Audio recordings as a tool for making internet extremism real
January 26, 2021 3:09 PM Subscribe
An innovative op-ed by Stuart A. Thompson for The New York Times embeds audio clips of QAnon supporters from a Discord(-like?) chat service to make their views palpable: “Three Weeks Inside A Pro-Trump QAnon Chat Room”: There’s a persistent belief that the online world is somehow not real. Extreme views are too easily dismissed if they’re on the internet. While people might say things online they would never do in person, all it takes is one person for digital conspiracies to take a deadly turn… Listening to the conspiracists — unfiltered and in their own voices — makes that digital conversation disturbingly real.
The audio is in contrast to the all-caps, exclamation-filled, over-hashtagged messages posted on Twitter and the like. There's not as much confidence or mania being expressed - a lot of "I think" and "I heard". But the underlying message is still a lot of magical thinking.
posted by meowzilla at 3:36 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by meowzilla at 3:36 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
This was probably linked to here over the past few days but it seems similar to this: What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol
posted by chavenet at 3:40 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 3:40 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
It's funny cause several times I've mused if social media was not heavily text-based but rather allowed/normalizes users to make voice comments, and if it would engender for a different conversational dynamic.
posted by polymodus at 4:16 PM on January 26, 2021
posted by polymodus at 4:16 PM on January 26, 2021
Top definition
irl
in real life
We are brothers irl.
I first saw this acronym pop up on IRC in the 90s. It's about context, you may be a plumber IRL, but virtually you're a dark elf. That's fun and fine, live your fantasy, right? Then I'd see a lot of catfishing going on, people who kept changing their story about who they were IRL, they couldn't keep their stories straight. They never can. The fantasy turns toxic and they start living a lie. They've constructed a new identity and assert it is real.
It was always easy to tell when people were full of shit, but not really worthwhile to call them out. Because they'd flip out, deny it all, double down, anything but just be honest. Honest about reality.
To tie this back to qanon, they call themselves digital warriors. I can see how that's an attractive persona to assume for someone whose IRL character is a little more boring. It sounds cool, not as cool as a dark elf, but there's an important distinction. No one says they're a dark elf IRL.
Regarding this article. I grew up in the same part of Australia as Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter. He has a very distinctive accent and I sound exactly like him. That's not what anyone imagines a dark elf sounds like. Voice chat came along and broke the illusion. I invite you to start reading this comment from the top, in the voice of Steve Irwin. See what I mean?
posted by adept256 at 4:41 PM on January 26, 2021 [15 favorites]
irl
in real life
We are brothers irl.
I first saw this acronym pop up on IRC in the 90s. It's about context, you may be a plumber IRL, but virtually you're a dark elf. That's fun and fine, live your fantasy, right? Then I'd see a lot of catfishing going on, people who kept changing their story about who they were IRL, they couldn't keep their stories straight. They never can. The fantasy turns toxic and they start living a lie. They've constructed a new identity and assert it is real.
It was always easy to tell when people were full of shit, but not really worthwhile to call them out. Because they'd flip out, deny it all, double down, anything but just be honest. Honest about reality.
To tie this back to qanon, they call themselves digital warriors. I can see how that's an attractive persona to assume for someone whose IRL character is a little more boring. It sounds cool, not as cool as a dark elf, but there's an important distinction. No one says they're a dark elf IRL.
Regarding this article. I grew up in the same part of Australia as Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter. He has a very distinctive accent and I sound exactly like him. That's not what anyone imagines a dark elf sounds like. Voice chat came along and broke the illusion. I invite you to start reading this comment from the top, in the voice of Steve Irwin. See what I mean?
posted by adept256 at 4:41 PM on January 26, 2021 [15 favorites]
It's funny cause several times I've mused if social media was not heavily text-based but rather allowed/normalizes users to make voice comments, and if it would engender for a different conversational dynamic.
Online voice chat in games demonstrates that no, it really wouldn't.
There’s a persistent belief that the online world is somehow not real.
It's "persistent" because it keeps getting reinforced by people who believe that the internet is a sort of magical fairyland that would be ruined by the idea that it's just another expression of the real world we live in. Look at the language used when we talk about someone showing their bigotry online - we get a chorus of "but their life should not be ruined because they said something online", as if being online absolved them from being a bigot.
