Digital gangs

What is it that moves someone to drive two hours in the evening and then back because someone wrote a post about you? Is it curiosity, the need to see people who have digitally connected to you, obsessive compulsive behavior, an ego larger than a houseboat that was offended, or the urgent need to right a wrong and win converts to your cause, or maybe all of them? Perhaps, it’s just me, but I’m becoming as interested in the people who blog, wiki, and create multiple digital identities for themselves as in the mediums.

I like the frontier analogy because it fits with people who might not fit into society for a variety of legitimate reasons or not. Why is it that people need to create on-line communities – what is wrong with the myriad of human communities, face to face, seeing, hearing, touching? Maybe that is the problem – people don’t want to be seen, or touched, or to be heard without the machine between them and their listener/reader. What is the future for these digital dilettantes? To what extant are these digital communities escapes from this world with its demands and need for more than technical skills? Perhaps ego is an issue - these individuals are more intellectual, curious, smart than the average person, but find that this world rewards more than just those skills. This world rewards interpersonal skills, attractiveness, the ability to communicate in person, and it frustrates many of the on-line adherents who then recreate themselves on-line.

However, human nature never really changes. These communities have also developed a gang mentality. I was struck by Jason’s pronouncement that his Wikipedia entry was being ‘protected’ by friends and that is what you have to do when you reach certain notoriety. There was more than a little pride in that announcement. Perhaps that is why he came down. He needed to protect his dignitas from common vandals and doing digitally wasn't enough. Maybe he wanted to see if he could recruit or pick up more status by overwhelming a group with his knowledge - so knowledgeable that he can outsmart the web elite by beating their system. No longer gun slingers - have camera and taperecorder will travel.