age, ageism, maturity...

[2020]

One of the benefits of a virtual communities, is that people can be unlocked from certain bigotry. Posters/players can be black, oriental, alien, female, male, a kid, a geriatric, a lawyer, unemployed, whatever. Hence, there is an opportunity to be dealt with as a person, and based on what one says, the medium of words stripped of all colour and creed, etc.

That's the positive side. The disembodying of our words. The negative side is that we lose something in this virtualising. Rather than start of a hydra here, I'd just like to consider age since it was brought up in another topic.

I respect a lot of players on the grid. With some forms of respect, I associate an age. I've always thought of vanhayes as older, his manner, his comments, his awareness, seems to be far-ranging and sensitive. Compguygene has a quality to his posts I can't quite put my finger on, and I also associate it with age.

Strange. This is my only virtual community, and have only experience the net in my thirties. I was wondering what posters/players experience of this is.

[TaZ]

To be honest, I've had mixed experiences with some of the older people on tron. I do find that older people tend to be more mature than the younger people on tron, but some "older" people think that just because they are older, they're better than everybody else. I'm Referring to the people who consider anybody younger than themselves as a "kid". What's funny is most of those people who think they're mature act like more of a kid than anything. Also there are a lot of younger mature people on tron. Desolate pops up immediately in my mind. I think he's like 13 and he has the demeanor of a 40 year old.

[Lord Pein]

As far as my experiences go, nobody cares what you look like, unless you are either a hot girl, or fat. People may try to insult you based on how you look, but they don't actually care.

Older people do tend to be more mature, and sometimes get mad because "kids" (anyone under the age of 30) are just playing to have fun and like to mess around.

There are always a few exceptions; but this is the general feeling I have gotten from over 365 days of playing time I have on games such as Runescape, Tron, World of Warcraft, Knight Online, and League of Legends.

[Word]

Desolate pops up immediately in my mind. I think he's like 13 and he has the demeanor of a 40 year old.

so true

[apparition]

Damn curmudgeons and ragamuffins!

You're right, age and the perception of maturity in virtual communities is very different from real life. I don't think Tron is different than other virtual communities in that actual age is less important as "digital" age. And unlike actual age, digital age can change and is based on many things, not just when you were physically born (I guess you're virtually born the day you sign up for a forum or something). One thing that can change your digital age is quality and thoughtfulness of communication. dariv, for example, hasn't been around that long (as far as I know), but he "seems" older to me than many people who have been around a long time.

Another aspect of digital age that can change is skill level (this might just be for multiplayer games though). In general, don't "noobs" seem younger to you in your mind? Unless they're coherently chatting and asking meaningful questions, noobs always seem like they're effing 8 years old or something. I think evidence for this is TALKING IN ALL CAPS to noobs (like talking louder to someone you don't think understands you). Conversely, Woned and Gonzap are actually younger than a lot of people in Tron, but their superior skills make them "seem" older than most.



EDIT: Corrected silly errors - I wrote this really fast.

[Lord Pein]

Post I actually read.

+1

I would like to add, the amount of experience (not just skill level) contributes to digital age as well.

and btw...

Sometimes I talk in caps because caps lock is my push to talk button on teamspeak, so I accidentally "yell" sometimes...

[Desolate]

Desolate pops up immediately in my mind. I think he's like 13 and he has the demeanor of a 40 year old.

so true

lol this is what I thought of when I read the title of the topic. A lot of people have said similar things.

I'm 16 by the way.

[Mkay1]

Very modest deso.

[Hoax]

I think deso can handle responsibility well, does that make him mature though

I used to think vanhayes was like 30 :o

[Gonzap]

how's deso mature?

[Phytotron]

I'm not an ageist, and indeed have a long track record to back that up, including actively promoting all-ages shows and venues, and opposing a city curfew for minors, to name a couple examples.

