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