Are Internet Friends Better than IRL Friends？ With Katherine Dee (Default Friend)
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Summary
In this episode, we are joined by Catherine D. aka Default Friend, a journalist and blogger who contributes to a number of different outlets and blogs, to talk about how we can get closer to people we care deeply about through the medium of the internet.
Transcript
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in the kind of environment we live in, either you have no friends and only very perfunctory
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relationships, or you have, or you're like isolate, you're physically isolated, but you have these deep
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internet relationships. And I think that's sort of like an interesting, like, what is the value of
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someone who like, you don't really go deep with, but like, you have a lot of physical experiences
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with like, you're both, you know, like you're maybe you always see them at church, or like you
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play basketball with them or something. And you have that kind of like regularity, and the relationship
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is less based on this confessional sort of thing that millennials love so much. And more more based
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on like physical movement somehow, or like involvement in a project that's bigger than
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oneself. Yeah, something would you like to know more? Hello, everyone, we are very excited to be
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joined today by Catherine D aka Default Friend, one of the world's preeminent internet experts and
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historians in internet culture. She is absolutely insightful. She is a journalist who contributes
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to quite a few different outlets. She's a blogger. She's just very insightful and fun to
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talk with. And she suggested something that really piqued our interest when we were scheduling
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this podcast, the durability of mediated relationships. Catherine, what do you have in mind
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here? Yeah, this is something I think about a lot, like how much intimacy can be fostered just
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completely over a screen or on on the phone. And it's sort of an open ended question. But it's
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something that I think about a lot. I guess maybe a more fun way to ask is like, how real are our
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internet friends? Such a good question. Which is to say that, I think that the different contexts in
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which we communicate with somebody, access different parts of our brain. And to an extent,
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you are literally communicating with a different person. So in a way, a multimedia friendship can
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be much deeper than a non-multimedia friendship. By this, what I mean is the person who talks with
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Simone over the phone versus the person who talks with Simone in person versus the person who writes
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emails to Simone versus the person who writes, you know, one way we used to communicate when we
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were apart from each other was through journal posts. So Simone would write eight pages of journals
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about her day. And then I would like annotate that afterwards as like, oh, you did this. This
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is interesting. And each one of those I feel is talking with a slightly different person living in
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the same person's head. Yeah, actually. So there's, there's a, and people think we're really crazy for
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doing this. Um, those who watch video of our podcast, because Malcolm and I are in the same house,
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but we, we always do podcasts from different rooms. And that's actually like very much a good
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illustration of how for us, we, we will actively mediate our relationship through a video call,
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um, just to get into a certain different mind state. Um, because I, for example, think very
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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,
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who might as well just be me because we're the same person. So I think that's, that's really
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interesting. What are your thoughts on this? Um, I, I think that you can actually get closer,
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um, in, in mediated relationships than you can, um, in physical world ones. I mean, part of that
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is just that you act, you know, you actually can spend more time with the person, even though it's
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a different type of time. Right. Um, and there's, I, I think actually you could be more deceptive
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in real life than in cyberspace in cyberspace. You could lie about, right? Like your profession
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communication or your hair color or things like that. Um, but you, there's the, you can't really
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lie emotionally as much, especially after you hit a certain amount of time with someone. And I feel
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like with a lot of like digital relationships, you're really, if you have a high volume of
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communication, which a lot do because we're always sort of ambiently on our phones or ambiently
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online, um, you could actually start to merge with the other person. And I don't know if that's
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healthy, that could be actually very toxic, but I do think, um, if not like durable, like you
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actually can get closer. Um, and yeah, I just think, I just think about that a lot. And like
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what happens to relationships where you have that like closeness, I mean, you bring it into the
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physical world. Does it change? Well, so something that, that, you know, we've talked about another
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place of thing. We might do a full episode on this is the way that online environments are
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structured changes the type of interactions and views that will be espoused in them because it
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naturally leads to specific types of status hierarchies within those communities. So you
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take a, something like Reddit, right? Where the most average liked opinion is the most likely to be
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seen, meaning you're going to get very normie, inoffensive sort of left-leaning opinions. Whereas
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you take something like, um, 4chan where it's the most stimulating opinion is the most likely to be
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seen. So you're likely to get the most offensive opinions rising to the top, or you can contrast
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that with something like Twitter, um, where, you know, for something I wrote to be seen, it actually
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helps more if somebody disagrees with it and, and, and ratios me, you know, retweets me, um, than if
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they like it in terms of getting it in front of other people. So you end up with, you know,
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pointlessly offensive takes off it in that community, um, in a different way than they're
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pointlessly offensive on 4chan, or they're just meant to be mentally stimulating on 4chan, like
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the maximum emotional response instead of the maximum disagreement or, um, and so within these
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different communities, I wonder how you think about different environments, how they change,
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whether it's romantic or friendships that form in those environments.