That said, if you behave like a little kid, I'll treat you like one. You want to be treated like an adult, then act like one. Or, as I stated recently, at least act your age. Problem is, there's a certain segment on this forum who are in their late teens (some may be around 20, I don't really know specifically, or care) but who act like spoiled rotten "tweens." If I refer to you as "kid," "child," or "little boy," it's because that's how you're behaving. (And don't forget, you all were stirring up crap well before I ever became active on this forum again.) Don't like it, change your behaviour.

[Sidebar cultural observation note: It seems there are a lot of younger folks these days who define "maturity" by the standards of video game, music, television and movie ratings. That is, the more offensive or obscene one is, the more mature. That is, of course, faulty reasoning and not the actual meaning of those ratings. It does, however, seem to be an unfortunate unintended consequence of said ratings.]

On the other hand, there are many more more individuals of similar age range who I don't refer to in that manner. Look at Jonathan or even Tank Program. Van-hayes was mentioned; I've never conversed with him much, but I've never thought him a little kid. Cosmic Dolphin, Word, whomever else. Hell, even Mkay (most of the time). Add several more folks if you want to go back to by first tenure playing this game. These people act at least their age, if not beyond their years (especially the first two).

Like respect or credibility, it's something you earn. I don't care how old you are. I do care how you behave.


And those of you, from the first segment, who are making these claims of "it's the old people who start all the drama and trouble" and so forth, you're full of it and you know it. You're being duplicitous. You all spend most of your posts acting like juvenile delinquents, then every once and awhile make a post wherein you attempt to act mature, reasonable, "above it all." Uh-uh, doesn't work that way. You can't go around slapping and spitting at people in the face, then occasionally make a self-righteous speech about civility and nonviolence. (And to repeat, don't forget, you all were stirring up crap well before I ever became active on this forum again.)


Now, as for this bit:

Posters/players can be black, oriental, alien, female, male, a kid, a geriatric, a lawyer, unemployed, whatever. ... The disembodying of our words.

Those things contribute to who a person is. Humans are not blank slates, nor are we "noble savages," or a ghost in the machine. Around 50% of variability between individuals is genetic, the rest extra-genetic. The latter inform who we are, and how we relate and communicate with each other. All those sorts of things define who we are, making each of us unique. Our experiences, thoughts, and actions don't exist independently of those things.

Your experience as a 30-something, British white guy is not going to be the same as that of a 20- or 60-year-old African American woman from Jackson, Mississippi. (And that's a simple example. Nevermind a 40-something, paraplegic, gay male who grew up in Iran, went to university in the Netherlands, and now lives in Rio as a musician and vintage mechanics repairman...or something.) How you come to your ideas, how you relate to various experiences, is going to be different. If you and this hypothetical person come into contact and all that is stripped away (which it never truly is), you're going to have a lot of cross-communication, and just plain breakdown in communication. On the other hand, knowing those things about one another, where each is coming from, will better allow you to relate to one another and communicate "on the same wavelength."

With respect to race/ethnicity in particular, we hear a lot from certain folks about "color blindness" and being "post-racial." (Steven Colbert even rightly satirises it.) That's not only unrealistic, it's undesirable. We should recognise others' differences, and how that informs who they are. That goes for any trait.

Does recognising these various sorts of traits you mention justify prejudicial bias or bigotry? Of course not. Approached properly, it should do a better job of bridging those gaps.


[There's a lot of conversation going on in the other room as I type this, which muddles by thoughts, so the last half of this post is probably a little rambling, skipping around.]

[Lucifer]

[Sidebar cultural observation note: It seems there are a lot of younger folks these days who define "maturity" by the standards of video game, music, television and movie ratings. That is, the more offensive or obscene one is, the more mature. That is, of course, faulty reasoning and not the actual meaning of those ratings. It does, however, seem to be an unfortunate unintended consequence of said ratings.]

That hadn't even occurred to me. Good job on that one.

With respect to race/ethnicity in particular, we hear a lot from certain folks about "color blindness" and being "post-racial." (Steven Colbert even rightly satirises it.) That's not only unrealistic, it's undesirable. We should recognise others' differences, and how that informs who they are. That goes for any trait.

