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wordwhackerYikes! The term is, apparently, almost over. I'm hoping to make at least two more journal entries (including this one) before I have to turn it over to Dr. M. This week is all about getting my paper for Lit Theory done, and (of course!) finishing the novel. I have some major work to do on both fronts. Tonight I have been going back and forth between reading stuff for the paper and adding to the novel word count. I'm not sure if I'll catch up today, but I'll be pretty close.
When it comes down to it, I really have to cut myself off from (most of) the internet in order to get a lot of work done on papers. For these journal entries and lighter fare (even some readings that I've had to do online) I can deal with the background distractions, but for some reason they are KILLER once I'm in paper-writing mode. Tomorrow I'm spending a few hours at the school library after my classes so that I can do a bit of research and get some serious rough-draftage happening. The library and the Tim Horton's on King street are effectively my "hide away from the world and work" spots, and I like both of them because they have a little bit of white noise and people sounds in the background without being so intrusive as to be uncomfortable. I think that's why that atmpshere is conducive to writing: I don't feel totally isolated, but I feel in no way obligated to interact with anybody. Like a cat, I like being around people, but I am much more productive when I don't have to actually talk to them.
It's a relief to have Chicago done with, though I am going to miss seeing everybody and getting to listen to such awesome performers (both the singers and band) all the time. I'm also enjoying things like Rock Band, which I haven't played since sometime early last week, and I like that I am home to catch my regular re-runs of The Simpsons (they just happen to be really well-timed for meal breaks. What can I say?
I did the reading for this week a little while ago, and I should probably talk about it a bit, though it may be in a slightly abstract way since my PDF reader doesn't let me cut and paste stuff. But as this is boring I shall do it under a cut.
Ahh yes, gender on the internet. Not so fluid a thing as people suspect, though chat rooms on places like IRC are still very text-based and don't have avatars and that kind of thing. (Warning! I am about to expose exactly how mean I am to people I don't know online! Not everybody, just a... particular subset of the population.)
Here's the thing: Sometimes I actually do gender-switch online. As a general rule I present as gender non-specific when I have the chance, and if you force me to choose I'll pick "male" and be done with it. So when I say that I gender-switch, I mean that I play a cute girly-girl. I do this when I feel particularly evil and think that it would be fun to tease the creepy men who hang around waiting for girls to chat with on ICQ (remember that thing?! It's been years since I used it frequently at all.) I usually make a new account, pick a girly-sounding screen name (usually just something simple, like a girl's first name), find guys to chat with, lead them on a bit, and then unceremoniously drop them by closing the conversation and never using that account again.
Anyway. Yes, this makes me mean. But it's not like I string them on for months letting them think I'm a real person or something. And they ARE available for random chat, which makes them fair game (and means that they probably get worse, like people spamming them, etc.) Why do I do this? Because I'm a glutton for punishment. ;-) Usually people are pretty uninventive when you try to talk to them. "how r u? wat you doin?" I have to stop using proper capitalization and punctuation (though I won't give up my spelling! I won't, I won't!) just to fit in. That's the biggest change I make, actually - I don't try to alter my language at all to sound more "feminine". So far nobody has asked me to confirm my gender, or questioned it in any way. The username seems to do the trick.
But nowadays people always want to know what you look like. Practically every laptop has a video camera built in, and every cell phone has a camera it seems, so my excuses for why I don't have pictures of myself always sound really lame. That's the only problem I have coming up with stories to tell these guys. The rest is easy to make up on the fly (they don't really tend to ask for much in-depth information anyway before they start gettin' all... ahem. Creepy. And this is when I leave.) They're not all creeps, of course, but probably 9/10 of them seem to be online for no other reason than to find cyber-sex partners (preferably ones with cams, apparently.)
This is a total step out of the realm of normal life, though - normal internet life, I mean. I am generally myself online, no matter what forum I'm on or whose journal I'm reading. Gender-switching just doesn't occur to me (though I guess it occurs to me more often than it does to most, because I don't fit into a neat gender package and so I actually have to make a DECISION when I am provided a choice between two or more options, whereas for most people it's either one or the other.)
Actually, it seems that I am representative of the trend they found in our reading this week: I am guessing that, if I'd taken their "gender attributes" test I would have come out somewhat gender-ambiguous, and I engage in some kinds of gender-switching online. People who can and readily will choose either "male" or "female" without blinking, though, would seem to me to be the LEAST likely candidates for gender-switching. I'm really not sure why they thought it would be the opposite in that study. I know they had some theoretical framework to base it on, but right from the get-go it didn't FEEL to me like it would work, and I wasn't at all surprised when they turned out to be wrong.
I think part of the problem is that they were expeecting people to be less themselves on the internet; that they'd see the space as a naturally less gendered space, or at least a space wherein this could be more easily toyed with. But if someone identifies strongly as female, why should they want to change on the internet (and vice-versa)? Just because they CAN doesn't mean they will. People who are less strongly gendered in the real world, however, probably see the internet as a welcome avenue of opportunity with regard to gender expression. I know that's true for me. I am much more genderqueer and speak more freely about my gender online than I do in real life. But I am still ME online.
