rudeness in this modern world

[egypturnash]

Around noon my IM client popped up its 'someone not on your buddy list wants to talk to you, do you wanna?' window. I shrugged and hit the 'okay' button, and the following exchange ensued...

AcidRubberDucky: hi
egypturnash: hi?
AcidRubberDucky: who are u?
egypturnash: um, I was going to ask you the same question; I'd assumed that you knew who I was since you IM'ed ME out of the blue.

And then they didn't say anything else. Is there some new social convention around IM that it's perfectly acceptable to message a total stranger and ask who they are? Or is this still terribly rude? I may be old-fashioned, but when opening a personal conversation with a stranger, the first thing I think politeness demands is that you identify yourself and why you want to talk to them, not that you ask them who they are.

---

Also, I went out to the arts and crafts store and bought some solid-color t-shirts. From baggy L or XL, I've now switched to an adult small. Now that I actually like my body, I don't want to hide under a tent all day long. Still haven't gotten my hair cut; debating if I might just do it myself... what I want isn't exactly a complicated style.

Comments

[shadeykins.livejournal.com]

When I started up my MSN account for the very first time ever, I had no less than two people already on my list, both of them asking "who r u?"

Im half wondering if it's some sort of bizarre random-matchmaking that the program itself employs.

[hydra-velsen.livejournal.com]

Politeness and culture are lost on net kiddies. U r 2 l33t 4 th3m!

[neillparatzo.livejournal.com]

Politeness probably tends to fall by the wayside when it's the Internet and you're just one of thousands of people to potentially talk to.

This is why I don't use IM clients unless forced to.

Net socio blather

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

Wasn't a random contact feature built into the first ICQ client? This is another one of those areas where my postmodernist stripes start to show -- it's hard for me to believe there's any inherent "rude" or "polite" here. Obviously somebody out there thinks it's polite enough to contact a random stranger on IM's, or it wouldn't be a successful enough social strategy for people to use it, right? So I'd say what happened to you is a bit like strolling into a Japanese family home with your filthy workboots still on -- more a failure of culture shock than anything else. This guy's obviously used to being around people who think this is perfectly fair treatment.

Of course, that doesn't let him off the hook. For one thing, he's knocking on a random door. It's his own damned responsibility to figure out the customs of the resident, and to use the least offensive possible approach until he's done so. It was still rude of him to assume you wouldn't mind random contact, when the world's full of people who do. For another, not all sets of customs are equally good. Messaging random people out of the blue seems to me like it's likely to promote some pretty damn shallow conversations. Does A.R.D. like smalltalk that much? It's not like you can even really chat about the weather. :)

"So. You at a computer?" "yup" "Me, too." "mines biege" "Mine's black." "lol that roxxor"

Re: Net socio blather

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

That's why I thought this was worth writing about: I'd never had this happen before, everyone else who's IM'd me has actually been someone who knows what to expect. They know they'll get Peggy, the slinky, cranky artist when they point their AIM client at 'egypturnash'.

I tend to want to use the computer to talk with people I already know, not with complete and total strangers. I've gotten to know strangers via it, of course, you included, but there's something in common besides the fact that we both happen to have our AIM client open at the moment.

I'm just wondering if this is, like, normal accepted behavior in the generation being raised with the Internet as ubiquitous as TV was for us. I'm sure he/she will never IM me again, so I won't be able to find out what on earth he/she was thinking...

Re: Net socio blather

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting question, definitely. I get the impression from little bits and pieces I've glean from the lastet-gen furry kids that yeah, it's considered pretty normal to have some kind of realtime chat system soldered to your ear and to message your peers at random. But it does still seem strange that people expect to get somebody worth talking to that way -- have kids gotten so overwhelmingly common on the net that you can now expect to get another teen if you look at random, often enough to bother? Does "EgyptUrnash" give off some specific vibe that attracted this guy? The world may never know. c.c

The most interesting point here for me is the whole idea of what people want out of their communication. I'm with you, it's weird thinking of just wanting to randomly contact a statistically average net user, and expecting a positive social experience out of that. I think the folks in our circles probably spent more of our time trying to avoid smalltalking with random people. I know I do. :)

More postvixen storytime: This all reminds me somehow of my cross-country Greyhound trips. Generally, by Montana or so, most of the folks going all the way had this kind of camaradie going. They'd smoke up and talk about their kids and the weather and thank God there's a Republican in office, and I'd always be on the peripheries of that. It's a powerful force, being able to pick a random person and expect them to be Like You in terms of basic values and experience -- a luxury I don't think I've had much of, nor really much wanted.

Re: Net socio blather

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

This is a good point. I can't talk with the average ordinary Joe on the street; I've tried to and it's just impossible. I confuse them, they have nothing in common with me. Ordinary people with the same cares and worries as everyone else bore me. I've never learnt how to engage in small-talk. (And here's another example of how unlike most people are - write "smalltalk" as one word, and I think "LISP-derived programmign language, used a lot in AI stuff", not "chit chat about nothing much used as social grease".)

