Based Camp - Are Internet Friends Better than IRL Friends？ With Katherine Dee (Default Friend)

00:00:00.000 in the kind of environment we live in, either you have no friends and only very perfunctory

00:00:04.620 relationships, or you have, or you're like isolate, you're physically isolated, but you have these deep

00:00:09.720 internet relationships. And I think that's sort of like an interesting, like, what is the value of

00:00:15.300 someone who like, you don't really go deep with, but like, you have a lot of physical experiences

00:00:19.640 with like, you're both, you know, like you're maybe you always see them at church, or like you

00:00:24.540 play basketball with them or something. And you have that kind of like regularity, and the relationship

00:00:28.620 is less based on this confessional sort of thing that millennials love so much. And more more based

00:00:35.160 on like physical movement somehow, or like involvement in a project that's bigger than

00:00:39.900 oneself. Yeah, something would you like to know more? Hello, everyone, we are very excited to be

00:00:46.200 joined today by Catherine D aka Default Friend, one of the world's preeminent internet experts and

00:00:53.380 historians in internet culture. She is absolutely insightful. She is a journalist who contributes

00:00:58.260 to quite a few different outlets. She's a blogger. She's just very insightful and fun to

00:01:03.180 talk with. And she suggested something that really piqued our interest when we were scheduling

00:01:07.940 this podcast, the durability of mediated relationships. Catherine, what do you have in mind

00:01:13.660 here? Yeah, this is something I think about a lot, like how much intimacy can be fostered just

00:01:21.980 completely over a screen or on on the phone. And it's sort of an open ended question. But it's

00:01:27.420 something that I think about a lot. I guess maybe a more fun way to ask is like, how real are our

00:01:32.660 internet friends? Such a good question. Which is to say that, I think that the different contexts in

00:01:42.360 which we communicate with somebody, access different parts of our brain. And to an extent,

00:01:48.500 you are literally communicating with a different person. So in a way, a multimedia friendship can

00:01:54.320 be much deeper than a non-multimedia friendship. By this, what I mean is the person who talks with

00:02:00.060 Simone over the phone versus the person who talks with Simone in person versus the person who writes

00:02:05.320 emails to Simone versus the person who writes, you know, one way we used to communicate when we

00:02:10.500 were apart from each other was through journal posts. So Simone would write eight pages of journals 0.62

00:02:15.560 about her day. And then I would like annotate that afterwards as like, oh, you did this. This

00:02:19.840 is interesting. And each one of those I feel is talking with a slightly different person living in

00:02:26.440 the same person's head. Yeah, actually. So there's, there's a, and people think we're really crazy for

00:02:30.640 doing this. Um, those who watch video of our podcast, because Malcolm and I are in the same house,

00:02:36.380 but we, we always do podcasts from different rooms. And that's actually like very much a good

00:02:41.820 illustration of how for us, we, we will actively mediate our relationship through a video call,

00:02:47.360 um, just to get into a certain different mind state. Um, because I, for example, think very

00:02:52.880 differently when I'm alone in a room than when I'm in a, in a room with a person, even if it's Malcolm,

00:02:57.900 who might as well just be me because we're the same person. So I think that's, that's really

00:03:02.960 interesting. What are your thoughts on this? Um, I, I think that you can actually get closer,

00:03:10.040 um, in, in mediated relationships than you can, um, in physical world ones. I mean, part of that

00:03:17.540 is just that you act, you know, you actually can spend more time with the person, even though it's

00:03:22.040 a different type of time. Right. Um, and there's, I, I think actually you could be more deceptive

00:03:29.740 in real life than in cyberspace in cyberspace. You could lie about, right? Like your profession

00:03:36.200 communication or your hair color or things like that. Um, but you, there's the, you can't really

00:03:41.620 lie emotionally as much, especially after you hit a certain amount of time with someone. And I feel

00:03:46.920 like with a lot of like digital relationships, you're really, if you have a high volume of

00:03:50.660 communication, which a lot do because we're always sort of ambiently on our phones or ambiently

00:03:55.720 online, um, you could actually start to merge with the other person. And I don't know if that's

00:04:00.840 healthy, that could be actually very toxic, but I do think, um, if not like durable, like you

00:04:06.180 actually can get closer. Um, and yeah, I just think, I just think about that a lot. And like

