Eculture Intimacy through Anonymity

[Music]

i’ve never actually met my best friends

i think about that a lot i really do i

think it’s crazy that

even without a face even without a voice

even without

any of those physicalities i can say

that they’re close to me

it makes you wonder what closeness or

intimacy really is

what it means and what it looks like

in fact i met some of my best friends

through anonymity on the internet my

offline friends

would often tell me i’m spending too

much time

talking to my e-friends they’ll jokingly

say things like i’m spending too much

time

talking to my e-girls now whether that

be true or not

is besides the point but there are these

there are these terms like e-boys

e-sports

e-dating the list goes on and on really

it seems like that prefix that e-hyphen

means something

in a literal sense the e-hyphen stands

for electronic

but conventionally it’s not used like

that

there’s this figurative ownership for

this prefix these

anonymity-driven online communities used

as

e-hyphen to stand out from their prefix

list counterparts

that’s why using the term e-culture

is seemingly the easiest way for me to

express that the traits of these online

communities

are well unique

they’re unique in a way that benefits

different types of people

whether it be a new way of tackling the

mental health crisis

or providing a new form of stress relief

or simply just

connecting people all around the globe

my goal is to show you that e-culture

is something worth knowing about and

it’s something worth caring about

i mentioned previously that i’ve met a

lot of my friends

on the internet when they need help

i’m always there for them likewise when

i need help

they’re always there for me often we

take this kind of security

for granted i’m no exception

but people in situations like mine

are lucky we’re fortunate enough to have

our support systems

but i’ve met plenty of people without

them

loneliness is an epidemic but

people don’t need faces or voices or

even

real names to feel like someone is there

i met my best best friend from game of

league legends

well we actually lost that game but

because i was the only teammate that was

not being mean to her she added me

afterwards

and me and mina started to become

really good friends and as friends do we

started to

she started to open up about her

problems

shared things with me that she never

told anybody else

she said that talking to me was just

well easier

through our shared anonymity she gained

enough comfort

to finally open up about her problems

her mental health issues

some say that seeking help is sometimes

the hardest step someone with mental

health issues

can take i’m proud to say

that she took that step

i say that mina me and mina started to

become really good friends from the

start

but we’ve known each other for three

years now

and for the first year or so i didn’t

even know her real name or where she

lived

but despite that i was able to be there

for her

even thousands of miles away

i know a lot of people find it difficult

to seek help from their loved ones

that’s why i’m happy to say that there

are

plenty of different paths that people

can go down

to get that help the anonymous

environment that e-culture facilitates

is one of those paths

loneliness is an epidemic

but you don’t need to know someone’s

physicalities

at least from my experiences you don’t

need to know someone’s physicalities

to create support networks

and create close relationships

in that sense anonymity and e-culture

has made it easier for people to open up

knowing that someone out there is

listening and that they’re not alone

in fact i know plenty of people who have

made their first friends

online on the internet

there really are people who struggle

with social in-person

interactions in the head of a person

with

social anxiety they find it difficult

and they become anxious about making

things awkward or

ruining their first impression

honestly that happens with people who

don’t suffer from social anxiety

but when you talk to someone

anonymously online you don’t have to

worry about the repercussions that come

with in-person interactions

for example when you type to somebody

you know

you know when you message some message

somebody you can

read your text over and over again and

you can carefully plan out what you want

to say

but i want to clarify that social

anxiety doesn’t completely disappear

in an anonymous online setting

but at least for me it helps

so i want you to consider a couple of

different things

some people make their first friends

online

they’re putting themselves out there

they’re making an effort

most importantly they’re stepping out of

their own comfort zone

so let them step out of their own

comfort zone

nowadays you don’t need to play

online video games to meet people

anonymously online

instead we have these discord servers

that

allow for people in a group to interact

with each other

and people can join these servers

through a shared

common interest and that common interest

can be as broad as simply

wanting to make new friends and that’s

how i met

this guy from sweden named melvin

to put it as nice

as possible melvin

really didn’t know how to keep a

conversation going

for example he would text me hi

or whatever and i would respond with

you know another greenhouse probably

like hey or something like that

and uh more often than not

he wouldn’t respond back weird

but i respected his effort he was

putting himself out there

melvin wanted to step out of his comfort

zone

and he used our discord our discord

server as

an escape and escape from reality

and an escape from his usual self

so me and my friends my online friends

that

he also knew we decided to help him

we initiated the conversations when he

seemed like he didn’t know how to

and gradually he gained the confidence

to talk to us

in voice chat and from there we

gave him advice as well

i’ll say it again melvin wanted to step

out of his comfort zone

he did just that did it anonymously

and he did it pretty well

because there’s a happy ending to this

story

melvin currently is in university and

he’s having the time of his life

for once in his life he finally has the

offline friends that he though so

desperately wanted

he spent so much time with his offline

friends that sometimes

we feel like he’s forgotten about us but

either way

everyone that’s helped him is so so

proud of what he’s become

melvin to me is the prime example

