The Internet: Pondering a Faceless Community

Back when ARPA created the very beginnings of the internet, I wonder if they had any clue exactly what they were unleashing on the entire planet. What may have simply started out as a structure to share technical information between thick rimmed science-types has become quite possibly one of the biggest social phenomenons in human history. Never before has man had access to so much information and so many different people, places and opinions from the relative comfort of a computer desk. Email, FTP, The World Wide Web, Online forums, Peer to Peer File sharing programs, YouTube, Google, Wikipedia, and Blogging sites have helped change the entire nature of how we learn, experience and interact with each other. In as little as twenty years an entire generation has shifted form the television screen and radio to the computer monitor and Ipod. If you look at Time's person of the year...It's you.

And let's face it, your smack dab in the middle of it. The simple fact you are on this site, reading this article and possibly leaving comments and ratings on this piece attaches you to this weird amalgamation that has become the internet. The forums you visit and the connections you make over chat rooms, aim, etc all connect you to this growing entity of networks. But exactly how close can we become? Exactly how much of a community has the internet become, when you barely know the face across from you?

The internet has been coined by some the "faceless community" due it the immense amount of anonymity one can have online. Those who are more technically advanced can easily find information on a certain individual when needed and others proudly star in their own YouTube videos, but for the vast majority of users you are merely a name, one that for the most part isn't even yours! So how can people truly connect with each other in such a situation?

Many people communicate over these faceless communities in ways that they would never even consider in a normal social environment. The lack of a face and in some cases a lack of responsibility for the actions associated with that face allows a personality to experiment in ways that the normal individual would never consider. Those fearing ridicule for their beliefs and opinions can find solace in communities of like minded people, building their own self image to the point they can finally face the real world on their terms. The meek and sheepish can become aggressive in the extreme when they find an environment they can finally lash out into, developing into online bullies that rival their real life counterparts. Some even create entirely fictional personas for their own entertainment, but even these can give insight into the person behind the mask. The fake can't exist with out the original acting upon it; all it takes is pealing the onion to find the truths and falsehood behind those creations. Anonymity creates a fluid individual that can take on many forms, some even becoming any or all of these examples at any one time.

But how real is that individual? Can we truly weigh a person simply on their virtual identity? These online personas have allowed people from terrorists to criminals to have free range and access to others in ways unheard of before. Some of the comments you find on the internet make you wonder exactly how stupid humanity has become, but the results of this price have been immeasurable.

The world has started to shift form the few to the many. The gatekeepers of society have lost their teeth for better or worse. In mere hours a kid with a dream can become an over night phenomenon when he would usually be balked at by the elite of Hollywood. An observant person with a blog can break a news story that will take days for a normal news station to get their hands on. In a few hours, literally thousands of people can comment on that same article, giving you a more detailed view than any op/ed piece could even dream of approaching, an entire newspapers worth of information on a single item. These simple ideas become seeds that spread through the lives of millions, like ripples in a vast digital pool spreading from post to email to instant message. Even now we're still in the infancy of such concepts, with no clue exactly where these new paths will take us.

And ultimately that is how we connect in a land without faces. We connect with ideas, beliefs and thought. In a world where concepts reign supreme, the reality of the individual can almost become secondary as long as the idea is sound. The responsibility for the quality of that idea lies with you.

Think about that before you update your MySpace.