This is part of the appeal of cons, SF or furry or whatever. While I'm still shy and withdrawn, it's immensely comforting to be in a large mass of people who I could have a conversation with at random. They might still be a bore, or spooky, but at least they're a bore regarding something I actually can see the potential appeal of.

Sometimes I wonder if I'd be happier if I was normal, or, as I usually phrase it, 'stupid like everyone else'. My worries would certainly be less esoteric.

Re: Net socio blather

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

Exactly. For all the external negative attention and internal psychodrama bullshit, that's the reason I was first attracted to furry fandom and that's the reason I still hang around it. That's the big thing that the critics are missing, when they bother to think about it at all. Fandom is one of the few places outside of academia where you can chat up a random person and expect a reasonable conversation about something intellectual. Yes, it often fails miserably. But I have a better chance of dropping, say, a W. S. Burroughs or James Joyce reference at a con and having somebody get it than I ever have at any office I've worked in or any transit vehicle that I've ridden. It's what geeks have instead of bars. :) All the bullshit about sex in fursuit and whatnot is totally secondary, but it's too subtle for most people to notice -- maybe because these people set such low standards for what's possible with communication and affection, it doesn't blip on their radar. :p

Re: Net socio blather

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

...I think you've put your finger on one of the reasons I continue to hang around furry fandom despite being mostly tired of the genre. Whenever I make a classical reference at work, I usually am greeted with blank stares. Fandom brings together intelligent people. They may be fucked up and obsessive and a little scary, but they have brains, and they use them at least part of the time.

I've never had sex at a con, let alone sex in a fursuit in a con. I'm not ruling out either possibility, but that's not what I go to cons for. I go because there are interesting people there.

Re: Net socio blather

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

They may be fucked up and obsessive and a little scary, but they have brains, and they use them at least part of the time.

But they have brains?! ;) I haven't done as much as I'd like to -- shit, if I had any ambition, I'd be studying it for a living -- but I've done a little reading about "gifted" psychology and I'm almost at the point of seeing high intelligence as an aberration akin to schizophrenia or, more benignly, synaesthesia. Even high creativity can be described as an imbalance in... er, some gyrus or another, I'd have to look it up. *blush*

I'm still greatly amused by the several "exposes" of furry fandom that have gone along the lines of: "Went expecting hot fursuit sex to giggle at. Found people of every imaginable somatotype drinking pop and chatting. Asked some stupid questions about fetishes, got some dirty looks. Went home in a huff." Except they general don't words like "somatotype," which is kinda my point in a nutshell. ;D

Re: Net socio blather

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I'd probably make an interesting case study for that line of research; I was the classic Underachieving Genius! And a complete social retard.

Although... is it an abberation simply because most people are of "average" intelligence, thus defining anyone sugnificantly smarter or dumber than that as different, or is it an abberation because it's actively dangerous? I mean, in my case, it certainly wasn't a strategy for reproductive success - while there are other factors, like not having a motherly bone in my body and being effectively infertile anyway, I always had my nose in a book instead of dealing with the opposite sex. Plus I'm just not capable of interacting with people of "average" intelligence for more than a few minutes; I get frustrated at the slow directness of their thoughts!

Um, I had a point I was making, but now I lost it. Um. Crap.

Re: Net socio blather

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

It's not so much any bell-curve breaking that inspires me to think that way -- I've been through every possible permutation of the argument over whether there's really such a thing as statistical or cultural "normalcy" and have no real opinion. :)

And I don't think it's actively dangerous, though I have come to believe it's not necessarily going to prove to be a selectable evolutionary advance -- sometimes it's an outright disadvantage, and nature seems not to have taken much notice of the fact that it's somehow created profundity.

But when you compare it to other things that have gotten labeled as "aberrations," because they represent processes alien to the most common baseline human brain design -- things like Tourette's Syndrome and such, where one part of the brain just goes crazily overactive or underactive -- it's easy for me to see intelligence as something similar. The fact that it happens to be terribly handy doesn't mean we're necessarily designed for it. :)

And when you throw in the statistical linkage between high IQ and certain disorders, like the staggering verbal intellects of otherwise-retarded people with Williams's Syndrome, or the (admittedly media-hyped) autistic savants, I really wonder if physiologically speaking high intellect more resembles a "disorder" than an evolutionary adaptation. Of course, you're talking to somebody who's extremely cynical about what "disorder" really means...

Re: Net socio blather

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Another thing that apparently doesn't blip on their radar is the fact that most fursuits are not built for having sex in. One joke I've been making lately is: "Non-furries creep me out. They're obsessed with fursuit sex!"

But yeah, when I go to a furry con, I can almost feel the aura of kindred souls all about! It's like how, shortly after I started watching Animaniacs, I came up with a joke about a new satirical news program featuring songs written by Tom Lehrer and sung by Tress Macneille. But I didn't bother telling anyone this joke because I figured nobody else would ever get it... until I found alt.tv.animaniacs!

