these - or something else altogether?
Which is why I'm posting this thread, because I'm curious how this works for others: is your concept of others on this forum (or on others) mainly visual, linked to their profile pics? Is it mainly to do with their user names? Is it based on content, i.e. you read a post and you know, "Ah, that's obviously x or y or z writing this." Or is it a mix of all of these - or something else altogether?
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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J'acuse!
Long-standing avatars elicit the flavour of the attached poster, though. I see an avatar that's been around for five years in a thread and I get the amorphous morass of what that poster is to me before I read what they've written.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I get quite used to people and their particular avatars. I will also confess that when several people who don't have avatars are posting in a thread, sometimes I forget that they are different posters.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
People like Texican that change all the time mess me up constantly.
To be fair, it took me a bit to find one i was happy with. Originally it was a picture of me riding on the racetrack, but i kind of figured that wasn't jiving with this particular forum so i changed it.
Is funny, the pony was never meant to be a permanent avatar for me. I only had her as a gif av for when Portal 2 released, and I thought it was cute, endlessly falling pony. Just kinda stuck.
It's a thing
I recently changed mine and got into an argument prettymuch immediately that night
Is it "handle" or "nickname" or what?
Um...
I'm very text-oriented so it's really mostly about usernames for me. I also come from the old school IRC/gopher/usenet/mailing list/BBS era so tracking people by username is second nature.
It does help a lot when I meet somebody in real-life, though. Having a biological presence to go along with the avatar & nickname really solidifies my concept of a person.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Also people without avatars are only barely human on the forums. I routinely confuse them because while I don't associate a specific image with a specific person most of the time (I do sometimes), I do associate the same image over and over with a single person rather than multiples, so they all mush into a single erratic persona. All these eggs need to get a real face!
Also also, people whose avatar is "I'm in jail" all the time bug me.
Likewise people who have anti-avatars @Apothe0sis you are on the list
Like if you saw the name would you think "oh, that's Greg"?
what if I am unhappy with my face though?
Less so now. Online identity and Internet identity used to be much more segregated before Facebook.
But when it was all LAN parties and IRC, your handle was, like, your superhero alias. Don't call me that when I'm in civilian garb, you're gonna blow my cover!
Edit: actually in retrospect that was only true for gamer groups. Queer groups it was more like... your online handle was your secret truename closer to your actual identity, so it was normal for RL queer meetups to only involve handles.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
When I changed it after a few years, I learned that apparently a few people had been assuming I was a young, angry black man, and had been reading my posts as such.
I prefer to be read as Calculon.
My longest forum face was the gunslinger.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
You can change it but it's gonna take us a while to reconnect the name to the face.
I do prefer my real name but that's because people also call me torn anus or tyr anus or ass face so
These days it doesn't seem to matter as much; I guess now I'm more of a known quantity
Or maybe I'm just posting less in the threads where hostility is relatively common
If I try to think about it it pretty much vanishes, so I have no specifics.
Arch,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_goGR39m2k
can't read my
can't read my
can't read my forum face
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Now that I'm done SMEN though the Fallen London avatar is also a bit old, though it's probably super recognizable.
I should commission some sort of DOTA avatar so it never gets old.
but Agent Smith cackling gleefully strikes a deep chord in me for some reason so imma keep this one for a while.
When I met Six I thought it was funny that I had to make a conscious effort not to call myself Havelock.
I identify folks here more by the way they post than anything else, their "voice" if you will
I like that you had to fight not to reference yourself by your forum name in the third person.
What would Havelock2.0 say here? No, wait, dummy, that's not your name! Don't say that!
I still refer to some friends I met I WOW by their character names but it's pretty fluid and depends on what were doing. Having beers? Real name.
Gaming? Character name probably.
I always remember the forum name primarily. Otherwise its like record fragmentation. I remember what that dude named Joe said/looked like and what the guy I've known from PA forever said but they're split.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
funny you should say that because I kinda don't much care for the username mortal sky - it was meant for a throwaway gamefaqs account when I was 11 and became a handle for a couple years including this account I made here at age 13, but I also never meant to be here for a goddamn decade
and so I'd almost rather just go by my real name on here which is, incidentally, Greg
For instance, Imagine my surprise when I learned about the band Guns N Roses. They aren't contrarian or fatherly or even from Texas!
I tried to think of a name that was probably not someone's that was reading this thread. Mission failed
I hope this is true.
Switch - SW-7373-3669-3011
Fuck Joe Manchin
It's okay, your apple is much easier to recognize anyway. I've had this one for a few years now; barring temporary thematic changes), it's probably staying at this point
I usually recognize avatars as I scroll down quickly but will check the name when I'm looking for who wrote a post
he is a chimera!