I never put much thought into the assumptions I make about the people I chat with online until this past weekend. I randomly entered a yahoo chat room and chatted with "BxLisaB2Fly4U". I began taking notes as soon as I started talking so that I would not forget any thoughts that ran through my head during our conversation. Right off the bat, the screen name started illustrating her in my head. I figured ok she’s from Bronx, NY and she is "fly". Figured she wouldn’t be a preppy school girl. I imagined someone with a little more attitude. I wrote "hey" to initiate the conversation and her reply was "hey watz g00d?!". That just kept feeding into my assumptions, she DEFINITELY was not a preppy school girl. She seemed like a gangster city girl with the city attitude. We started conversing and seeing as I lived in the Bronx before and was familiar with the area, I used that as a common ground to begin. From the area she told me she was from, I presumed she was of Hispanic background.
She typed with a lot of slang words such as "nah, hot fiyah, chillaxin, yo son," and that just kept feeding into my original assumptions. We liked the same type of music, reggaeton and her "spanglish" started coming out. Now I felt like I was talking to one of my cousins so several other characteristics were added onto the list. She had graduated high school two years ago and never went to college. She jumps around from one part time job to another. This lead me to think that she did not do well in school, wasn’t very educated and didn’t really have goals for herself. It didn’t seem like she was able to hold down a job, so I saw her as lazy and not much of a worker. Her name was Crystal (we had forgotten to do the whole name exchange) and it just so happened that her boyfriends’ name was the same as mine, Anthony.
We wrapped up the conversation because she had to "bounce to her mans crib". Afterwards I read over our conversation and looked at the things I had written down to see if I saw them the same way. I saw my impressions of Crystal were in line with the Hyperpersonal model. I was willing to make exaggerated and stereotypical impressions of her based on the minimal amount of information I knew. I assumed that because she did not go to college she was not a good student and uneducated. I didn’t bother to think that maybe she had personal issues that didn’t enable her to go to school. I let her way of speaking represent her whole manner, instead of thinking that she can switch into a professional phase when needed. I formed an initial impression from the start by her screen name and just kept finding things to support my impression. The over attribution processes came into play here when I made an intense, exaggerated impression based on few pieces of information. This exercise definitely served as realization of how we jump to conclusions about people and keep to our impressions no matter what else we learn about the person.
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I think your interaction with Crystal is very interesting because of several reasons. One main question that I had when reading this was why did was her screenname LisaB2Fly4U when her name is Crystal? To me that immediately starts setting off alarms. Is Lisa her best friend? Is she a lesbian? Is she actually a he? Also what do you think would have happened if she had expressed the same personality traits and interests but typed without the internet slang? Personally I would picture a drastically different person under those circumstances. It is hard to fake or hide and speaking tone/accent in Ftf communication, however, it is interesting to think that any person can consciously choose to type with internet slang or choose not to. I am curious about what kind of chatroom that you joined and what your screenname was. It would be interesting to see an analysis of your own internet persona and what kind of image you think you portrayed while talking to her.
It’s really interesting how after such a short conversation with a person, we can form such exaggerated impressions of them. How much can you really know about a person after such a short while and how truthful are the impressions we form? You did a really good job describing all the nuances of your interaction with Crystal and how the hyper-personal model played a major role in your perception of her. It would be really interesting to find out what Crystal is like in person and if she resembles anything like her on-line persona. After all, it all could be an act, and she could have selectively chosen to use ‘slang’ words to portray a certain image of herself and make people believe whatever she wants people to about her. It’s so fascinating how quick we are to judge people and make assumptions about them that may or may not be true.
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