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Hey, everyone! I'm back (somewhat) from my break from Whyville! By somewhat
I mean that I'll still go on Whyville and watch TV for the next little while, but
something weird happened during my vacation time; I realized I missed my books so much,
I can't put them
down for as long anymore!
While I was gone, as you guys may know, I still logged on every few days for
about twenty minutes or so to check up on the Times. There were many well
analyzed articles (as always), and I even got into a small debate with xtw1st3d
about music, the bands Something Corporate and Good Charlotte, and the meaning
of the term 'punk'. =)
What you probably don't know is that, after I checked up on things, I spent an extra ten
minutes on a separate account, conducting an experiment -- and I was surprised by
the results.
My experiment was this: Since I'm a Times Writer and some people know my name
(err... username), I may not actually know how people treat each other in places
like the Times' BBS. I used my spare account, threw in a few typos, some bad
grammar and bad vocab, and decided to see how people would react to my thoughts.
When I shared my thoughts on AMMOFREAK's article "Listen to TheJMan, He's Right"
(LoL, no offense, man, but this title make me laugh), I was almost immediately
insulted by the other users of the BBS. Not too surprising, since while the other two articles were in the
Times, and when I was under no pretence, I was insulted quite often. The thing
that surprised me was that I had no support -- people that I consider my friends
just ignored me, one even somewhat insulted me.
In the BBS for my own article, "Goodbye Whyville, Hello Books!" (BTW, my name was
misspelled on the front page =D), I was again insulted, and again mostly
ignored. I didn't really ask any questions (why should I ask myself questions?),
but I still thought my opinions should matter.
Ickamcoy wrote an article called "Cheat Sites!" You guessed it; I
responded to it. And, you guessed it, I was ignored. I even insulted myself once and nobody
stuck up for me (though I'm not quite sure that's unusual ;-) ).
Do my opinions not matter when nobody knows my name? On my regular username, people
at least pretend to take my thoughts into consideration. On my spare account,
when nobody knows my name, I am either quickly judged or immediately ignored.
I bring up the same points, thought through them the same amount... so what's the
difference?
Kirbie393, over and out.
(You might wanna watch out...this secret account thing was pretty fun **wink
wink**.)
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