and again I will post
Nov. 10th, 2007 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pauraque_bkI get that a lot of people moved off LJ, so there isn't exactly a home to return to, but if nothing had changed I'd probably be less likely to post at all. As I said in the past, my LJ was basically performative, in that I wrote what (I thought) people wanted to read. Not that I wrote anything I didn't want to say, but there were also many things I wanted to say that I did not think would be interesting, so I didn't write them.
Coming back here has made me think about how differently I am perceived in WoW than I was in fandom, and hence how differently I now perceive myself. I think... i THINK most people in fandom liked me and thought I was nice, provided they thought anything about me at all. I had certain personal enemies, and certain people who hated![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
pornish_pixies, but my reputation as a whole was good-ish, yeah?
The group of people I play with in WoW... some of them I've known since I first started playing, which was a couple of years ago. I think on the whole they like me, but I do not think ANY of them consider me "nice". In fact they consider me bossy and bitchy, but for some reason that's okay with them.
I probably do behave differently now, and that may be because I tried to align myself with the dominant mode of operation in my part of fandom, which condemned overt aggression in most contexts. Which isn't to say that gaming turned me mean, I think I am mean. I just used to suppress it in public.
In gaming, where voice chat is ubiquitous, it's a lot harder to conceal your gut reactions to things. There certainly were many moments in fandom where I saw someone being dumb, and I probably said something nasty to the screen. But they could not actually hear me. In text-only environments it is easy to take this for granted.
It's not just words either, it's tone too. I've attempted to "sound nice" and failed utterly, no matter what I say it sounds sarcastic and ugly, or at best blank and bored. Sometimes in voice chat someone is using a weird mic setup and you occasionally hear an echo back of your own voice, I'm always amazed at what I sound like.
There have been a few different times where it was pointed out to me that I came off this way, and sadly I probably wouldn't have figured it out on my own. There was one point where a few of us were discussing whether we would be able to merge with another group on a permanent basis, and the group leader very tactfully said, "I don't think it would work, because there are people in our group who are bossy, and we understand what they mean by it but it wouldn't go over very well with others."
I said, "What do you mean? There aren't any bossy people in our group." I considered each of the members. And then: "Since I don't know who you're talking about, you must mean me."
Well, yes, but they went on to insist that they like me the way I am and raiding would be so boring without all the things I say. Not really that comforting, actually.
But I guess what most comes to mind is that thing we used to say about Snape -- he's good but not nice. No one has ever claimed that i DO things that are negative or harmful to others, and in fact I get a lot of praise for my playing, dedication, helpfulness, that sort of thing. Oh he'll help you, he's always game, just don't expect him to blow flowers and kittens out his ass while he does it, what a 'tude on that guy.
The other thing that comes to mind is someone else in our guild who has an attitude that is very bizarre and sarcastic. At one point he had made some strange comment to another person in voice chat, who quite bluntly replied, "Hey man, why you talkin' to me like that?"
Immediate answer: "Because I like you and I feel comfortable with you."
Probably a lot of people have been dismayed to realize that the more comfortable I am, the less I censor myself, and the less pleasant I become. So actually when I overtly berate and torment people, it means I like them. If I didn't, I would keep it to myself.
Thus if everyone in my guild thinks I'm a bitch, I must love them all! And I do! Dear god the system works! Or at least it makes an extremely convenient excuse!
But I did like fandom, I just rarely allowed myself to be comfortable with it. There were times when I made rambling/emotional LJ posts, but I felt bad and exposed afterwards, because I was trying to put forth something specific, and lapses of that felt like failure.
So what's the summary here, my fandom behavior was performative and my gaming behavior is expressive. And that is why I would never have made a post like this while I was in fandom, and while fandom as I knew it still existed.
Coming back here has made me think about how differently I am perceived in WoW than I was in fandom, and hence how differently I now perceive myself. I think... i THINK most people in fandom liked me and thought I was nice, provided they thought anything about me at all. I had certain personal enemies, and certain people who hated
pornish_pixies, but my reputation as a whole was good-ish, yeah?The group of people I play with in WoW... some of them I've known since I first started playing, which was a couple of years ago. I think on the whole they like me, but I do not think ANY of them consider me "nice". In fact they consider me bossy and bitchy, but for some reason that's okay with them.
I probably do behave differently now, and that may be because I tried to align myself with the dominant mode of operation in my part of fandom, which condemned overt aggression in most contexts. Which isn't to say that gaming turned me mean, I think I am mean. I just used to suppress it in public.
In gaming, where voice chat is ubiquitous, it's a lot harder to conceal your gut reactions to things. There certainly were many moments in fandom where I saw someone being dumb, and I probably said something nasty to the screen. But they could not actually hear me. In text-only environments it is easy to take this for granted.
It's not just words either, it's tone too. I've attempted to "sound nice" and failed utterly, no matter what I say it sounds sarcastic and ugly, or at best blank and bored. Sometimes in voice chat someone is using a weird mic setup and you occasionally hear an echo back of your own voice, I'm always amazed at what I sound like.
There have been a few different times where it was pointed out to me that I came off this way, and sadly I probably wouldn't have figured it out on my own. There was one point where a few of us were discussing whether we would be able to merge with another group on a permanent basis, and the group leader very tactfully said, "I don't think it would work, because there are people in our group who are bossy, and we understand what they mean by it but it wouldn't go over very well with others."
I said, "What do you mean? There aren't any bossy people in our group." I considered each of the members. And then: "Since I don't know who you're talking about, you must mean me."
Well, yes, but they went on to insist that they like me the way I am and raiding would be so boring without all the things I say. Not really that comforting, actually.
But I guess what most comes to mind is that thing we used to say about Snape -- he's good but not nice. No one has ever claimed that i DO things that are negative or harmful to others, and in fact I get a lot of praise for my playing, dedication, helpfulness, that sort of thing. Oh he'll help you, he's always game, just don't expect him to blow flowers and kittens out his ass while he does it, what a 'tude on that guy.
The other thing that comes to mind is someone else in our guild who has an attitude that is very bizarre and sarcastic. At one point he had made some strange comment to another person in voice chat, who quite bluntly replied, "Hey man, why you talkin' to me like that?"
Immediate answer: "Because I like you and I feel comfortable with you."
Probably a lot of people have been dismayed to realize that the more comfortable I am, the less I censor myself, and the less pleasant I become. So actually when I overtly berate and torment people, it means I like them. If I didn't, I would keep it to myself.
Thus if everyone in my guild thinks I'm a bitch, I must love them all! And I do! Dear god the system works! Or at least it makes an extremely convenient excuse!
But I did like fandom, I just rarely allowed myself to be comfortable with it. There were times when I made rambling/emotional LJ posts, but I felt bad and exposed afterwards, because I was trying to put forth something specific, and lapses of that felt like failure.
So what's the summary here, my fandom behavior was performative and my gaming behavior is expressive. And that is why I would never have made a post like this while I was in fandom, and while fandom as I knew it still existed.