00:04:11.020 what happens to relationships where you have that like closeness, I mean, you bring it into the

00:04:15.080 physical world. Does it change? Well, so something that, that, you know, we've talked about another

00:04:20.360 place of thing. We might do a full episode on this is the way that online environments are

00:04:25.940 structured changes the type of interactions and views that will be espoused in them because it

00:04:31.220 naturally leads to specific types of status hierarchies within those communities. So you

00:04:36.580 take a, something like Reddit, right? Where the most average liked opinion is the most likely to be

00:04:43.340 seen, meaning you're going to get very normie, inoffensive sort of left-leaning opinions. Whereas

00:04:50.080 you take something like, um, 4chan where it's the most stimulating opinion is the most likely to be

00:04:56.680 seen. So you're likely to get the most offensive opinions rising to the top, or you can contrast

00:05:01.040 that with something like Twitter, um, where, you know, for something I wrote to be seen, it actually

00:05:07.120 helps more if somebody disagrees with it and, and, and ratios me, you know, retweets me, um, than if

00:05:13.140 they like it in terms of getting it in front of other people. So you end up with, you know,

00:05:17.140 pointlessly offensive takes off it in that community, um, in a different way than they're

00:05:21.740 pointlessly offensive on 4chan, or they're just meant to be mentally stimulating on 4chan, like

00:05:24.980 the maximum emotional response instead of the maximum disagreement or, um, and so within these

00:05:31.760 different communities, I wonder how you think about different environments, how they change,

00:05:36.120 whether it's romantic or friendships that form in those environments.

00:05:40.960 Yeah, that's actually, that's like an interesting point because I think like when there's like the

00:05:45.800 public facing expression, right, on the Twitter timeline versus in the Twitter DMs and then there's

00:05:52.580 one-on-one DMs and then there's group chats, right, and in all of those situations, there's different

00:05:58.220 incentives, but I think it's, I think we could think about it in the same way as, um, you know, the

00:06:03.000 difference in an office versus someone you meet up, you know, through a club or hobby, right, because

00:06:09.720 there's, there's, there's, you have to bring a different piece of yourself to that environment, um, when I

00:06:15.760 think about, like, online relationships, I, I guess I've, like, often, and even when I've written about

00:06:20.640 it, I think about it in, like, the, like, one-on-one, right, um, and somehow carrying someone with you

00:06:27.720 everywhere, but I haven't thought about it as much, um, in these sort of more public environments, and

00:06:35.280 that's a, that's a really, it's a really good point, because then you're constructing a character,

00:06:39.360 and maybe actually you can't form deep relationships in certain public venues in the same way you can't

00:06:45.440 necessarily a Goldman Sachs office, right? Well, I mean, is there some particular experience that

00:06:52.340 you experienced that is particularly evocative around this question? Um, yeah, I mean, and this,

00:06:58.720 this, it's interesting, because, like, I've, I've read a lot about, like, other people experiencing this,

00:07:03.240 too, um, like, talking to someone so much that, like, you almost, um, hallucinate their presence,

00:07:09.680 or, like, being on a phone call where, like, you feel like you're in the same physical space,

00:07:15.460 um, and it's, it's funny, there's one study that I bring up a lot, and I can't seem to, I was looking

00:07:20.540 for it today, but, like, there's, um, three different women, it was an Israeli study, who were in these 1.00

00:07:26.580 digital relationships, and they started, like, hallucinating the presence of their lover, and, um,

00:07:33.240 their touch, and it was considered a psychotic symptom, but, uh, but when I read this, I always

00:07:39.500 thought, like, is it a psychotic symptom, or is there something about, like, filling in the blanks

00:07:43.880 in our head or something, right? Like, there's another study that was done where in-game, like,

00:07:49.400 eye contact, um, affects people the same way as, like, real-life eye contact, or, like, eye contact is,

00:07:57.460 like, subject, like, whatever would represent eye contact in, like, the particular game, which I thought

00:08:02.180 it was, like, really interesting, right? Like, there is some, like, physiological thing happening

00:08:06.740 there. I, one thing that I'm also thinking about here, that, like, this, this conversation is

00:08:12.120 changing the way that I think about catfishing, um, like, part of me is, well, you know, as long as

00:08:16.940 people never meet in person, you know, is catfishing really that bad of a thing? Because I think that the