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Yeah, that's actually, that's like an interesting point because I think like when there's like the
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public facing expression, right, on the Twitter timeline versus in the Twitter DMs and then there's
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one-on-one DMs and then there's group chats, right, and in all of those situations, there's different
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incentives, but I think it's, I think we could think about it in the same way as, um, you know, the
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difference in an office versus someone you meet up, you know, through a club or hobby, right, because
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there's, there's, there's, you have to bring a different piece of yourself to that environment, um, when I
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think about, like, online relationships, I, I guess I've, like, often, and even when I've written about
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it, I think about it in, like, the, like, one-on-one, right, um, and somehow carrying someone with you
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everywhere, but I haven't thought about it as much, um, in these sort of more public environments, and
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that's a, that's a really, it's a really good point, because then you're constructing a character,
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and maybe actually you can't form deep relationships in certain public venues in the same way you can't
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necessarily a Goldman Sachs office, right? Well, I mean, is there some particular experience that
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you experienced that is particularly evocative around this question? Um, yeah, I mean, and this,
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this, it's interesting, because, like, I've, I've read a lot about, like, other people experiencing this,
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too, um, like, talking to someone so much that, like, you almost, um, hallucinate their presence,
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or, like, being on a phone call where, like, you feel like you're in the same physical space,
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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
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for it today, but, like, there's, um, three different women, it was an Israeli study, who were in these
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digital relationships, and they started, like, hallucinating the presence of their lover, and, um,
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their touch, and it was considered a psychotic symptom, but, uh, but when I read this, I always
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thought, like, is it a psychotic symptom, or is there something about, like, filling in the blanks
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in our head or something, right? Like, there's another study that was done where in-game, like,
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eye contact, um, affects people the same way as, like, real-life eye contact, or, like, eye contact is,
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like, subject, like, whatever would represent eye contact in, like, the particular game, which I thought
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it was, like, really interesting, right? Like, there is some, like, physiological thing happening
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there. I, one thing that I'm also thinking about here, that, like, this, this conversation is
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changing the way that I think about catfishing, um, like, part of me is, well, you know, as long as
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people never meet in person, you know, is catfishing really that bad of a thing? Because I think that the
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emotional connection that many people are building is very real, even if, like, I think I'm talking to
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a 24-year-old, you know, 5'9", gorgeous woman. Catfishing case. I love true crime internet stuff,
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um, where a guy was dating this, this, was catfishing this young girl, so he was pretending
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to be a young, you know, sniper in the military, um, and then he got in a fight with another guy
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who wasn't catfishing the girl, but who he knew in person, and so then he goes and he kills the other
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guy in, in, in real life, so he can have this girl who he's catfishing, even though she thinks
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that he's 30 years younger than he is, and then he finds out that actually she was, like, an old
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woman and, and had been catfishing him the whole time, um, and so it can't hurt people, Simone.
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Okay. But I think that's, that's a good, that, but I, I agree with you, Simone, like, I, this is
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something I've written a lot about. I actually think lying has, is different on, in certain online
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social contexts, um, because it can be expressing, like, a greater emotional truth that you can't
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express because you don't have body language, right? So maybe there's certain kinds of lies
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that are done because they're, like, socially expedient, or you want clout or whatever, but
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then there's lies that you have to tell because it, there's some sort of shared narrative, or there's
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some sort of shared world building that's inherent in not having a physical space with someone.
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Hmm. Yeah. I also, like, speaking of the physical barrier here, like, whether or not, you know,
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the problem is that you're actually, you know, a 72-year-old male, or whether the problem is you
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are an AI. Like, one thing that Malcolm and I talk about a lot, because we really want our kids to be
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exposed to ambitious, smart, really well-informed friends, is we're sort of thinking, okay, well,
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should we just set up our kids with AI friends that are, like, really smart, really ambitious?