Well, except when I am flirting with creepy ICQ guys.
When it comes down to it, I really have to cut myself off from (most of) the internet in order to get a lot of work done on papers. For these journal entries and lighter fare (even some readings that I've had to do online) I can deal with the background distractions, but for some reason they are KILLER once I'm in paper-writing mode. Tomorrow I'm spending a few hours at the school library after my classes so that I can do a bit of research and get some serious rough-draftage happening. The library and the Tim Horton's on King street are effectively my "hide away from the world and work" spots, and I like both of them because they have a little bit of white noise and people sounds in the background without being so intrusive as to be uncomfortable. I think that's why that atmpshere is conducive to writing: I don't feel totally isolated, but I feel in no way obligated to interact with anybody. Like a cat, I like being around people, but I am much more productive when I don't have to actually talk to them.
It's a relief to have Chicago done with, though I am going to miss seeing everybody and getting to listen to such awesome performers (both the singers and band) all the time. I'm also enjoying things like Rock Band, which I haven't played since sometime early last week, and I like that I am home to catch my regular re-runs of The Simpsons (they just happen to be really well-timed for meal breaks. What can I say?
I did the reading for this week a little while ago, and I should probably talk about it a bit, though it may be in a slightly abstract way since my PDF reader doesn't let me cut and paste stuff. But as this is boring I shall do it under a cut.
Ahh yes, gender on the internet. Not so fluid a thing as people suspect, though chat rooms on places like IRC are still very text-based and don't have avatars and that kind of thing. (Warning! I am about to expose exactly how mean I am to people I don't know online! Not everybody, just a... particular subset of the population.)
Here's the thing: Sometimes I actually do gender-switch online. As a general rule I present as gender non-specific when I have the chance, and if you force me to choose I'll pick "male" and be done with it. So when I say that I gender-switch, I mean that I play a cute girly-girl. I do this when I feel particularly evil and think that it would be fun to tease the creepy men who hang around waiting for girls to chat with on ICQ (remember that thing?! It's been years since I used it frequently at all.) I usually make a new account, pick a girly-sounding screen name (usually just something simple, like a girl's first name), find guys to chat with, lead them on a bit, and then unceremoniously drop them by closing the conversation and never using that account again.
Anyway. Yes, this makes me mean. But it's not like I string them on for months letting them think I'm a real person or something. And they ARE available for random chat, which makes them fair game (and means that they probably get worse, like people spamming them, etc.) Why do I do this? Because I'm a glutton for punishment. ;-) Usually people are pretty uninventive when you try to talk to them. "how r u? wat you doin?" I have to stop using proper capitalization and punctuation (though I won't give up my spelling! I won't, I won't!) just to fit in. That's the biggest change I make, actually - I don't try to alter my language at all to sound more "feminine". So far nobody has asked me to confirm my gender, or questioned it in any way. The username seems to do the trick.
But nowadays people always want to know what you look like. Practically every laptop has a video camera built in, and every cell phone has a camera it seems, so my excuses for why I don't have pictures of myself always sound really lame. That's the only problem I have coming up with stories to tell these guys. The rest is easy to make up on the fly (they don't really tend to ask for much in-depth information anyway before they start gettin' all... ahem. Creepy. And this is when I leave.) They're not all creeps, of course, but probably 9/10 of them seem to be online for no other reason than to find cyber-sex partners (preferably ones with cams, apparently.)
This is a total step out of the realm of normal life, though - normal internet life, I mean. I am generally myself online, no matter what forum I'm on or whose journal I'm reading. Gender-switching just doesn't occur to me (though I guess it occurs to me more often than it does to most, because I don't fit into a neat gender package and so I actually have to make a DECISION when I am provided a choice between two or more options, whereas for most people it's either one or the other.)
Actually, it seems that I am representative of the trend they found in our reading this week: I am guessing that, if I'd taken their "gender attributes" test I would have come out somewhat gender-ambiguous, and I engage in some kinds of gender-switching online. People who can and readily will choose either "male" or "female" without blinking, though, would seem to me to be the LEAST likely candidates for gender-switching. I'm really not sure why they thought it would be the opposite in that study. I know they had some theoretical framework to base it on, but right from the get-go it didn't FEEL to me like it would work, and I wasn't at all surprised when they turned out to be wrong.
I think part of the problem is that they were expeecting people to be less themselves on the internet; that they'd see the space as a naturally less gendered space, or at least a space wherein this could be more easily toyed with. But if someone identifies strongly as female, why should they want to change on the internet (and vice-versa)? Just because they CAN doesn't mean they will. People who are less strongly gendered in the real world, however, probably see the internet as a welcome avenue of opportunity with regard to gender expression. I know that's true for me. I am much more genderqueer and speak more freely about my gender online than I do in real life. But I am still ME online.
Well, except when I am flirting with creepy ICQ guys.
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 03:53 am (UTC)Interesting though.
& go you for getting back on the creeps! *l*
no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 03:56 am (UTC)Never heard from him again... : )
(no offense to anyone ugly intended...)