00:08:22.080 emotional connection that many people are building is very real, even if, like, I think I'm talking to

00:08:27.880 a 24-year-old, you know, 5'9", gorgeous woman. Catfishing case. I love true crime internet stuff, 1.00

00:08:36.820 um, where a guy was dating this, this, was catfishing this young girl, so he was pretending

00:08:44.260 to be a young, you know, sniper in the military, um, and then he got in a fight with another guy

00:08:50.480 who wasn't catfishing the girl, but who he knew in person, and so then he goes and he kills the other

00:08:56.040 guy in, in, in real life, so he can have this girl who he's catfishing, even though she thinks

00:09:00.700 that he's 30 years younger than he is, and then he finds out that actually she was, like, an old

00:09:05.700 woman and, and had been catfishing him the whole time, um, and so it can't hurt people, Simone.

00:09:12.460 Okay. But I think that's, that's a good, that, but I, I agree with you, Simone, like, I, this is

00:09:17.840 something I've written a lot about. I actually think lying has, is different on, in certain online

00:09:22.820 social contexts, um, because it can be expressing, like, a greater emotional truth that you can't

00:09:29.440 express because you don't have body language, right? So maybe there's certain kinds of lies

00:09:33.140 that are done because they're, like, socially expedient, or you want clout or whatever, but

00:09:37.340 then there's lies that you have to tell because it, there's some sort of shared narrative, or there's

00:09:42.940 some sort of shared world building that's inherent in not having a physical space with someone.

00:09:47.320 Hmm. Yeah. I also, like, speaking of the physical barrier here, like, whether or not, you know,

00:09:54.040 the problem is that you're actually, you know, a 72-year-old male, or whether the problem is you

00:09:59.360 are an AI. Like, one thing that Malcolm and I talk about a lot, because we really want our kids to be

00:10:03.740 exposed to ambitious, smart, really well-informed friends, is we're sort of thinking, okay, well,

00:10:10.880 should we just set up our kids with AI friends that are, like, really smart, really ambitious?

00:10:15.640 Simulate their peer network.

00:10:17.260 Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just that, like, you know, a lot of their friends that we try to set them up with

00:10:20.240 are, like, literal AIs that they just develop close friendships with that will tell them that

00:10:25.120 they're AIs, but honestly, from various, like, simulated boyfriend-girlfriend scenarios that seem

00:10:30.200 to be out there now, maybe that doesn't... I think if you don't shame those types of relationships,

00:10:34.500 they won't see them as lesser. But then the question is, if they don't see them as lesser,

00:10:39.380 would they still be motivated to form real connections to people and build real relationships?

00:10:43.380 Right. But I'm curious to get your thoughts, Catherine, on, like, how you think about

00:10:48.220 mediated relationships where there isn't even, like, the ability to ever meet a carbon-based

00:10:53.940 consciousness.

00:10:56.880 I am on the fence about it because I don't really think it's that different than the attachments

00:11:02.260 people have to, like, fictional characters. And, you know, there's a lot of... A lot is probably

00:11:08.840 a stretch, but there are people who have romantic attachments to fictional characters,

00:11:13.900 enough that there's such a thing called, like, fictosexuality, which is distinct from robot

00:11:18.660 fetishism, right? Which is, like, people who fall in love with their real dolls or whatever,

00:11:23.640 right? It's, like, its own thing. And it's... That's... I mean, maybe in that case, like,

00:11:29.260 the AI is... It's better, you know? Like, if it's... If there's something in us that causes

00:11:35.840 us to have these relationships anyway... I mean, here's a really corny, like, terrible

00:11:42.040 thing, but, you know, what if Dante had a Beatrice AI, right? You know what it would

00:11:47.120 then have made...

00:11:47.620 Well, he practically did. I mean, he wrote so much fan fiction about her, basically.

00:11:51.360 Right. Exactly. To me, there's no... There's no difference between, like, his sort of obsession

00:11:56.680 with this woman he saw twice... 0.98

00:11:58.500 Yeah.

00:11:58.960 ...and then someone sort of, like, quote-unquote, like, falling in love with an anime character,

00:12:03.120 a Harry Potter character.

00:12:04.480 Oh, my God. I love that you just drew that comparison. Yes, because there is no difference,

00:12:09.180 and that would absolutely destroy so many of my fancy literature friends. So, thank you.