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Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just that, like, you know, a lot of their friends that we try to set them up with
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are, like, literal AIs that they just develop close friendships with that will tell them that
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they're AIs, but honestly, from various, like, simulated boyfriend-girlfriend scenarios that seem
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to be out there now, maybe that doesn't... I think if you don't shame those types of relationships,
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they won't see them as lesser. But then the question is, if they don't see them as lesser,
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would they still be motivated to form real connections to people and build real relationships?
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Right. But I'm curious to get your thoughts, Catherine, on, like, how you think about
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mediated relationships where there isn't even, like, the ability to ever meet a carbon-based
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I am on the fence about it because I don't really think it's that different than the attachments
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people have to, like, fictional characters. And, you know, there's a lot of... A lot is probably
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a stretch, but there are people who have romantic attachments to fictional characters,
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enough that there's such a thing called, like, fictosexuality, which is distinct from robot
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fetishism, right? Which is, like, people who fall in love with their real dolls or whatever,
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right? It's, like, its own thing. And it's... That's... I mean, maybe in that case, like,
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the AI is... It's better, you know? Like, if it's... If there's something in us that causes
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us to have these relationships anyway... I mean, here's a really corny, like, terrible
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thing, but, you know, what if Dante had a Beatrice AI, right? You know what it would
00:11:47.620
Well, he practically did. I mean, he wrote so much fan fiction about her, basically.
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Right. Exactly. To me, there's no... There's no difference between, like, his sort of obsession
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...and then someone sort of, like, quote-unquote, like, falling in love with an anime character,
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Oh, my God. I love that you just drew that comparison. Yes, because there is no difference,
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and that would absolutely destroy so many of my fancy literature friends. So, thank you.
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So, something I'm wondering if you've ever dug into, in terms of internet history around this
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sort of stuff, when I hear these stories, a community that I used to really love to dig into
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when I was younger... I don't know how young you are, but I think I might be a bit older than you...
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...was the Second Life community and their relationships that they were forming in that
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environment. And so many of the wild stories of that community just seem to mirror what
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people think is, like, a new internet phenomenon.
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I remember one story of this group... A couple met on Second Life, and they got married, and
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then they realized they didn't like each other in person, but they stayed married, living in
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the same house, but would only talk through their computers. But this sounds like a modern...
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I love that. No, that sounds so romantic to me. Are you kidding me?
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Yeah, it might have been World of Warcraft. It was one of the two. That's where, like, all
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Yeah, and it wasn't even really new then, because, like, people would do the same kind of stuff
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on multi-user dungeons, which is, again, they're basically role-playing games, but they're
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Can we talk about those and the culture that was in them?
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Yeah. It was a lot of... Some of them were... There was, like, gameplay, but a lot of them
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were, like, sort of, like, chat rooms or, like, chat rooms that had, like, collaborative
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Um, and there's, you know, the very similar story that I, like, I return to all the time
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because I think it's so interesting and I think it's still applicable today. Um, it's
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in either Life on the Screen or The Second Self by Sherry Turkle. This, um, couple falls
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in love, or so they think, over a multi-user dungeon, so in this sort of, like, role-playing
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chat room. And they meet in person. There's no chemistry. And then when they're interviewing,
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the, the male half, he, he says, you know, well, I looked through our chat logs and I
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had projected connection and romance that wasn't there. And it, and there's something
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like he had interpreted, he'd misinterpreted the text. Um, and I just tell, I know that sort
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of sounds, like, contradictory to everything I just said about e-romance and, like, digital
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friendships, but I think because we're so toxically plugged in, that actually prevents
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that kind of misreading. Um, or at least in, ideally it will, it would prevent, prevent
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that. But I thought it was just so interesting. Like, we are, it is, like, interpreting people
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in text-based medium is really just, like, interpreting literature. Um, people will have
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radically different ideas about, like, poem or even a short story and see things that
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aren't there. And it's especially reflected in fandom when it's, like, people will see a
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whole homoerotic romance hidden in the text. And you're like, well, what, what are you
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talking, like, where'd you get that? But they really believe it. And they'll give, they'll
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Well, I think it's one of the special things about mediated relationships is depending on
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how you're coming into them, you can take the most generous, charitable, inspiring, whatever
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interpretation of someone. And I think it's a lot harder to, um, take a pessimist, a more
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pessimistic approach. Whereas in person, I think that, like, people end up taking more pessimistic
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interpretations. And also people's, what we would call overlay states can more easily
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pollute the situation. Like, if you're hot or tired or hungry and you're together in
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person, like, it's more likely to lead to negative interactions. Whereas if you're
