I recently found out about The Online Identity Project and thought it was really amazing. I got in contact with its creator and asked her to be on the show.
A few weeks later and we have a special edition where she goes into detail about internet communities and online identity.
It's also made me stop and think about who I am online, and I'm not sure I have a good answer.
Thank you for sharing this. This was fascinating!! Are you the narrator for this interview? I looked up the Comatose page and bookmarked it. The topics look interesting too. This was one of the most thought-provoking things I've heard online in a while. It dovetails with some of the thoughts I've been having about online communities and answers a couple questions I've been thinking about. I've been noticing more and more how people online are segregated into content creators and consumers, not just on platforms designed for that, but pretty much everywhere. That has been mystifying to me. I've always thought of the internet as a place to interact, but more and more, it feels like a place where a few people put up content and many others just sit on the sidelines and watch and maybe throw up a like or a comment at best. When Virginia noted that Reddit was a failure in her opinion, my ears perked up. Her comment about free speech was expected, but her comment on how the model leads to less interaction and the rise of a few content creators was a surprise to me. As I think about it, that was one of my first difficulties in getting acclimated to the Reddit community. It wasn't very much about community. When I first got there, I actually did a search on why that was and found several posts on community and how Reddit wasn't about community and how they liked it that way. I like Reddit in a lot of ways, but at least based on some very old posts, their mantra was anti-community. I don't know if that changed over the years. I do see how that model may have led to a small percentage of people creating content and a larger group of people consuming that content. That mindset trickles down into other interactions as well. I was also intrigued about her idea of how the proliferation of communities has led to an echo chamber effect in so many communities. When like-minded people get together, people who are different often don't get heard. I see this a lot in communities where most people are platform specific. I'm interested in her suggestion that Imzy might be better. I had seen the site before but didn't get past the front screen. I don't remember why. I'm thinking of checking it out again.
Thank you for listening! It can feel a bit like broadcasting into the void, so it's always nice to hear someone enjoys what we're doing. I'm not the narrator, but being the main person who runs it it's become clear everyone is going to think I'm the narrator. I'm on the show a lot though, and if you want to hear what I sound like, I like my segment on this episode (I'm the one on the first segment): It was really cool having Virginia on precisely because I knew we could ask her questions about online communities and all that entails. I've been questioning what I think it means to be a part of a community online lately, so it was a chance to unleash a few questions that had been on my mind for quite some time. I'm still pretty passively active on Reddit, but it's something I've noticed. There's an aversion to culture, which isn't how it used to be when I would go on forums before I found Reddit. I often wonder how much of that is due to the internet itself changing, but sites like hubski or imzy are an interesting way to look into how you can still create an internet community. If you're interesting in checking out imzy, let me know. It's still early in development and you need an invite to join. I can get you one if you want to check it out!