The Internet and the real you

[doggy go 7]

So I was typing a YouTube comment the other day (oi, stop it, stop it now. This isn't going to go anywhere if we just make fun of YouTube all the time) and as I went 500 characters over the 500 character limit (although having anticipated the YouTube jokes, if they want to make their comments section better, why the fuck do they have a character limit?[footnote]I wonder if it's possible to go off topic on your own thread[/footnote]), I realised that my long winded internet writing was in large part down to our own beloved Escapist.

This got me thinking in more general terms about how the internet/certain websites have affected my behaviour beyond those specific places, like how I'll be more likely to reference a meme in common conversation, how I've copied John Green's hands to his head in times of stress (my hair is good for puff, if you're interested), how I'll see people do #stupidphrase on websites that aren't twitter (sidenote, possibly the most annoying thing a person can do), and how Yahtzee's humour has affected my own.

So in what ways has the internet affected your behaviour in "normal" life, and have you taken behaviours from one website to another?

 

[Total LOLige]

On Facebook when talking to friends I use(well try) correct spelling and grammar because of the Escapist. My friends probably think it's quite odd.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

None to my knowledge.

The way I am on every website I visit is how I am in real life.

The internet has to put up with me whether it likes it or not.

 

[The Wykydtron]

So I was typing a YouTube comment the other day (oi, stop it, stop it now. This isn't going to go anywhere if we just make fun of YouTube all the time) and as I went 500 characters over the 500 character limit (although having anticipated the YouTube jokes, if they want to make their comments section better, why the fuck do they have a character limit?, I realised that my long winded internet writing was in large part down to our own beloved Escapist.

This got me thinking in more general terms about how the internet/certain websites have affected my behaviour beyond those specific places, like how I'll be more likely to reference a meme in common conversation, how I've copied John Green's hands to his head in times of stress (my hair is good for puff, if you're interested), how I'll see people do #stupidphrase on websites that aren't twitter (sidenote, possibly the most annoying thing a person can do), and how Yahtzee's humour has affected my own.

So in what ways has the internet affected your behaviour in "normal" life, and have you taken behaviours from one website to another?

Oi, I only use hashtags when i'm in a particularly jokey mood and it must involve the word swag and/or bro. It's totally funny and legit.

#ComedySwag

OT: I make everything an essay because I go off-topic 99% of the time. If I tried hard enough i'm sure I could make this thread on BlazBlue within the hour XD

Also I don't type a web address into the URL bar, I use the Google tab and type it into there and select the top option. It was quicker to do that with my old laptop I think but it's outgrown its usefulness with my new PC.

 

[shrekfan246]

I wonder if it's possible to go off topic on your own thread

Indeed it is.

I've derailed my own threads every now and again. They don't usually survive long enough for it to matter, though.

#stupidphrase on websites that aren't twitter (sidenote, possibly the most annoying thing a person can do)

#Idon'tcarewhatyouthinkYOLO

OT: Well, being a rather constant member of the community here for the last two years has made me talk much more about the gaming industry. I've always loved playing games, but it's only really been the last three years or so that I started really paying attention to the actual industry and everything surrounding it. It's also helped bring out my more analytical and critical side, though I'm quite tired of all the cynicism.

Don't really know how else it would've changed me.

 

[Goofguy]

None to my knowledge.

The way I am on every website I visit is how I am in real life.

The internet has to put up with me whether it likes it or not.

Yup, that about sums it up for me as well.

I guess the one way it does affect me is that I only have one real life friend who is as current and up to date on internet memes, popular videos, fads and just general happenings as I am. That means that he's the only person I know that I can make the most obscure or silly reference with and he'd get it right away. As for all of my other friends, it's not hard for me to not make internet references, it just means the conversations are less off the wall and silly.

 

[Harlemura]

I think I'm pretty much the same. It could be because of all the time I've spent on the internet that I can't hold a conversation with anyone who isn't in my immediate family or a good friend, but then I also can't hold a conversation with random strangers on the internet, so I guess that one's all down to me.

I'd probably be worse with money if it weren't for the internet though. I wonder how much I've saved on not buying things because I want to check if I can get it cheaper online, then I get home and can't be bothered or just don't remember.

 

[sanquin]

Heh, my internet life has definitely affected my real life. "wattefak' (wtf) and 'lol' have become 'words' I use in real life. I do use meme's in my head at times, and sometimes jokingly with friends. Probably some other things as well.

It's hard not to affect one with the other when you spend a lot of time online, I'd say.

 

[Johnny Impact]

4chan has shown me that unremitting ignorance and self-righteous hostility is the answer to everything, and the sooner all human life is burned away by alien death rays, the better.

The Escapist has shown me that unremitting ignorance and self-righteous hostility is the answer to nothing, and that online communities don't have to consist entirely of sewage, slurs, and the kind of images you'd like to forget.

YouTube has shown me that thousands of people are way more interesting than I will ever be, and millions more think they are way, way, WAY more interesting than they actually are. Come to think of it, I already knew the second one.

The Internet has improved my ability with words, both because I post here and because I can get the meaning of words like "abrogate" or "effulgent" in seconds, adding to my vocabulary. At the same time, the Internet has provided a place where tens of thousands of people can appall me with their complete lack of language skills.

I make references to memes and sites which almost nobody gets. I used to do that with TV shows, so not much has changed.

MMOs have swallowed more of my life than any other activity I've ever been interested in. The only good thing WoW ever did for me was teach me to type 100wpm.