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interacting asynchronously with someone via email or even just text or whatever, like,
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you're probably not going to be interacting with them when you're at this, like, really
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low point with your mood. So also the interactions you have are probably more likely to be, like,
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a little bit more mentally sound and stable than if you guys were together in person, I'm
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thinking. But maybe that's not the case. I also imagine, like, we live in an age in which people
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have some serious anxiety problems. Um, I'm like, I'm one of these people, like, it's hard to go
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outside or it's hard to make friends and interact with people. And so I also imagine that mediated
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relationships are kind of a solution for a generation of people that suffers from more mental
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health issues than previous generations. The ability to access mediated relationships is what
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causes those anxiety problems because you are allowed to indulge in that. I think that's partially
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true. And I also think, like, um, there's in, in person, there's sort of like, you could have a lot
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of shallow connections that are, like, satisfying and serve a purpose. Um, whereas in the kind of
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environment we live in, either you have no friends and only very perfunctory relationships, or you
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have, or you're like isolate, you're physically isolated, but you have these deep internet
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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
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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
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less based on this confessional sort of thing that millennials love so much. Um, and more,
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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
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thinking like my, um, my maternal grandparents met once at a USO ball in Paris, right. As the,
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as world war two was ending, my grandmother was French. My grandfather was Anoki and they
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Russian. Sorry. Well, yeah, she was Russian who had fled to Paris. She wanted to be French so bad.
0.95
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So you're, you're, you're disgracing her memory here. How dare you? Um, but anyway, so like after
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they met, um, they exchanged letters for a long time. And then eventually they just decided to get
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married based on these letters alone. So this is a totally mediated relationship. And my grandmother
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moved sight unseen to a, a, an outhouse one bedroom farmhouse full of a family of people and my
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grandfather to marry him in Oklahoma. And it was a very rough ride for both of them, I think, but they
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stayed married throughout their entire lifetimes and had a pretty successful marriage. And one thing
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I'm wondering is tactically speaking, could mediated relationships be a solution to some market
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failures in the dating world where if, if, if we, if more people committed to developing a strong
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connection and aligned incentives and goals via a mediated relationship and committed to marriage,
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like before ever meeting in person, because it seems like the visual emphasis seems to be what
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kills people's ability to connect right now, especially if they want to get married because
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they're so focused on visuals and like instantly, am I super hot for this person? No. Okay. I'm not even
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going to consider them, even if everything else on paper is perfect and we'd be actually really good
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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
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actually in my second marriage right now, which is more a better, I don't want to say better,
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a different situation. But the reason that my first marriage didn't work was because there wasn't,
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we, you know, we experienced like not to air my, my dirty laundry on a podcast, but we had some
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personal tragedies that were like insurmountable that I think would have been surmountable if we
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had more community support and were more grounded in a culture and community. And so I think what the,
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the failure of relationships, it's so much of that is your environment. We, I think we,
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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.
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Right. And we both have a very good relationship with our family, but families, but he, you know,
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he was from a different country. We were living in a state that I didn't grow up in. So like my
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community there was not as strong. Which of the relationships was the one that was the short
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online relationship first. The first is. My, my first, my first marriage.
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Sorry, that wasn't from the story. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry about that. But, but my, yeah, my second,
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now I'm on my second marriage and it's formed much more traditionally, like certainly more like
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in-person time and like more integrating into one another's, you know, real world lives. And it's,
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I don't think that it was that I met that ruined, ruined or ended my first, my first relationship
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wasn't the, that it started as a mediated relationship. Rather, it was that we weren't
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part of a broader cultural fabric. And there's certain problems that like, I mean, it's total
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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?
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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,
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I think all of those things become really important as you get deeper into a relationship
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and as you mature into a relationship. Just, just being part of something, right. Is it,
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it helps a lot. But yeah, I think just being, we were like, we, we didn't really know our neighbors.
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We weren't really in a city. It was just, we're just so isolated. And it was, it was,
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I think more problematic, um, than either one of us expected.
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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.
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Um, but that would change how people date period. I think, um, there's just something where it's
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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.