Reality Bytes
As the world we know shrinks with every tweet, status update, and blog. The so called six degrees of separation are seeming to be more like one and a half. But are these people that you converse with on twitter real? Do you know them like you the bus driver that drives you to work every weekday? Is it legitimate to say “oh yea I know @parkrat I tweet with him all the time”. Why do we share what we are eating and how we are feeling at a moments notice with millions of people on twitter, or blog about our experience, but do not care to share much of that with the people we see at work every weekday for 8 hours. Are these avatars “real” people? Sure they are. There are real people with real feelings behind that avatar speaking. They are about as real, as the blood elf Paladin you met last night in the world of warcraft, and the person you just bought a painting from in second life on your very “real” credit card. Huh, what, that’s not “real” at all! Sure it is, that is a real person, sitting at a real computer controlling that video animation, with real feelings, and you can even have a real conversation with. So what is reality? Where is reality drawn in the sense of social media? Do I know you because I follow your tweets and read your blog? Is @guykawasaki real with his alltop updates or @Oprah and her ocean of 2 million followers? Is it strange for me to go to the middle of the mall, hold up a picture of what I ate and yell out “nom nom nom” in the hopes that I can be more real to the people in the mall? Ah whatever, thanks for reading, and keep it real my hommies.
