Sudden Death Comes Easy When you Practice Every Day
The wind was howling. That sounds cliche, which is ok: cliche and bad metaphor was the theme of the night. So: the wind is howling and we can’t hear one another even while we shout and we’re standing on a fence, and waiting out the storm. In the mean time we’re trying to discuss feminism and gaming. But that fucking wind is making it impossible. Every few seconds I spin around to make sure there are no zombies behind us.
Yeah, we were playing a game.
What made it interesting was that- as far as I know, none of us knew one another in physical space- I met most of those people through twitter, or various blogs. How well, then, can I say I know these chat buddies and game friends?
There was never really a question that “social media” would take off. That phrase is redundant. Might as well call it “the thing humans do, but online”. Because we humans are social creatures. We don’t photosynthesize, or have claws, bark, or useful teeth. Instead we have communities. The next person who finds a new way for us to yammer at one another will make a fortune.
None of which answers the basic question: how well can we truly get to know one another when we rarely- or never- meet in physical space? They say that we receive upwards of 97% of our communication without words. Granted I’ve got a rather large handicap when it comes to that sort of thing. Nevertheless. Is that 7% enough? We humans have been doing our best to improve our written language to include these non-verbal ticks. Emoticons, gestural texts and font faces have added to some of the richness of our online communications.
There is no denying, though, that those things are what we do when we cannot see and touch. Heloise and Abelard would make some awesome twitter accounts, but if they were able to hold one another at night, would they have needed so many words?
But then: sometimes I like to get my friends into one single physical location and play video games. Because some things can’t be done in physical space, either.