00:12:16.000 So, something I'm wondering if you've ever dug into, in terms of internet history around this

00:12:20.360 sort of stuff, when I hear these stories, a community that I used to really love to dig into

00:12:25.560 when I was younger... I don't know how young you are, but I think I might be a bit older than you...

00:12:29.620 ...was the Second Life community and their relationships that they were forming in that

00:12:33.420 environment. And so many of the wild stories of that community just seem to mirror what

00:12:40.380 people think is, like, a new internet phenomenon.

00:12:43.860 Oh, yeah. Like, the meta stuff, right?

00:12:46.080 I remember one story of this group... A couple met on Second Life, and they got married, and

00:12:51.980 then they realized they didn't like each other in person, but they stayed married, living in

00:12:55.760 the same house, but would only talk through their computers. But this sounds like a modern...

00:13:03.560 I love that. No, that sounds so romantic to me. Are you kidding me?

00:13:08.080 Yeah, it might have been World of Warcraft. It was one of the two. That's where, like, all

00:13:12.120 the weird online stuff used to happen.

00:13:14.600 Yeah, and it wasn't even really new then, because, like, people would do the same kind of stuff

00:13:19.900 on multi-user dungeons, which is, again, they're basically role-playing games, but they're

00:13:26.280 text-based.

00:13:28.440 Can we talk about those and the culture that was in them?

00:13:31.160 Yeah. It was a lot of... Some of them were... There was, like, gameplay, but a lot of them

00:13:36.940 were, like, sort of, like, chat rooms or, like, chat rooms that had, like, collaborative

00:13:41.720 storytelling element to them.

00:13:43.920 Um, and there's, you know, the very similar story that I, like, I return to all the time

00:13:50.400 because I think it's so interesting and I think it's still applicable today. Um, it's

00:13:55.460 in either Life on the Screen or The Second Self by Sherry Turkle. This, um, couple falls

00:14:01.200 in love, or so they think, over a multi-user dungeon, so in this sort of, like, role-playing

00:14:06.040 chat room. And they meet in person. There's no chemistry. And then when they're interviewing,

00:14:13.520 the, the male half, he, he says, you know, well, I looked through our chat logs and I

00:14:18.540 had projected connection and romance that wasn't there. And it, and there's something

00:14:24.840 like he had interpreted, he'd misinterpreted the text. Um, and I just tell, I know that sort

00:14:31.520 of sounds, like, contradictory to everything I just said about e-romance and, like, digital

00:14:35.920 friendships, but I think because we're so toxically plugged in, that actually prevents

00:14:41.920 that kind of misreading. Um, or at least in, ideally it will, it would prevent, prevent

00:14:47.620 that. But I thought it was just so interesting. Like, we are, it is, like, interpreting people

00:14:53.060 in text-based medium is really just, like, interpreting literature. Um, people will have

00:14:57.860 radically different ideas about, like, poem or even a short story and see things that

00:15:02.160 aren't there. And it's especially reflected in fandom when it's, like, people will see a

00:15:06.280 whole homoerotic romance hidden in the text. And you're like, well, what, what are you

00:15:09.920 talking, like, where'd you get that? But they really believe it. And they'll give, they'll

00:15:13.040 have receipts at the wazoo.

00:15:15.460 Well, I think it's one of the special things about mediated relationships is depending on

00:15:19.820 how you're coming into them, you can take the most generous, charitable, inspiring, whatever

00:15:25.620 interpretation of someone. And I think it's a lot harder to, um, take a pessimist, a more

00:15:31.340 pessimistic approach. Whereas in person, I think that, like, people end up taking more pessimistic

00:15:35.740 interpretations. And also people's, what we would call overlay states can more easily

00:15:40.620 pollute the situation. Like, if you're hot or tired or hungry and you're together in

00:15:44.520 person, like, it's more likely to lead to negative interactions. Whereas if you're

00:15:49.120 interacting asynchronously with someone via email or even just text or whatever, like,

00:15:54.200 you're probably not going to be interacting with them when you're at this, like, really

00:15:58.120 low point with your mood. So also the interactions you have are probably more likely to be, like,

00:16:03.440 a little bit more mentally sound and stable than if you guys were together in person, I'm

