Web communities…
…its so easy to get embroiled in them and you wont see me going near one, anytime soon.
Some years ago (about 2001)… waaaaaay before i ever knew what blogging was and of course way before blogging as a phenomenon even caught on… i was a member of a web community. A travel web community to be exact. Complete with pages for you to post up travel stories, travel tips, travel pics…if you were the citizen of a widely popular travel destination, chances are that your pages would have lots of visitor hits and you would be sought by equal number of pleasant and unpleasant elements as a “travel guide” of sorts. It didnt help (or does it?) if you are a nice looking bloke or chick.
There was even forums (wildly entertaining on slow slooooow work days) and the obligatory chatroom with moderator. It was on VT and on here that I met many people, made a few friendships and even a dear friend. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the experience was harrowing, though there were just as many great and fun memories. There have been some long lasting relationships made via VT, and as a result a few Malaysians have even made the trip to Sweden to witness a VT-er’s wedding, I met my baby boo, met VT-ers through meetings and so on and so forth.
After being part of a web community for a few years I decided to withdraw and took a long break- there was just too much politics, narrow-mindedness, bigotry and prejudice. I was so up close to it that i didnt even realise what I was doing in forums and chatroom; literally waxing lyrical about online communications.
In the end, all the negativity and frusration outweighed all the good that the few really nice VT-ers brought to the community. What were a bunch of inherently diverse and different individuals doing trying to be friends online and offline when all they really seemed to care about was not the experience but taking fantabulous travel pics, building kick-ass travel pages and raking up as high as possible travel ranking scores? I
just got fed up and tired of a hypocritical online community that prided themselves on having travelled as far as possible around the world, but could not allow members to be themselves if it meant being different with non-mainstream preferences or lifestyles.
I took a break from VT, threw myself into work, discovered that real life society is really not much different, got embroiled in frustration again and then got myself out before more damage could be done. In the process, i diverted any excess energy into my job and this year found that its really on track.
Now more so than ever, Im sure Im doing something that i really enjoy and the learning process in a new field is long and painful…also frustrating because so much more needs to be done…… but its all been worth it so far. Its also kept me out of unwanted trouble.
And then, just recently i found myself looking through old VT member pages. How time flies!!! What memories!!! Has so much really happened since I last visited? Also more than ever, I see how social mediums (like travel website or blogs) as tools of expression for online populations are over-ratedso much, its ridiculous. ie. a blog criticising someone is all it takes to start a flame war. In Malaysia and Singapore, at least that seems to be the case.
Power of the masses, my foot… how about collective herded cows mentality? That being said, never underestimate critical mass numbers… its what helps marketers see if something will be a trend (even though IMHO its silly to want to maintain status quo just because its comfortable. Ive stopped reading the papers and online news sites because it reminds me of inertia and thick molasses.)
I marvel at the power of the Internet and how small it makes the globe seem. At how same-same but different we all really are. Maybe, we speak and hear and read too much of the same language that we’ve forgotten how to “listen” to what others are really saying.
