| The video for Brad Paisley's 'So Much Cooler Online' is probably a very accurate description of some peoples online experiences. It was very entertaining, I don't listen to country music so I had never heard the song before, but I love music and I would never complain about the chance to get to do an assignment that involves music videos. The characters in the music video were very average people, a middle aged man who is slightly overweight, delivers pizza for a living and lives in his parents basement. His parents are probably in their sixty's, married to each other probably for most of their lives. They live very average lives, make a very average amount of money, and have very average physical appearances. In the sons online profile he says that he is over six feet tall, has six pack abs, he models for Calvin Klein and has been in GQ. He said that he lives in Malibu, drives a Maserati, and loves drinking wine. All of the characteristics that he says are true about himself in his online profile are obviously the characteristics that he sees as being appealing to the opposite sex. The whole theme of the video was about him never having gotten to second base with a female. The goal of the online profile was to get interaction with females that he probably wouldn't get if he was truthful in his online profile. It's a three and a half long music video so the story doesn't get too deep, it doesn't develop very much. The father in the music video towards the end is shown creating a myspace profile and his wife comments about why all of her husbands friends on myspace are so chesty. It is very hard to see but on the computer screen in that seen it is possible to see a very pretty, young, blond woman on his friends list. It is pretty clear that if most of his friends are young, beautiful women that he probably isn't being totally honest on his profile. His profile probably looks something like his sons. I thought about a couple of things when I saw the music video. The first thing was, how do you go about getting a collection of believable photos of a person who is not you? We all have imaginations and we can all make up information about a phantom person for the profile information but the picture thing would seem to me to be pretty tricky. I have a myspace account and I have a facebook account I have a personal experience with using pictures of a person who is not the person described on the profile. It 's a pretty good one so I am saving that for my week three post. The other thing I was thinking was what good does it do a person to lie about every aspect of their lives to talk to a person who may or may not be who they say they are, and who you'll never be able to actually meet in person? Maybe the person is trying to develop better communication skills by communicating with the opposite sex online, or maybe the person isn't interested in meeting outside of his created online world. Either way it seems like a waste of time to me. I would never personally chat online to someone that I don't already know or that isn't somehow connected to my life, maybe they are a friend of a friend that I have seen somewhere, I would probably talk to them if they contacted me online. If I have never seen the person before in my life though I'm not going to allow them to by my friend on myspace or facebook. Too many crazies out there. |
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
So Much Cooler Online
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5 comments:
I like the question you brought up about how much good one does themselves by lying about every aspect of their life just to feel “cooler online?” At the end of the day and with no computer to hide behind, the pizza guy is still the average guy he was before logging on MySpace. I think that like many people believe, there seems to be no benefits in faking identity to impress those whom we will probably never really encounter or get to know at a deep, truly personal level. I think that pizza guy realized this at the end of the video as he puts he ditches MySpace and put his older marching band uniform on and unites with the baton twirler next door.
Kayla
I liked the insight you explained regarding what is the point? If you are never going to meet them, and you only spend time chatting with them and you don’t know how much of whom the other person is real or made up just like your own, what is the point? It can’t possibly be satisfying living in a make believe relationship, fantasizing all your experiences and relating to supposed friends that probably aren’t real at all. And if by a wild chance you actually get to meet them, how to you rationalize all the lies that you created to make a reality that just isn’t there? If they were actually who they said they were, that other person would dump you so fast your head would spin.
Remember when we were children and we had imaginary friends or at least some of us did? Doesn’t this scenario sound the same only the players are supposed to be mature, grown up people? Why are we so afraid of reality? Was the pizza man so bad or was he just normal and normal isn’t acceptable any more? Pretty bad when the culture puts more value in being who you aren’t than whom you are.
I completely understand and agree with you when you ask, why lie about every aspect of your life? It never ceases to amaze me how many people do though! My husband's good friend has been actively internet dating for the past 2.5 - 3 years, and he's met one person who looks like their photo in all that time. Beleive me, it's not because he hasn't been devoting hsi time trying. I fear these faceless or fake-faced people terribly when it comes to my kids. Granted, one is 19 and an adult (OMG!!! I feel old!), but in my eyes they are both still babies and very naive. I worry so much about the "crazies" you mention.
Suzziq
Why even be online in a cyberspace relationship if you know that it will never come to a face to face meet, if you want it to continue into the future. I explain that to a relative who does this all the time, when she meets guys online that are what she calls "HUNKS" and she has a close internet relationship that lasts until a face to face is required, then they end. Most of the time she ends up meeting them and that is it, a few times the face to face never happens and the relationship ends. I tell her that in these cases the other person might be doing what she is doing the the cowboy she is all hot about is really an inbread hillbilly. Who lives in his mothers basement and either delivers pizzas or newspapers. I think the face to face is the deal closer, if you are not what you put online (as who you are) then the first thing is you lie about your self, what else do you lie about. Its harder when you post on facebook or myspace with your friends who might ask or post things that would contradict what you have put in your profile.
I know its sometimes hard to fight the temptation to add things that may make people more interested in who you are, but when people have access to not only your site but you they will know or find out what is really you.
Casey
I hope you don't think I am saying you as in you who I am posting too. I am meaning you in general the person or people who are online.
Sorry I read my posting and I didn't want to be rood or mean.
Casey
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