00:16:08.940 thinking. But maybe that's not the case. I also imagine, like, we live in an age in which people

00:16:13.560 have some serious anxiety problems. Um, I'm like, I'm one of these people, like, it's hard to go

00:16:19.160 outside or it's hard to make friends and interact with people. And so I also imagine that mediated

00:16:23.520 relationships are kind of a solution for a generation of people that suffers from more mental

00:16:29.120 health issues than previous generations. The ability to access mediated relationships is what

00:16:34.080 causes those anxiety problems because you are allowed to indulge in that. I think that's partially

00:16:41.380 true. And I also think, like, um, there's in, in person, there's sort of like, you could have a lot

00:16:50.240 of shallow connections that are, like, satisfying and serve a purpose. Um, whereas in the kind of

00:16:56.280 environment we live in, either you have no friends and only very perfunctory relationships, or you

00:17:01.100 have, or you're like isolate, you're physically isolated, but you have these deep internet

00:17:05.740 relationships. Um, and I think that's sort of like an interesting, like, what is the value of

00:17:10.780 someone who like, you don't really go deep with, but like, you have a lot of physical experiences

00:17:15.120 with, like, you're both, you know, like you're maybe you always see them at church or like you play

00:17:20.180 basketball with them or something. And you have that kind of like regularity and the relationship is

00:17:24.360 less based on this confessional sort of thing that millennials love so much. Um, and more,

00:17:30.100 more based on like physical movement somehow, or like involvement in a project that's bigger than

00:17:35.360 oneself. Yeah. Something. I'm also, I'm thinking about mediated relationships in the past and I'm

00:17:41.360 thinking like my, um, my maternal grandparents met once at a USO ball in Paris, right. As the,

00:17:49.240 as world war two was ending, my grandmother was French. My grandfather was Anoki and they

00:17:55.320 Russian. Sorry. Well, yeah, she was Russian who had fled to Paris. She wanted to be French so bad. 0.95

00:18:02.760 So you're, you're, you're disgracing her memory here. How dare you? Um, but anyway, so like after

00:18:08.180 they met, um, they exchanged letters for a long time. And then eventually they just decided to get

00:18:13.240 married based on these letters alone. So this is a totally mediated relationship. And my grandmother

00:18:17.980 moved sight unseen to a, a, an outhouse one bedroom farmhouse full of a family of people and my

00:18:26.600 grandfather to marry him in Oklahoma. And it was a very rough ride for both of them, I think, but they

00:18:31.840 stayed married throughout their entire lifetimes and had a pretty successful marriage. And one thing

00:18:36.840 I'm wondering is tactically speaking, could mediated relationships be a solution to some market

00:18:43.120 failures in the dating world where if, if, if we, if more people committed to developing a strong

00:18:50.220 connection and aligned incentives and goals via a mediated relationship and committed to marriage,

00:18:55.700 like before ever meeting in person, because it seems like the visual emphasis seems to be what

00:19:00.620 kills people's ability to connect right now, especially if they want to get married because

00:19:04.880 they're so focused on visuals and like instantly, am I super hot for this person? No. Okay. I'm not even

00:19:09.720 going to consider them, even if everything else on paper is perfect and we'd be actually really good

00:19:13.300 long-term partners. I'm wondering if forced commitment based on a mediated relationship that

00:19:17.880 does work really well can produce good long-term relationships. What do you think?

00:19:23.760 So I actually did this. I married an internet stranger after very little time. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm

00:19:29.520 actually in my second marriage right now, which is more a better, I don't want to say better,

00:19:36.380 a different situation. But the reason that my first marriage didn't work was because there wasn't,

00:19:42.520 we, you know, we experienced like not to air my, my dirty laundry on a podcast, but we had some

00:19:47.260 personal tragedies that were like insurmountable that I think would have been surmountable if we

00:19:52.320 had more community support and were more grounded in a culture and community. And so I think what the,

00:19:59.640 the failure of relationships, it's so much of that is your environment. We, I think we,

00:20:03.700 we lasted a very long time, you know, for, especially for the strangeness and unique

00:20:08.300 circumstances, but it just couldn't, it just couldn't work because we were like on an island.

00:20:14.360 Right. And we both have a very good relationship with our family, but families, but he, you know,

00:20:18.860 he was from a different country. We were living in a state that I didn't grow up in. So like my

00:20:22.720 community there was not as strong. Which of the relationships was the one that was the short

00:20:27.820 online relationship first. The first is. My, my first, my first marriage.

