A Journey, A Revelation, And Some Nudity

[Baby Tea]

I was surprised when I first read the Escapism thread.
And now we see that you've duped me indeed.

But since we don't really chat that much, UltraJoe, I don't think I treated you differently.

But, as I read more, I see this thread isn't truly about those you tricked, but rather your own personal revelations. Almost a modern day 'Black Like Me', except it's a gender issue, not racial. Very interesting, and obviously rather revealing in terms of what you learned!

Well done!

 

[Ultrajoe]

Distancing yourself from those that would stick by you so you could watch them squirm under the microscope. Why the hell would you do that?

All I did was change genders, Fire. Read my posts, I'm still me and always have been me. I wanted to see what happened when I changed one part of my description. When I changed to a female, people spent pages complimenting me and talking about the big surprise, even those who didn't know me. Now users (again, not knowing me) are responding negatively to the reverse shift. I didn't do anything but change myself and watch, that's not watching you squirm, that's watching you react, and I was never unfriendly during the process.

Hell, i've been more me, posting more frequently and with more of my usual level of bouncy jolliness, all that changed was my height and shoe size.

And as I stated, I deeply regret not going to Escapism in person, I traded the chance for those friendships for this experiment. I am not entirely proud.

 

[Mr Fatherland]

Wait, you evn posted a picture of...someone on the Australian Escapism, who was that?

 

[Ultrajoe]

The Discworld novels are great, aren't they? Sadly I've read them all, but I'm awaiting for the book "Paying Taxes". Should be interesting to see Moist von Lipwig as a tax man.

It's 'Raising Taxes', actually, and it's been pushed back in favor of his novel about football.

Fair enough in trying to understand the other half. Although I'm sure you know this, no matter how much we may study the other half and all that jazz, we will never completely comprehend it.

That's the kind of attitude I want to stop, we need to stop treating the other gender as 'The Other', because they're our sisters and mothers. We shouldn't have a default excuse to be distant from them, in the form of 'we'll never understand'. I don't think this is incurable, I don't think it's rational and I don't think it's reasonable. Trust me, this article is about me experiencing this dissonance first hand, and the experiences I learned from it. The most shocking is that it's not fun for either gender to miss out on so much.

I knew all this, I suspected all this, but seeing and believing are not the same.

EDIT: Goodnight all

 

[Simriel]

Touché sir. Touché. Not that I actually... ya know... Care or anything, but a good trick none the less. Having never actually spoken to you it does not effect me in any way, but a nice display of Machiavellian intelligence.

 

[Lexodus]

I must have missed the whole thing, only having joined relatively recently. However, I have previously convinced A) my entire year at school that I was gay, to see the reactions I got and how people treated me in light of their 'discovery', and also convinced somebody that I was in my twenties and about to get married so they'd actually listen to my argument (basically, me vs a troll, another guy had been snubbed because he was young, even though he knew what he was talking about, so I stepped up to the plate, saying I was older, and eventually got through to him and won the argument. Which made it all the sweeter when I turned around and said, 'hey, I'm actually twelve', which I was at the time.)

 

[megalomania]

All I can say is that I think its all pretty damn funny and that is a quality prank to play!

I wonder what 'UltraJosephine' made of it all though (were they her thoughts in the OP or UltraJoes?). Also I think it would be interesting to see if that many people that were there had the same persona as the one they project on here. I think the internet is an interesting tool for people to paint a picture of themselves. I suspect UltraJoe (the real one) is a good example of such a projection.

So to those that were there...did people behave as you would have expected their internet persona to?

 

[Fire Daemon]

All I did was change genders, Fire.

No, you didn't. You lied to a lot of people and used them for your own entertainment... scientific study... I don't know. But you used people. You used them in a way that is hard to forget. This isn't about genders or who you are behind the mask, at least for me, it's about treating people like something that only exist for you to gauge their reactions, as if everyone here is a small part of massive steampunk engine for you too fiddle with and alter as you please. Some people might be fine with that, but I'm not and I never will be.

And please, don't feel like my thoughts are only directed at you. They are directed at all of the people that took part in 'April Escapism' and hence took part in this lie as they are equally responsible I suppose.

What really guts me is the fact that at 'Escapism' most of those people are the folks that would call themselves veterans or oldies or whatever. Is this how veterans treat their community, manipulating them? That doesn't sound right too me. Maybe if you did this by yourself Joe I could walk restrain from posting and go to bed but the fact that so many users that are held in high esteem did this just... well cuts me up inside. A community that I would usually say something positive about has become something that I would warn people to stay away and wonder why I aren't following them. That just, doesn't sound right.

And I suppose the sad thing is that, well, we all know this didn't have to be done here. It could have been done at any other forum, even WarCry had it not died recently, although it would still have been just as wrong in my opinion. This test of sorts could have been carried out anywhere else and no doubt it has been carried out numerous times, it isn't as if none of you didn't know the results of this experiment anyway. You could have lied to another community from the start and then disappear without letting them know the truth, at least keeping them happy through their ignorance. That's still lying and using people but... at least it isn't as bad.

Look, maybe my morals are out of whack, maybe this is normal Internet behaviour? I don't know. Best to ignore me, I think.

 

[Slayer_2]

Well, I never got to meet this UltraJosephine, but still this experiment sounded like a lot of laughs... and maybe a bit strange. Anyhow Dean (if that is indeed your real name), I hope to see you posting on the forums in your boob-less form. I will definitly make sure to treat people the same, whether they have a penis or not, although I can't help but feel that video-games and the internet are mostly male territory, sorry for the sexism.

P.S. Of course Labyrinth was helping you, she'd just love assisting with this a hoax of this magnitude

 

[Pellucid]

I feel like, in the interest of scientific integrity, you should run a similar experiment on a female-dominated forum.

 

[Alex_P]

Why did you all have to treat the Escapist community, people who would call you friend, so that you could get your shits and giggles?

It's just a big forum. We're not all magically friends here.

-- Alex

 

[Bored Tomatoe]

UltraJoe, You are a confusing bastard. Although I have to admit, that must have had you entertained quite nicely... Tricking 90% of the users like that.

 

[Meado]

UltraJoe, You are a confusing bastard. Although I have to admit, that must have had you entertained quite nicely... Tricking 10-20% of the users like that.

Just felt I had to fix that.
I doubt that even 20% of active users follow events closely enough to keep track of anyone's gender, so unless Joe ended each post with "I'm a gurl btw", he couldn't fool that many. No chance.

I'm proud to say I've never cared about gender online, but this sounds like it was an interesting mindgame for you to play. Great job writing it out too.

Also: Breaking news! Someone claiming to be female over the internet has been revealed to be a guy. More at eleven.

 

[sallene]

So wait..

Are you saying your a female but got a sex change, or a guy who got a sex change?

are you a guy that decided to be gay for a month?

From what I can gather you are a guy who posed as a female on the internet? If so.. I dont think you are the first and I doubt you will be the last.

Its a big giant wall of text but not really written out in any decipherable way to encourage understanding by a populace at large. Which I guess is ok if this was meant to me an "in" joke between you and your online friends.

otherwise, interesting read.

 

[jamesworkshop]

I don't get it