Re: Net socio blather

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Burning Man has the same appeal. People talk about "going home" in regards to it.

Re: Net socio blather

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

...and I totally forgot to type the punchline of my joke: The show would be called "The Macneille/Lehrer News Hour"!

But you figured that out already, right? :}

Re: Net socio blather

[neillparatzo.livejournal.com]

"Cool name."

"Thanks."

"You like bears?"

"They're okay I guess."

"Yeah. I think bears are definitely where it's at."

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

The whole thing also reminds me of a close encounter a few years ago at the DScream on Taps. A rather nasty-spirited ex-friend of mine (thanks in part to this incident) was hanging out with Rik and me there, and these three total strangers wander into the main room. They all had one-line or "nothing special" descriptions, and well, they weren't up for the Pulitzer Prize for TinySex. No punctuation, no caps, no nothing.

Naturally, my snarky friend took great delight into baiting them and making veiled insults at them, and whining at us in whispers about how much the quality of people on Taps had fallen. Meanwhile, Rik, bless his soft ratty heart, paged them all privately on the principle that it was better to teach than to scorn.

Mr. Jaded had already stomped off in a huff by this point. But something very instructive happened: they shaped up. Turns out they were just LambdaMOO expatriates, and their speech style was considered perfectly normal in that chatter, less imaginatively invested environment. They apologized in full sentences for their sloppiness, they thanks us for our advice, and we ended up having a perfectly intelligent OOC conversation with them.

One of them was a physics grad student, IIRC, and the other two were reasonably educated. My "friend" was an abject fool for writing them off, and the stupid grouch never did figure out why it was I was always cold to him after that. It was my first step towards formulating my rule of thumb that dismissive people weren't worth talking to -- none of which has anything to do with your justified moment of passing annoyance at AcidRubberDucky, but it still seemed vaguely on topic when I started. :)

You can't really judge what sort of person's on the other end with so few cues, I guess is my point. But that doesn't mean you have to go digging for gold in every pile of compost that's presented to you, either. O:)

Manners

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

This is the primary reason why I block so many people from IMing me. And also I turn on my Away notice when I am clearly NOT away.
Because of "Hi! How R U? Hello? Watcha doing? Wassup? Coolies!" with no introduction whatsoever. Worse yet, they fire off a barrage of questions at me and get petulant when I fail to answer in a speedy manner. What gall!
Sometimes I wonder if the internet brings out the worst in people, but as Joe says it just makes them Net Drunks.

Re: Manners

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

Worse yet, they fire off a barrage of questions at me and get petulant when I fail to answer in a speedy manner. What gall!

Oh, but I like sitting there watching them torque out while I don't reply....

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

This keeps happening to my husband. Turns out that since we share an e-mail, somehow the system was matchmaking people who knew my art (and had presumably bookmarked it or something) to his IM. Of course, I didn't know 'em either, and I had a few who-the-hell-R-U conversations by proxy before he went on an agressive blocking campaign.

I've had a person or two manage to find my IM via my e-mail, despite never posting my IM anywhere. It's always a little unsettling when that happens. There are very few people I want to randomly talk to during the day, and total strangers are not on the list.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think you can get IMs for e-mail addresses from some of those setups. Sharing an e-mail address always leads to confusion.

(On the tangent of random talking during the day: I was on the phone with my mother, discussing vague preliminaries on Christmas home visit plans; one possibility involved a shuttle flight to Phoenix and a transfer to another airline there... and I remembered, hey, you recently moved to AZ! Where exactly, I can't recall. If it's close to Phoenix it might be amusing to have a stopover of a few hours and meet for lunch.)

[pyrobunny.livejournal.com]

I hate that. I've gotten a sudden increase in the amount of people that IM me with "hey." and I'm like "hi, who are you?" and they're like "joe." and I'm like "...so...how did you get this screenname?" and they're like "GOD DON'T GET MAD IF YOU DON'T WANT PEOPLE TO IM YOU DON'T POST YOUR IM NAME KASJFKASJFKJASF *WARN*"
Or they're like "who are you?" and I'm like "well gee willickers, I dunno! I was hoping you'd be able to tell ME!"

Allriggghhhhtttyyy. All I ask for is a little introduction.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah - only an idiot would expect to do the same with the telepone, just caling up a random number and saying "hi, who are you", and not get people pissed! But I guess somehow people think it's... okay... with IM. Even though the person on the other end could be your great-grandma.

I guess I'm wierd then... =-.-=

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

I got somewhat over my fear of the telephone by doing exactly that. Running a random-number-generator to create a local phone number, and calling it. =^.6=

But, admitedly, I know I'm not the same in the head as most folks are. :-P

[eselgeist.livejournal.com]

asl?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

82/f/6502.

(yes, IC, Peggy was born in 1921.)

[eselgeist.livejournal.com]

13/f/FL