00:20:32.480 Sorry, that wasn't from the story. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry about that. But, but my, yeah, my second,

00:20:38.880 now I'm on my second marriage and it's formed much more traditionally, like certainly more like

00:20:44.200 in-person time and like more integrating into one another's, you know, real world lives. And it's,

00:20:50.660 I don't think that it was that I met that ruined, ruined or ended my first, my first relationship

00:20:58.000 wasn't the, that it started as a mediated relationship. Rather, it was that we weren't

00:21:03.840 part of a broader cultural fabric. And there's certain problems that like, I mean, it's total

00:21:09.580 amicable, totally amicable split. Right. But it just, there's some things you really need help.

00:21:14.460 And if you don't have that help or like the role models, it's so, it's going to be really hard.

00:21:21.080 Well, how did you try to address that with the second relationship?

00:21:25.280 Well, the second relationship, I, it's now there's like more of an emphasis of making sure that

00:21:31.220 we're grounded in a community and that we're not, so we're not like, you know,

00:21:36.240 striking out on our own in a city where neither one of us has family or connections. There's,

00:21:40.640 I think all of those things become really important as you get deeper into a relationship

00:21:48.100 and as you mature into a relationship. Just, just being part of something, right. Is it,

00:21:54.980 it helps a lot. But yeah, I think just being, we were like, we, we didn't really know our neighbors.

00:22:01.600 We weren't really in a city. It was just, we're just so isolated. And it was, it was,

00:22:06.120 I think more problematic, um, than either one of us expected.

00:22:10.960 What I like there is you're saying it doesn't not work. And that if you were maybe to combine

00:22:16.000 people starting relationships in this mediated way, but then when they physically come together,

00:22:22.000 being supported by a broader culturally aligned community, it actually could work pretty well.

00:22:27.480 Um, but that would change how people date period. I think, um, there's just something where it's

00:22:35.520 like things are too like piecemeal almost, um, where I think like it, it could just, it's just

00:22:43.200 really, it's just really hard to navigate the world as a single unit. That's kind of floating

00:22:49.800 in this ether. You don't really know where you belong. And I think not that's, that won't kill

00:22:54.940 every relationship, but that will put stress on a relationship, especially if you encounter

00:22:59.700 things that are outside of your control. That's fair. Huh. Any other thoughts, Malcolm?

00:23:08.700 On, on, well, okay. I mean, a direction we could go is this is pseudonymous relationships that are

00:23:15.740 seen in things like the furry community. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

00:23:19.660 Oh, that that's interesting where it's like, they don't, they only know one another through their

00:23:24.740 persona. Yeah. And I think they, well, there, or they originally meet through that. And I think

00:23:29.860 you see this in many fan communities where people will engage through fan characters, you know,

00:23:36.560 my little pony, they might have like, I don't know what they would have called them pony sonas or

00:23:40.460 something. Um, and, and, and that's how they would have interacted with each other. Because I think

00:23:46.660 even in the furry community, you probably find out pretty quickly who these people are. Like, I doubt

00:23:50.820 there's as much mystery. Whereas I think in some of these fan communities, another great one is that

00:23:55.440 that fan community around that book about cats, um, where a lot of people would identify as like a,

00:24:00.880 a, a cat Sona thing. Um, there's some YouTubers who talk on this stuff, but yeah.

00:24:07.800 Yeah. So that's, that's interesting. I'm trying to think back to my own experiences. I was really

00:24:13.960 into text-based role-playing. Um, so it's not quite the same, but it's, it's, it's similar. And I

00:24:19.280 would do like historical role-plays, you know, I'm really interested in the 1780s, you know,

00:24:23.800 this week. So I'm going to create a world around that. And there, there would be like romance

00:24:29.420 elements sometimes. Um, and even I'm trying to think of like ones that like when sometimes these,

00:24:36.360 these role-plays will go on for years. Right. And you'll be in these narrative relationships and it,

00:24:42.140 but it doesn't really impact your physical, physical life. And it's, I don't think I was,

00:24:46.860 I was, whatever affection I myself had and not my character had is not for the person controlling

00:24:54.620 the avatar. It's for, it's for the, the writing and the character they've constructed and what I've

