Project 5

If you look around on forums long enough, you’re likely to find someone saying just about anything you’re looking for. My first concern was that I didn’t really know what I was looking for. I thought about the uniqueness that can be found on some of these message boards, and the conversely bland posts that make up most of the stuff I dredged from these forums. The original idea was to find examples of people acting uncharacteristically rude or aggressive, presumably because they were hiding behind the façade of their online alter egos. I hoped I could simply find conversations that had gotten out of hand, resulting in threats or verbal attacks. My last resort would be to “troll” the forum, or instigate the type of activity I was trying to find.

I was pretty disappointed with the first phase of this project (Project 4) because I didn’t feel like I had enough time to get all of the material I wanted, and I couldn’t find any message boards with both a high volume of posts and poor moderation. Both of these caused problems. A low volume of posts on a message board means a lot of time waiting for someone to respond to any trolling. A sight with active moderators means that any attempts at trolling are stamped out fairly quickly, and moderators will often go so far as to revoke trollers’ memberships.

By the time I was ready to submit Project 4, I had concluded that anonymity didn't play as much of a role as I initially thought it would. More often than not, people post pictures, hometowns, and real names on their profiles. If one were so inclined, finding someone who said something offensive wouldn't be difficult. Maybe the distance plays a role? Or maybe people don't act so differently online than they would otherwise. As the project moved along, I started to care less and less about what caused people to act the way they do on these forums, and began to appreciate all of the conversations that might otherwise have been lost entirely. Most of them are profane.

Some of them were actually insightful, well-articulated, and thought-provoking.

I chose not to include the latter.

I used MySpace forums for one of the pictures I attached to Project 4, but I apparently had not fully realized the potential of the material on the site. I started there for Project 5, and didn't find any reason to move on to other sites--MySpace, as it turned out, was the mother lode.








This is Project 5--my extension of Project 4. I wanted to call it "Welcome to Cuntville," but I thought putting that into the title might be too much, too soon.

I know, it's a dirty word. That's partly the point. The internet is a verbal and visual free-for-all, and in no place does that seem more apparent than on these message boards.

Some people, however, take exception to how callous the dialogue can become:

Most of the people who post, though, have very little sympathy for complaints about aggressive or insulting posts. Particularly in a forum where the participants have been unencumbered by strict moderators, the "trolling" is just another component of the argument, and most users think the ones who feel like they've been abused in some way usually did something to deserve it:



Above all, it's only text. Vulgarity knows nearly no bounds on the forums, although users can be found acknowledging the indecency of what they say:





The lewdness is a big part of the draw. In fact, it's even encouraged:





**To clarify: ruby red and grape slushy are the same person. The user changed the name of his profile between posts. The post from Tanner del Norte is a response to ruby red's post.



These are places where people can say what they want with considerably lighter consequences than they would experience in most social settings. Debate is totally open, more so than in any formal debate. No argument is left out, regardless of its logic or validity. The forums are meeting places where the debate doesn't take place face-to-face. Spittle flying from the lips of an enraged participant vehemently arguing his or her point never lands on the face of his or her adversary. Body language and tones of voice never come into play. Without these, the violent possibilities that are usually implicit in volatile debates don't exist in the same way. An angry backlash is typically a chain of tempestuous filth, pock-marked by typographical errors missed or ignored by the author in his or her fury:




And if you read Ren Reinvented's post closely, you'll notice the lines of text at the bottom of the window--users call this a "sig," or a signature. "[I]f they aren[']t bitchin[g] about you in the t[h]read cleaner[,] you ain[']t doin[g] it right." Fittingly, TrollingP is the name of the user that posted it. It's a big reason people go onto the forums in the first place. After all, if you want to have a proper, civil debate, you can always do that in person.

To cap it off, a few other gems from the MySpace forum stacks:




This one is a holdover from Project 4. I'm not sure why it still makes me laugh.

Project 5 Idea

For project 5, I think I'm going to do a continuation of project 4. My efforts at trolling weren't successful at all, but since I have more time now, I think I can just try to be more subtle--semi-trolling, if you will. I found quite a few good forums from doing project 4 in the first place, so that phase of the project can pretty much be skipped. Even if my modified trolling efforts don't succeed, I should be able to find some good examples of people acting differently than they otherwise might. If you find the right forum, abusive language is pretty common, and I would imagine it even escalates to threats from time to time. I'll also try, like I did in my 4th project, to find examples of everyday/forgotten type of posts. Since it's basically just a long record of online conversations through the proxy of forums, the common stuff is really easy to find, which makes me want to focus more on inconsequential conversations that are nevertheless really unique. If I can find any really profound posts on some of the forums, I might even evaluate those.