Whole-heartedly agree. Embracing diversity makes us stronger. Ignoring it is just as bad as the prejudices would otherwise be. I think that's one of the things that made this community so great in the first place, that we freely accept each other for who they are, so we grow stronger because of our differences.

I've made that same argument to a lot of people, back when I was working at the school. There are a lot of professors, especially in community colleges, that are immigrants from all over the world. While a student there, the nationalities of professors included Lebanese, Palistinian, Romanian, Indian (several), Greek, Nigerian, and that's just off the top of my head. I also know there was an Irish and a Russian professor, and still off the top of my head. And that's not even talking about students, which included Egyptian (interesting because of the recent events in Egypt). So naturally, being central texas, I heard a lot of white, anglo-saxon protestants complain about how hard it is to learn from "foreigners". Of course I made that argument a lot, I'm supposed to be in the so-called enlightened liberal city in Texas.

[TaZ]

Phytotron, do you think you act mature or more importantly do you think you act your age? This question also goes out to everyone on the forum as well.

[Mkay1]

I have matured greatly in online culture since my start on tron. I started when I was just barely 15. At that point, I had never experienced anything like this forums, or the game. I did not have a facebook, and really had never chatted with anyone in anonymity before.

I was lucky to have had my experiences in tron. Joining a serious team definitely helped. Really, when I started to get to know players and connect with them is when I started to think of this as real life. Playing late night fort with Desolate (around December 2010 for a while) advanced my maturity. It was one of my first steps to becoming more mature. We would normally meet 1on1, and I would attack him. We would help each other. Wildcat of unk was another I had the pleasure to get to know. At this point in time I was not as good as I am now, and I had a bad reputation (near one year ago). One of the things that was said against me by unk (in voting topic) was that I was a spammer. Wildcat and I connected. We started to talk about golf. I realized that these were more than random "anonymous" people. They were people I could connect with, and to have somebody care how I did. Wildcat made me mature the quickest by spending time with him. Throughout my tron career, I have had many people I was very close to who changed me for the better including: (most of unk and some plus) monk, nooblynoob, deso, corn, wildcat, oma, sine.wav, (dubs briefly) even phytotron (although not so close to). Garisimo was a huge help to me. I started fort about two weeks after I started tron, so I didn't know what to do, and I was always bitches at and kicked. Garisimo taught me what to do. The basics. I love you gari! When I was in plus, somebody was giving me shit for being a "noob" plus. At this moment, concord stepped up for me, telling them to screw off and that I was important. After this I felt wanted, even though what Concord said was probably not the truth. I learned a lot about maturity from concord. His blog is immaculate, not to mention his writing style very eloquent for somebody of his age. (Mark my words, he will be somebody important in the future).

The first few months with unk were rough. I had many confrontations with players in the team, during wars, and even left during a few matches in progress. It became much better, however, once I realized how to manage my decorum and not criticize for every mistake for I made just as many, we ran much more smoothly. As things started to smooth out, we started to improve, rapidly.

Another thing I noticed is there is often more drama in US servers, and US based population. I should keep my mouth shut during these cases. I certainly know I would not talk and get into a banter, in real life, unless they were my friends with whom it is just playful banter (although this has burned me once). This would make me seem less inclined to join in pointless arguments (I still need to work on that).

This might be my longest post. It is fitting that it would be about my development.

p.s. Sorry if I didn't include you in my list of influential. If you are so inclined, make a post and I will consider adding you.

[sinewav]

This might be my longest post. It is fitting that it would be about my development.

That's a great post relating personal growth to this particular game environment. I've often thought you in particular were a dramatic example of stunning behavioral change in an on-line gaming community. And every step of it was obvious, like a steep gradient. How did I describe you at first? "More annoying than a leaky faucet?" Heh, well I'm happy to say you've definitely earned a lot of respect from the players here in a very short time; enough that one of the better Fortress teams is perfectly comfortable with you calling the shots in game. And how long have you been playing? A year and a half? That's a great accomplishment. I can only imagine you'll make the same strides outside the game environment as well.