A quiz and thoughts on 'net trends, I guess.

[sistermagpie]

You Scored as Robin You are Robin. You're very serious, observant, and tend to be a perfectionist. You do have your moments though, where you slip back into kid-mode. You spent most of your childhood obsessing over your idol(s), and you're quite good at it. Though on the small side, you make up for it with strategy and stealth. And you carry a big stick. You're not sure if you want to continue past being Robin, but only time will really tell. Robin 73% Alfred 55% Barbara 55% Spoiler 50% Dick 50% Batgirl 45% Batman 40% Jason 8%

That’s Tim!Robin there, and he would definitely be me I think. (Despite not being much of a perfectionist.) I was impressed with myself for my high levels of Alfred-ness, but I suspect I only got it for my love of tea.

I think I lost a week somewhere lj-wise. Don't know how that happened. I have had a week of new experiences, which is always good. I went to a Juilliard concert, which I didn't know they had. Then tried a new tea at Alice's Teacup--Monk's blend. Nice and strong.

Finally, last night I went to "My Name is a Blackbird," a one-woman improvised dance piece, which was awesome. Then went out with the one woman of the piece and others, which was cool. There was good bar food. Good by my standards, that is, which I always appreciate. I’m not sure if anybody got a chance to taste the tater tots I was shoveling them in so fast.

I've been eyeing Dreamwidth with interest and hoping to remember to friend people who are there if I ever get over there. But it has got me thinking about a lot of things I've been reading about all these new social sites. We had this meeting at work about Twitter where it was explained to us that Twitter is all about finding people with social credit, proved by their many followers etc. The whole thing completely confuses me, this whole subset of internet users that use Facebook status and Twitter as incredibly important chances to fail or succeed at being witty and cool.

It makes me feel like the internet has for so long been associated with geeks and the socially inept (whether that's true or not, that's the stereotype) and now we're seeing the results of years of desperate brainstorming to find a way to make it a place where "popular people" can reign supreme again.

I remember so many kerfuffles in the past where people, usually young people, would complain about not being able to be BNFs. In these cases, it was unclear what they thought they were doing that should have gotten them this status. Then I read something about the 'net that said people tend to do on the 'net just what they do off of it. If you wrote, you wrote. If you drew, you drew. If you talked about TV you talked about TV. And sometimes I would read these kids frustrated at not having the fandom status they wanted and thought wow, this is a person who IRL probably gets social status by being cool and looking right. I don't mean that to sound dismissive, I just mean literally this was somebody who did things right in social situations. Only especially in high school, that didn't include many things that translated to the ‘net. Iow, it wasn't something that showed up on the 'net where nobody could see you. And the kind of things that would get you noticed on-line would be social suicide if you sat down in the cafeteria and started up with them to the wrong people.

I can't but feel, when I read this kind of thing, that it's being presented to the answer to that problem. It just seems to be about finding ways to bring RL coolness online, with all the attendant focus on status and hierarchy, often based on giving the impression you're the right kind of person to know based more on your style than substance. Or at least, based on having a certain kind of substance that’s also favored IRL.