00:25:01.140 projected into that character in, and that, that world. And I would guess that our fursonas may be

00:25:07.000 similar because there's some element of separation and it's, there's some sort of role-playing element

00:25:11.820 there. And it feels, it feels like it's kind of separate. Whereas the difference between something

00:25:16.400 like that and second life, it tends to be more like your avatar and second life is actually more

00:25:22.420 like your username on Twitter. Um, and there can be a separation there, but it's not as often as there

00:25:28.540 is in like something that's consciously a role-play. Um, so maybe it, and I guess I am not in the furry

00:25:34.880 community and I haven't talked to people in the furry community. So I guess it could actually go

00:25:38.180 either way. It could, it depends on how they're using the fursona. Yeah. So this, this role-playing

00:25:45.420 thing that you're talking about is very interesting. Um, so how do you choose the people that are in

00:25:51.080 these persistent communities or can people just drop in and you engage with them based on the

00:25:54.840 quality of their writing? Yeah. Um, I haven't done it in a really long time. I think the last time I

00:26:00.300 like actively was role-playing was 2007, but people would just, it was pretty, um, it was a pretty

00:26:06.380 small community. Um, so people would just find like forums and then there would be some sort of

00:26:11.460 like gatekeeping or like hazing that would happen. And you, you know, you would get accepted in the

00:26:17.400 community or filtered out. Um, and then people would like gravitate towards one another if they

00:26:22.360 had compatible writing styles. And there's usually like a stat, like a universal style guide for

00:26:27.380 whatever forum, or maybe chat room and dependent on, you know, you could do it on different platforms.

00:26:32.020 Um, and then every, if it was like a literary role-play, everyone would write as though

00:26:36.660 they're writing a story and it could be published in a book. And then there's other types of role-play

00:26:40.840 where like actions are an asterisk or parentheses. And usually those are quicker moving. They're

00:26:47.100 probably more likely to be in a chat room. Um, yeah. And it just, it's just a chemistry thing.

00:26:52.940 Um, some, you know, sometimes you have chemistry with people, sometimes you don't.

00:26:57.880 That's so interesting. Interesting. Did you ever meet any of these people in person or were

00:27:01.180 these relationships always suit anonymous? Yeah. I met one woman in person. I met her when I was like

00:27:07.720 11. And, um, then I, I lived in, um, her city very briefly and we, we met up in person and then we

00:27:14.680 were friends until I was like, I don't know, like 25. And then I just stopped using Facebook. And so

00:27:21.240 then we stopped being friends. That is actually really, I think it's, it's an underrated element of

00:27:29.160 friendship. Um, that there are some people that you can only be friends with through certain channels.

00:27:34.020 And this doesn't, this is not exclusive to mediated relationships where you like primarily

00:27:38.560 you had started out there, but there are literal in-person friends that I can think of who,

00:27:43.020 because I refuse to use like iMessage after I changed my phone number and I can't really access

00:27:48.280 like iMessage. They just refuse to communicate with me on any other channel. So we're just not going to be

00:27:53.700 friends anymore. And I feel like there are some people who can only be contacted

00:27:56.760 through very, very specific platforms. And that's, it's an interesting thing. It's like,

00:28:01.400 they don't exist outside of them. Um, and it's weird to live in an age where things kind of work

00:28:05.960 that way. I, it is weird, but also I wonder like how different is it from, you know, a work friend

00:28:12.840 who like can't make the transition to a different kind of, right? Like you're my, you're my Facebook

00:28:17.420 friend and just whatever. I, I don't like talking to you on iMessage. So that's the, that's that.

00:28:22.680 Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Oh gosh. Okay. This was really, really interesting

00:28:29.240 and really, really fun. And I know we're running out of time, so we will let you get back to your

00:28:33.040 life, but Catherine, thank you so much for joining us. We would love to have you back on at some point.

00:28:38.100 You are absolutely brilliant. Um, and I hope we can talk again soon and everyone else, please tell,

00:28:44.540 tell us all where we should find your work. Um, you can find me on Twitter at D art X at default

00:28:51.040 underscore friend, or my blog is just default dot blog. Great. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thanks.

Based Camp - August 30, 2023

Are Internet Friends Better than IRL Friends？ With Katherine Dee (Default Friend)

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