I recently braved yet another online chatroom for this week’s assignment. This week I ended up in an online chatroom for 30 year old singles. After answering the initial a/s/l question from everyone I revealed that I was a 32 year old male from upstate New York. Shortly thereafter I received a private message from a 30 year old woman also in New York and we began having a conversation.
I noticed right away that there were major changes that I need to make in my conversation to pull off passing for a 32 year old. However, although I made some changes I kept the topics somewhat familiar to me so that I could easily expand on them and answer any follow up questions; this way my real identify should be protected. For example, when I was asked what I do, I told her that I was an educational consultant; simply because my dad works for an educational consulting company and I’ve worked there over the summer so I could easily carry on a conversation about this kind of work. Also, when I learned that she recently got back from a trip to Seattle I told her that I was there over the summer for work; when I was really there on vacation, however my experience allowed me to carry on a conversation about the city.
Being in an essentially synchronous chat had some major implications on how I managed my identity as well through several of the self presentational tactics. Since I was trying to be someone older I knew that my attitude expressions needed to shift a bit. I couldn’t tell her that I liked the same type of music or even movies that I’m interested in because they would likely give away my age. I adapted my tastes a bit to reflect that of what I felt a 32 year old white male from upstate New York would like or be interested in, and as far as I could tell it passed as reality. My nonverbal behavior also changed a lot since I was acting as a 32 year old as I began to make sure all of my I’s were capitalized and I didn’t use “u” for “you” like I normally would in AIM to appear more mature and professional. I also rarely used emoticons when I was chatting. My social associations also greatly aided me in my deception. These associations mainly came through in our discussion about my job. I told her how I got the chance to travel around the country for my job and work with principals and teachers in schools across the country. It’s very unlikely that someone who is 20 years old would have these kinds of social associations.
Links to my comments:
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-3-whale-flip-flops.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-3-as-facebook-would-say-its.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
This post was rather interesting. I thought most people would decrease ages for the age shift, but apparently not! It worked out well, and it seems like you had a great conversation with the lady. It also seems like the conversation was led on differently too. From what I can get out of you post, it seems like the topics of interest were more sophisticated than one that would have taken place between teenagers.
The part where you said "I kept the topics somewhat familiar to me so that I could easily expand on them and answer any follow up questions", seems to have worked quite well for you. You were further able to convince your conversation partner that your experiences were genuine.
It seems like you stuck with the Self-presentation tactics more so than the multiple selves method. Thanks for the great post Mike!
I’ve acted older to pass for an older man but never for 10 years+ older so I’m sure this was an experience. I think you did a great job getting into character. The whole writing aspect of using complete words and no slang was a good touch. Separating yourself from your likes to appear older must have been difficult, especially because the conversation was synchronous so there isn't much time to ponder on the subject. It seems like this lady actually believed in you being a 32-year-old. The self-descriptions and attitude express definitely applied here. You described yourself in ways that created the impression you were trying to make and your attitude made certain attributes very realistic.
It looks like you put forth quite an effort to write your blog. Nice job! You did a great job of getting into character, but still sticking with what you know. I've never attempted an identity switch, not even for assignment #3, so I’m impressed with your efforts. I am not good at being deceptive and would feel quite embarrassed if I did not succeed in tricking my conversational partner. It would have been interesting to see more of your thoughts on how the person you spoke to responded to your act. Do you think the person had any idea you were deceiving her? Did you ever wonder if she was deceiving you as well? Just some interesting things to think about. Good job!
I didn't not realize before reading this blog how much preparation it would take to take on another identity. I feel that if I would have decided to do this option rather than the second option for this assignment, I probably would not have mentally prepared myself as well as you did, so I give you a lot of credit. The thing I found most interesting was the language you had to use. For example you said you could not type "u" for the word you. I think that this was a great example. When we get older and well into our thirties, I think it will be different. I will probably still use abbreviations online because that is what I have used since I was a boy. I don't think that I will all of a sudden change because I get older. Yet for a 32 year old now, I don't think computers were introduced early enough in their lives for them to have adopted most internet abbreviations. Therefore, I think you made a great decision to watch and make sure the language you used was appropriate for a 32 year old computer user today.
Post a Comment