I don't think my personality or habits have changed. I surf more and read less, that's about it.

 

[Queen Michael]

I like writing "smurf" instead of smurfing regular verbs. I started smurfing that here, and then I started doing it IRL.

 

[omegaweopon]

Nouns as verbs. Using nouns as verbs is a trait that I picked up from traipsing about the internet for years.

For instance. I can't math.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Nouns as verbs. Using nouns as verbs is a trait that I picked up from traipsing about the internet for years.

For instance. I can't math.

Huh, I picked that up from my stoner friends. Everything is 'Can you lights?' rather than 'Can you turn on the lights?'.

I think The Escapist has affected me quite a bit, considering I've been a regular since I was 14. I'm sure my debating skills would be significantly worse, and I've learnt to just sigh and walk away when people are being arseholes or if I disagree with them.

 

[triggrhappy94]

Nouns as verbs. Using nouns as verbs is a trait that I picked up from traipsing about the internet for years.

For instance. I can't math.

Huh, I picked that up from my stoner friends. Everything is 'Can you lights?' rather than 'Can you turn on the lights?'.

Ha! That line brought back some good, albeit fuzzy, memories.

I wonder if it's possible to go off topic on your own thread

It's my personal mission to derail my own threads. You could say it was "an inside job."

OT:
Well, the Escapist has conditioned me to hate those post-script, signature things that other forums let you do. It's probably a good thing though, seeing how they're always gaudy and take up more space then the actual comment.
As per normal life, I some times reference memes while talking to my brother.

The only sites I visit with real frequency are this one and the one for my Uni.

I guess I could say the major discrepancies between the interwebs and my life are that on facebook I have a lot of friends that I either don't like or haven't talked to me in months; where in real life, I have a small group of friends that only sometimes don't talk to me.

 

[Fractral]

OT: I make everything an essay because I go off-topic 99% of the time. If I tried hard enough i'm sure I could make this thread on BlazBlue within the hour XD

Not that this is a problem. I, for one, enjoy your posts on Blazblue, Persona and LoL, especially when you somehow manage to spin one out of a totally unrelated thread.
OT: Uh... I tend to try and avoid annoying people more on the internet than in real life? Like, IRL I'm not afraid to get into arguments, but on the internet I abhor them.

 

[FalloutJack]

I influence it, really. It's a machine that I give input and has to take it. QED.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

My behavior online is not, by my estimation, any different than my behavior in real life. While there may be relatively little value to an online persona, I do not see the fact that it is fundamentaly disposable as sufficient cause to be a different person.

 

[xDarc]

In what ways has the internet affected my life?

Well I'm 31 years old and I have no friends. I started using the web back around 95'. Anyone remember Prodigy?
I had sex for the first time with a girl I met through ICQ in 1997. I had barely had a first kiss before that. No emotional teenage angst, no agonizing break up, I never saw that girl again.

From there, I went on to have sexual contact with around 200 or so people; most of it before the age of 24 when I picked up genital herpes. That tends to slow an honest sex addict down a bit.

Basically, taking the personal connection out of social interaction had the side effect of taking it out of sex for me. I eventually got better. I've been in a relationship for 2 years now, longest one so far- that's a lot for me.

 

[Zhukov]

It's taught me how to walk away from arguments.

Used to be I would vehemently and insistently argue with anyone who disagreed with me.

After a couple of years online I realised that a lot of the time it just isn't worth the effort and that there's no shame in just rolling your eyes and trotting off to do something more enjoyable/productive.

 

[The Wykydtron]

OT: I make everything an essay because I go off-topic 99% of the time. If I tried hard enough i'm sure I could make this thread on BlazBlue within the hour XD

Not that this is a problem. I, for one, enjoy your posts on Blazblue, Persona and LoL, especially when you somehow manage to spin one out of a totally unrelated thread.
OT: Uh... I tend to try and avoid annoying people more on the internet than in real life? Like, IRL I'm not afraid to get into arguments, but on the internet I abhor them.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, more LoL posts incoming. :3

I'm with you on the argument front but in a slightly different way. I'm usually good at gauging whether someone will get that i'm making a joke (and I am *always* making a joke) but sometimes they take everything a face value and I have to explain that it was a joke you twat. Then it gets worse because I make the explanation post riddled with light-hearted jabs too and he takes that as an insult too.

Proper arguments are fine though, they're actually pretty fun if you have a decent topic. Debate is good for people, until someone flips out and has multiple, dubious sexual relations with someone else's mother.

On the other hand Flame Wars are the darker side of an argument that are good for nobody (except me because they are hilarious to watch sometimes) Youtube comments seem to be in a constant state of them.

Back on topic, I picked up a few things while playing LoL. If i'm in chat with someone and they start a fight, I head over going "inc, inc, inc, inc" as in "incoming" "inc, run FASTER Pony!"

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

It's taught me how to walk away from arguments.

Used to be I would vehemently and insistently argue with anyone who disagreed with me.

After a couple of years online I realised that a lot of the time it just isn't worth the effort and that there's no shame in just rolling your eyes and trotting off to do something more enjoyable/productive.

Yeah, I'd say that fits me quite well. At least I try to do that as much as possible, although I still fall for it every now and then.

Apart from that, I don't think the internet has changed me at all, I'm still just as clueless about memes as I was before (meaning my friends jokes often fall flat), I still hate any socialising that's pushed on me, I still try to push people to spell correctly, because not everyone is a native English speaker and trying to decipher someone's post is annoying...

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