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malkaIt takes us a long time to catch on. Everyone, or at least everyone who's part of the world of text, with room for pseudonyms and paragraphs and semicolons, knows how sometimes you can identify someone. Sometimes you can say, "This is her way of spinning a sentence." or "This is his passion about belief systems." or "This is -- help I don't know the pronoun and English is limiting me here -- their way of adding humor to a story." As the world gets more and more connected, it happens more and more. People don't go permanently away. They pop up years later on another site or under a different name. Sometimes those are even legal names -- her work email alias has the initial of the first name that she hasn't used since she was twelve and the last name she gave up with her solo bank account. It's not a pseudonym, precisely, but nor is it her-now.
Over time I start to see more and more of the same people. At first it's obvious -- the Internet allows us to pick circles that are like ourselves, so that's what we do. That's why I keep running into people who know Dani. That's how my friends could sit with each other and realize that Adam-the-asshole who we all knew from different contexts was indeed the same Adam-the-asshole. And of course there are always icon overlaps, like the cat with an orange-peel helmet. It's just memes, right?
When people put their own faces on their writing, it's still not weird. The person who I got mistaken for in summer camp writes religious philosophy that deeply resonates with what I want out of life. The person who we call your Internet twin not only looks like you (to the point of getting the same flavor and rhythm of harassment as you do), she has your major and your thoughtfulness. But humans have a very limited gene pool, so it's not strange for there to be matches. It's like the Birthday Paradox, I mumble, and we all carefully forget that the trick to that is that the person must be randomly selected.
I am pleased to find that my favorite fic writer has started publishing her writing. It's different characters, of course, but how could it be not? And "That's Professor Bitch to you" has started blogging again under a different alias. And clearly this professional journalist and this cranky blogger are the same person with different pen names. And...
It comes to a head one evening when I'm flipping through the blog of an old friend. I recognized her writing style from the sparseness of adjectives and her three children from the transparent pseudonyms. I hadn't realized she'd given up writing at "Half-Baked Thoughts", but "From the Desks of Chickens" is so much more fun to say that maybe she's maintaining both. And besides, how better to celebrate the success of their new urban farm? And then I flip to the next page, where she's talking about her divorce and how it's affecting little L-bean particularly hard.
Her wife has been dead for three years. Lily (or Lily-bean, or Lily-bear) barely remembers her. She would have told me if she were getting remarried -- hell, she would have told me if she were dating again. This is a different person. A different person with a 4-year-old L-bean who likes to chase the chickens, a 7-year old Pencils who's always drawing (hands and feet, this month), and a 10-year-old Bookster who's been reading all my old Danny Dunns.
After that I start noticing it everywhere. All the books in stores are about talking vegetables not because Audrey II is the new Edward, but because they're being written by the same author. Discussion threads on blogs fall silent in agreement far more quickly than they used to, or drop to the same two voices having a repetitive argument through fifteen screen names. It's too pervasive and too regular to be sock puppets. I start catching my doppelgangers too -- I find their arguments strangely soothing, even when they match the one I had privately with my husband the previous morning. Maybe especially then.
By my count, the world is down to about two thousand people in 7 billion bodies. I've been trying to adjust my stats to take into account languages I don't speak and circles I don't move in, but every time I break through one of those barriers, I find the same souls in different clothing. The rate of loss is slowing -- I think we'll lose about 100 people this month. "Losing" isn't the right terminology, either. I didn't lose either of my neighbors, but they're both now the same person with different hairstyles (and differently colored Day-Glo flipflops).
I'm desperately afraid that I'll wake up one day as the only person who exists, or ever can exist. By my calculations, that'll be about two and a half years from now. It will be so very lonely.
Over time I start to see more and more of the same people. At first it's obvious -- the Internet allows us to pick circles that are like ourselves, so that's what we do. That's why I keep running into people who know Dani. That's how my friends could sit with each other and realize that Adam-the-asshole who we all knew from different contexts was indeed the same Adam-the-asshole. And of course there are always icon overlaps, like the cat with an orange-peel helmet. It's just memes, right?
When people put their own faces on their writing, it's still not weird. The person who I got mistaken for in summer camp writes religious philosophy that deeply resonates with what I want out of life. The person who we call your Internet twin not only looks like you (to the point of getting the same flavor and rhythm of harassment as you do), she has your major and your thoughtfulness. But humans have a very limited gene pool, so it's not strange for there to be matches. It's like the Birthday Paradox, I mumble, and we all carefully forget that the trick to that is that the person must be randomly selected.
I am pleased to find that my favorite fic writer has started publishing her writing. It's different characters, of course, but how could it be not? And "That's Professor Bitch to you" has started blogging again under a different alias. And clearly this professional journalist and this cranky blogger are the same person with different pen names. And...
It comes to a head one evening when I'm flipping through the blog of an old friend. I recognized her writing style from the sparseness of adjectives and her three children from the transparent pseudonyms. I hadn't realized she'd given up writing at "Half-Baked Thoughts", but "From the Desks of Chickens" is so much more fun to say that maybe she's maintaining both. And besides, how better to celebrate the success of their new urban farm? And then I flip to the next page, where she's talking about her divorce and how it's affecting little L-bean particularly hard.
Her wife has been dead for three years. Lily (or Lily-bean, or Lily-bear) barely remembers her. She would have told me if she were getting remarried -- hell, she would have told me if she were dating again. This is a different person. A different person with a 4-year-old L-bean who likes to chase the chickens, a 7-year old Pencils who's always drawing (hands and feet, this month), and a 10-year-old Bookster who's been reading all my old Danny Dunns.
After that I start noticing it everywhere. All the books in stores are about talking vegetables not because Audrey II is the new Edward, but because they're being written by the same author. Discussion threads on blogs fall silent in agreement far more quickly than they used to, or drop to the same two voices having a repetitive argument through fifteen screen names. It's too pervasive and too regular to be sock puppets. I start catching my doppelgangers too -- I find their arguments strangely soothing, even when they match the one I had privately with my husband the previous morning. Maybe especially then.
By my count, the world is down to about two thousand people in 7 billion bodies. I've been trying to adjust my stats to take into account languages I don't speak and circles I don't move in, but every time I break through one of those barriers, I find the same souls in different clothing. The rate of loss is slowing -- I think we'll lose about 100 people this month. "Losing" isn't the right terminology, either. I didn't lose either of my neighbors, but they're both now the same person with different hairstyles (and differently colored Day-Glo flipflops).
I'm desperately afraid that I'll wake up one day as the only person who exists, or ever can exist. By my calculations, that'll be about two and a half years from now. It will be so very lonely.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-18 10:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-18 03:34 pm (UTC)