of stepping out of your comfort zone and

maybe not overcoming your social anxiety

but letting it you know

get better

just like with mental health issues

sometimes

taking that first step is the hardest

some people like melvin and other people

who suffer through social anxiety

prefer to take that step anonymously

mina and melvin are real people just

like my offline friends

but they differ in this one specific way

it’s this idea

of positive escapism now

i’ve been talking about others and other

people’s stories

for this entire talk now but this time

i want to talk about myself positive

escapism the idea of positive escapism

hits closest to home for me

i won’t be going into too much detail

but recently

i’ve been going through a lot of tragedy

and sometimes it’s hard

to take your mind off those tragedies

hanging out with my offline friends

doesn’t help most of the time

because oftentimes they’re just a

constant reminder

of those tragedies

but when i hang out with my online

friends

when i play video games with people who

only know me as my

gamer alias or when i

laugh with friends who don’t even know

what i look like

it’s it’s

refreshing and it’s easy to take my mind

off those tragedies

even if it’s only for a moment

those times is when i can finally find

solace for my troubles

so i want to give

a quick thank you to my online friends

who

perhaps unbeknownst to them

have provided me with peace in my

darkest times

friendships are not the only things that

can emerge from this anonymity

on the internet whole communities can

emerge

from this anonymous online environment

for example let’s take the video game

community

our online video game community for the

most part

people in these video online video game

communities

don’t know each other by their real name

instead they only know each other by

their their gamer tag or whatever they

call it

but i want to dissuade the notion that

you need some common interests to form

of community

instead i want you to consider that

these communities are full of people of

different tastes

of different personalities and of

different interests

it seems like arguably the only thing

connecting these people the only thing

making this community

is the sense of anonymity

in fact this kind of concept of

community building

reaches this global scale and it

encapsulates this idea of

globalization

my friend in kuala lumpar malaysia just

turned 21 this year

my friend in london who i met a decade

ago while playing maplestory recently

got married

my south korean friend who i met

years ago while playing league of

legends

recently got accepted to the top

university in south korea and i

fondly remember teaching him english

the point is these e-friendships and

resulting e-communities are not

restricted

by these limitations they’re not

restricted

by distance or geography or even

language

anonymity has allowed for the reduction

of these barriers

sometimes i think it’s crazy that

i met some of my best friends simply

because we played the same game

at the same time

anonymity has allowed for this beautiful

beautiful community building

and i’m incredibly thankful for it

but i mentioned these positive things

about e-culture

but it rubs me the wrong way if i don’t

mention

the stigma behind it a stigma that is by

all means

well valid

you hear about it all the time in the

media you know

anonymity on the internet can lead to

catfishing

manipulation toxicity

these are valid things seriously they’re

valid

and they’re real these issues

become more and more prevalent as this

online networking becomes

more and more common and that’s why it’s

more and more important

than ever to address these issues

now i’m not here to for to advocate for

restrictions on the internet or

something like that

i think that sort of goes against the

supposed freedom that

the internet offers instead

i think there needs to be a better

education to help people

traverse this social side of the

internet

there needs to be a better education on

this idea of stranger danger

that accounts for the advent of the

internet

but sadly i won’t be going

into that too much because it’s not

really the focus of my talk

instead i want you to think about the

things

that i’ve said the stories that i’ve

told

i want you to start thinking about how

when you engage in e-culture

safely and with good intentions

the things that i’ve mentioned

previously all the things

all the stories that i’ve told

they really do happen

speaking of stories a better way to

conclude this talk than when

one final story

a while ago i met

somebody on the internet who represents

this idea of friendship through

anonymity and

everything else i said extremely well

her name

is arya now arya represents

so much to me so much she represents

she represents this idea of why i want a

better education to help people traverse

the social side of the internet she

represents this idea of

positive escapism the fact that i will

never know her

the fact that i don’t know her and i

never will

allows me to talk to her about things

that i’ve never talked to

anybody else about

and it might not seem obvious at first

but arya also represents the idea of

globalization to me

even though i don’t know where she lives

for all i know she could be my next-door

neighbor

she makes me feel more connected to the

world around me

and in times when we feel

isolated something that i’m sure

plenty of us have felt quite recently

feeling connected is one of the main

things that keeps us going

and just like with my friends that are

supposed to be in the audience today

i can rely on arya despite the fact that

i don’t know what she looks like and i

don’t know what she sounds like

she’s still my friend

anonymity is a concept that can be put

into effect quite easily nowadays

anonymity has allowed for people to

interact with each other

not just with the people immediately

around themselves but with people who

span the globe and with these anonymous

connections

it’s easier for people to not just help

one another but seek help themselves

whether it be in the context of mental

health

social anxiety or positive escapism

it seems like physicalities are

seemingly obsolete

intimacy transcends physicalities

i want to end with a quote from my

friend arya

feelings don’t happen because of facts

intimacy doesn’t occur because of some

arbitrary physicalities

instead feelings happen because they

happen

thanks

you