Friends.

[sethd13]

I'm having a debate in my english class about stuff and want to know, can you really form relationships over the internet. Would any of you consider me a friend(or an enemy for that matter, because that still is a relationship) I have "known" you people for... dear god 2-3 years now, that is more than many of my friends now(freshy). I talk to some of you outside of gaming context and I want to know, can you be friends with someone without ever knowing their name, gender(coughandrecocough) or any real information.

~ Hoping you don't think im a pedo
ily

[geckosquid]

It's kind of difficult for you to actually be true friends with someone without knowing their name or gender, but that can be formed over the internet still... I think your case is pretty easy.

[bvcxzmn]

I would have to say that I know most of my close internet friend's names and genders.

[sethd13]

Yea but is an internet friend confined to technology? If Yottabyte showed up at your house and said "sep feg can I come in" Would you let "it" in or call the cops?

[bvcxzmn]

I would probably let him in. Also, I'm about 95% sure Yotta is in fact a boy.

[Jordan]

I know i may not be the person you were expecting to respond, but I think i can help you out here.

I'd have to say, without a doubt, that you can have friends, even best friends, over the internet. You may not know someone's real name, gender, but you do know them. Imagine geckosquid in person. I'm sure you don't imagine him as part gecko part squid and you don't think of him as an indescribable person. You don't know what he looks like, but you do know how he interacts with others and have your own opinion about him. So if you have an opinion about him than you are assigning certain attributes to his non-physical characteristics. You assess whether or not you like these characteristics and treat him accordingly. Do you treat every single person equally on kiwike? Most likely the answer is no. This means you are more friendly to some which, by definition, to be more friendly to some, you have to be friends or enemies with them.

Also, you can say that friendships made through the internet are actually more honest friendships because you don't have the ability to make the conscious or subconscious prejudices against different genders, races, etc.

Hypothetically (to take it to the extreme which is sometimes needed to prove a point)you could be a 90 year old KKK member who lives in America that also absolutely despises obese people and I could be a 14 year old 700 lbs. African American who lives in Djibouti and we could be best friends for 3 years on kiwike.

In todays society we are so heavily influenced by society saying we have to act a certain way, look a certain way and do everything the way everyone else does or else we are considered outcasts. Internet relationships allow us to escape from these illogical biases everyone has by having people get to know each other BEFORE revealing information such as social class, gender, name, age etc.

To put this all into a scenario:
If geckosquid had made his name Just_call_me_Bob, but everything else about him was the same would you have a different opinion about him or would you just call him something else until he tells you his real name (if he ever chose to).

So why should we judge someone by their name?
Now, if geckosquid had acted as I did (immaturely), would you still have the same relationship with as you do today or would you think of him as you think of me?
So we should judge people by their characteristics and not by physical qualities.
To close:
I think for some Internet Relationships are too revealing about themselves. This is because we make many internal excuses in face to face interactions about why someone didn't respond to meeting us as we thought they would. This leads to so many what if's...
What if I had shaved this morning, would they have responded differently?
What if i was a different race?
What if i was another gender?
What if my shoe color scheme was black and sky blue not navy blue?

My time on kiwike was almost like a kick in the face because I couldnt make all the "What if" excuses in my head and taught me that true friends can come from the initial biases we hold against people and they certainly can come from internet interactions. You held interactions with the same people for 2-3 years and i'm sure they had their ups and downs, but you managed to create a relationship without a preceding prejudice which is pretty damn cool.

A great question to ask your teacher if you want to truly get your point across is:
Can you name five friends who didn't hold you to any standards at all until they knew you as a person?
then you can go on to name five people you now know in Kiwike who you didn't have any preconceived notions about who they were and now, after getting to know them as people, you learned their names etc. which was good because it didn't make you form any opinions about them without any basis in the opinions.


I know there are at least a few grammatical errors and also a major error or two, but i wanted to share my two cents.

-Jordan
AKA jyanowitz or Just_call_me_Bob

[sethd13]

ily <4 I actually don't remember who you are I just remember seeing you online and you getting banned. I suppose it is different for us as we interact on a game that almost requires companionship to "live"\have fun. But I see your point, Gecko in my head is some really smart kid who doesn't shave often enough. But for some reason he is trapped in the body of a 10 year old kid, with stubble. Cerce is some pedo from michigan who wanted me to stay in his hotel. Nlewis and pwolbart initially were, to me, complete assholes who just fucked with people "for teh lulz" after solitude and getting to know them better it was a lot different, they were still assholes but i liked them more. During The VD era and pretty much for my whole kiwike experience Asdfasdflkjty911 has been "my best internet friend. Lava and sammie follow closely. I guess that the internet forms a different kind of friendship that i think you hit on. No prejudice other than your reputation in game and on the forums affects you(until you get on Skype and TS then people have your voice)
Partyars and asdf basically shaped my music interests, (along with this weird Spanish kid i met at camp who liked tiesto way to much). This is getting deep but, friends on the internet seem to influence you more than "RL" friends as no bias(quid) can be held against you. Grammar nazis aside you all have shaped who I am and think that is what a friend is, right?

Oh god that got way to mushy.

[Jordan]

To sum myself up ingame i was a complete asshole to everyone by abusing my wealth and twisting the rules (Which of course doesn't work if i don't have authority [stupid me]) and also by becoming "friends" with people such as Nlewis and Pwolbart with the plan all along to backstab them and take their wealth. Finally, i would disrupt the economic balance of the server by randomly doubling and tripling peoples wealth [such a nice guy ]. So yea, i was an asshole.
I just had to respond because i love your description of gecko.

[geckosquid]

Gecko in my head is some really smart kid who doesn't shave often enough. But for some reason he is trapped in the body of a 10 year old kid, with stubble.

[yottabyte]

Perfect description of gecko. Spot on.

I'd totally meet internet people. What happened to Kiwike Con anyway? Suba?