BEDA the Twenty-Seventh: Imagining People Complexly is Hard!

Hello Beard Racers!

Get the joke? Do you? Well congratulations on having read at least two of my blogs!

So recently I've been reading some of Alex Days older diaryland entries. (One of these days I will post a blog where I don't mention either him or John Green, and it's going to be epic.) They're all very personal, intimate, and at times, quite emotional, so I wasn't all together comfortable reading them at first. He has, however, recently said that he intends to publish them as a book in the future, so I'm feeling better about my apparent intrusion into his life.

He first started posting when he was 14, so understandably, they're quite embarrassing to read, especially after I realised that just under a year later I would follow in his exact footsteps. We both went through a phase of following the pagan religion Wicca, we both made close friends online, and we both overused smilies and the use of asterix to denote *activity*.

It's really quite an odd experience, though. I'm used to mature, intelligent, and informed adult Alex that we see in his videos and wherever else he [used to] post on the internet (especially as I only quite recently joined the Nermie Army). Now all of a sudden I'm seeing a side of him that I hadn't even begun to imagine, and it's very hard to not see the two as completely different people.

It's partly because he's obviously undergone quite a large change in the last six years, which is to be expected. It's puberty, we all do. However, he is still the same person, so I can only conclude that it's down to my failure to see Alex as anything more than the persona he presents us with.

Whilst I'm not shifting the blame away from me here, I think that this may really be the fault of the internet. Think about it. Just think of three people you only know on the internet, or if you don't have that many people you only know online, just imagine how you saw your friend the last time you chatted on MSN or Skype. I may well be wrong, but I'm guessing you can only construct an image of their personality from how they interact with you. (Feel free to pwn me in the comments if not, btw)

I guess it's just a problem inherent to both our natural settings, and the barrier that the internet creates between you and everyone else, and is something that can only really be changed by a conscious effort to remind ourselves that the idiot in the BlogTv waiting room complaining about how John won't respond to him, is as human and real as you are*.

Apologies if you have no idea who or what I'm talking about here.. Less esoteric blog posts resume again tomorrow, I promise.

Love you all!

xo

gb

*For the record, I'm not pretending this is my own original thinking at all. I fully credit that I have just taken the concepts provided by John Green and the DFW speech and applied them to the internet. Again, feel free to tell me to STFU in comments.

#BEDA the Twentieth: Is this Water?

Hi,

Okay, so John Green's live right now, so forgive me if this is fragmented and pretentious. The odd combination of brilliant poetry and casual wit that his live shows provide means that getting any kind of continuity is near impossible.

So that reminds me of something I've been meaning to post about for a while. In a show not so long ago now, John mentioned and then read this speech, by the writer David Foster Wallace. I saved it, and I've read it a few times in the past week, and I've given it a lot of thought. I'm generally quite quick to anger, and quick to judge, and I am definitely guilty of thinking that everything is going wrong solely for me. So it's made a bit of an impact on me, in that sense.
But there's also something else going on, something that I can't quite put my finger on yet; Some sort of wave which will break in the close future. Whether it will wash up good or bad, I don't yet know.

Anyway, speaking of me being quick to anger, I've been getting pretty annoyed at Facebook recently. Not the site itself, although I am a quite notorious critic of it. No, this time my problem lies with the users. People who make groups about how 'David W. Hall should be have his account deleted for his disgusting pro-Gay Marriage group!', people who post inane updates about how they're going to the gym, been to the gym, and are now whipping up a protein shake (but what do I know, I'm on Twitter), and people who invite me seven times to their group about a car dealership.

I would delete it, and in fact I was going to, but I don't want to fall into the Alex Day trap. I hardly use it anyway, and I've now made Twitter my homepage instead, which makes me feel a bit better. I still hate it though, so if I'm 'on' Facebook chat and I don't reply, or if you comment me and I don't reply, don't take it personally. I just don't use Facebook for anything else but a combined photo album/email account.

Of course you could just say this is a poor excuse for my laziness, but that would be very heartless of you. Why would you claim that? Plus generally if the comment is something that really matters/needs to be chased up, I'll do it away from Facebook. Like on Skype, which you should all get.

Anyway. That's it for today. Although I am thinking of buying this book.
Sexy, isn't it? (Inside joke, much? :P)

Miss you!

xo
gb