Interconnectedness
I had an opportunity on Friday to attend the World Cyber Games grand finals as an accredited press photographer. I attended with the friend that got me in, he needed photos for a project he had cooking. It’s a fascinating event. It was just luck it happened to be in Seattle this year. Next year the finals are in Germany. Over 700 players from 70 different countries attended this event to face off and select the best players in a variety of computer and console-based games. But, it wasn’t the games we spent time chatting about as we toured the event.
Greg, the friend I attended with, isn’t a gamer at all. He has no interest in them. He was still incredibly into this event because of the social implications. Most of these players are known and have fans and a following because they game on the Internet. Indeed a lot of the preliminary rounds are conducted virtually with the “face-to-face” competitions happening at the National and International Finals.
Think about that for a second… all of these players from different countries around the world coming together because of games that they play with each other virtually over the Internet. And that’s just one aspect of networked life. Extend the paradigm to blogs, bulletin boards and social sites like Facebook and MySpace and the influence of the “virtual” on our “real” lives is becoming rather significant for many of us.
I know that for myself, I’m at the point where I feel closer to some of my online friends than I do people that I’ve known for years in a traditional sense. I may have never met them or spoken to them directly, but I’ve shared in their challenges and triumphs via the Internet and shared my own with them in a way that seems rare off line. Personally, I find it much easier to share my true thoughts and real self online. I guess it feels safer to me to be judged on my ideas instead of my physical presence.
Maybe I’m in a minority on this right now but I think that will change. I feel pretty confident that the type of interconnectedness that is made possible by the Internet, and the technologies that will follow it, will fundamentally alter the way we relate as human beings. Goodness knows something needs to. Politics and religion seem to be working to drive us further apart. Maybe a medium where more of us feel safe taking off the masks we normally wear will help turn the tide. I think anything that contributes to us relating to each other as unique human beings instead of faceless symbols has got to draw us closer in the long run.
I have always believed that we, as a people, are much the same. Sure, we have differences in cultural backgrounds and religious preferences. We have specific beliefs based solely upon our own upbringing, ancestry, and evironmental influences. But peel away those layers, and we all possess the same thing, the human element.
I have incidentally experienced the ‘interconnectedness’ the past few days. I have thrown away the match-making service (good riddance!) and instead joined ‘myspace’. Not for romantic hopefulness, mind you, but for friendships, networking for my art, and in hopes to just become a more connected person, myself.
I have already met some people from other countries, and find their humor, wit and yearning to follow their own dreams are not any different than my own.
It’s amazing what bringing together minds from across the lands can do. Now if we can just get our own government to place their agendas into one big melting pot, we may look to a more unified, and successful future.
Mike, I think you’re right. I also hope you’re right about the future being more interconnected, more communication is exactly what we need.
Blogging certainly helps people get around the superficial.
~S
I don’t think you’re a minority in this. Look at our bloggy network. Never in a million years would I have thought that chatting with someone online would have made me move out of Texas. I think the internet has brought together many people in weird, wonderful ways!
M~
I think that used properly, the Internet is a fantastic medium in which to connect with a wide variety of people. I learn about different cultures and beliefs each and every day.
I’m hoping that it becomes a tool to educate and unite the world.
I find this fascinating. I feel the same way about my internet friends, I am more of me on my blog than most people in my daily life see. Oh the crazy antics are still there, but I’m more vocal about the thoughts in my head and how I feel aobut things on my blog than I am in person. In one way, my friends have learned more about me by reading my blog, which is both good and bad. Sometimes I hold back because I remember that they read, and sometimes I forget to hold back and pay the price later when I’ve said or done something that I’m embarrassed about. Either way, I think it’s a good thing. I feel much closer to many of my blog friends than people in my own family. Sad, but true. The thing is, my blog friends have taken the time and interest in getting to know me, an opportunity they can take or leave as they choose, ei, read or don’t read. My family has the option to call or talk to me on a daily basis and choose for whatever reason not to. I wonder, if presented the opportunity to read, would they? I’ll not ever give them that opportunity.
On the flip side of all that…with the gaming thing…so, you’re saying, I could become a famous pirate? ;P How cool would that be! LOL
Finally got around to doing the Guilty Pleasures meme.
~S