When I've said in other threads "Barlow was wrong", this is the core of that - he helped popularize the concept of the internet as somehow divorced from the real world with his manifesto declaring the "independence" of the internet from the real world, and that banner has continued to be carried on. We need to push back, point out the inherent ridiculousness of the argument, and make the point that the internet is the world we live in.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:50 PM on January 26, 2021 [19 favorites]
Online voice chat in games demonstrates that no, it really wouldn't.
There’s a persistent belief that the online world is somehow not real.
It's "persistent" because it keeps getting reinforced by people who believe that the internet is a sort of magical fairyland that would be ruined by the idea that it's just another expression of the real world we live in. Look at the language used when we talk about someone showing their bigotry online - we get a chorus of "but their life should not be ruined because they said something online", as if being online absolved them from being a bigot.
When I've said in other threads "Barlow was wrong", this is the core of that - he helped popularize the concept of the internet as somehow divorced from the real world with his manifesto declaring the "independence" of the internet from the real world, and that banner has continued to be carried on. We need to push back, point out the inherent ridiculousness of the argument, and make the point that the internet is the world we live in.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:50 PM on January 26, 2021 [19 favorites]
It's funny cause several times I've mused if social media was not heavily text-based but rather allowed/normalizes users to make voice comments, and if it would engender for a different conversational dynamic.
Clubhouse Is Dangerously Close to Becoming Our New Internet Wasteland
It's apparently, well, dynamic: "In a recent holiday-themed “moan room,” where contestants simulate sex sounds for cash prizes, TDE rapper Reason happened into unawares, was immediately made a judge, and suddenly found himself scoring random women’s sexual purring on a scale of one to ten. Actor Lakeith Stanfield was an unexpected participant in a men’s room days prior."
posted by BungaDunga at 4:51 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
Clubhouse Is Dangerously Close to Becoming Our New Internet Wasteland
It's apparently, well, dynamic: "In a recent holiday-themed “moan room,” where contestants simulate sex sounds for cash prizes, TDE rapper Reason happened into unawares, was immediately made a judge, and suddenly found himself scoring random women’s sexual purring on a scale of one to ten. Actor Lakeith Stanfield was an unexpected participant in a men’s room days prior."
posted by BungaDunga at 4:51 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
That article posits that “Fear of missing out went digital in 2020”, and skimming the rest of it I am so, so very happy that hasn’t been the case for me. Gettin’ old, I guess, but I do not need moan rooms in my life.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:16 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 5:16 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
Gamer toxicity in competitive games is definitely a thing, but IIRC internet psychology also shows that text communication has a distancing effect being a factor in lack of empathy. Voice chat rooms are realtime, but recorded speech would be more like podcasting or leaving a pager message for others to click and hear, I.e. temporally decoupled unlike chat-based modalities. I don't think there's a forum or platform quite like that?
posted by polymodus at 5:20 PM on January 26, 2021
posted by polymodus at 5:20 PM on January 26, 2021
I promise this is not just me being snooty: most people aren't good writers, nor do we employ personal editors to hone what we have typed... and that makes a goddamn difference to how we read one another online. We would similarly remain "distanced" from audio recordings if they were not selected carefully and professionally edited down to just the core of their message, contextualized and sound-bited (sound-bitten?) for brevity, punch, and pithiness. We find it easy to ignore people raving on street corners, right?
posted by MiraK at 5:43 PM on January 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by MiraK at 5:43 PM on January 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
Regarding this article. I grew up in the same part of Australia as Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter. He has a very distinctive accent and I sound exactly like him. That's not what anyone imagines a dark elf sounds like.
But everyone knows dark elves come from Down Under.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:22 PM on January 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
But everyone knows dark elves come from Down Under.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:22 PM on January 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
It's not just chatrooms. Calls to violence are very much in the open.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:18 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:18 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
But they all look so... normal
Faces of the riot
posted by beesbees at 12:53 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Faces of the riot
posted by beesbees at 12:53 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
But they all look so... normal
Faces of the riot
My “DO NOT ATTEMPT YOUR OWN INVESTIGATION INTO ANYONE SHOWN ON THIS WEBSITE” banner has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my banner.
(I wish that was a good website, and it’s compelling, but I think it is a bad one.)
posted by Going To Maine at 10:10 AM on January 27, 2021
Faces of the riot
My “DO NOT ATTEMPT YOUR OWN INVESTIGATION INTO ANYONE SHOWN ON THIS WEBSITE” banner has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my banner.
(I wish that was a good website, and it’s compelling, but I think it is a bad one.)
posted by Going To Maine at 10:10 AM on January 27, 2021
.
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:12 PM on January 30, 2021
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:12 PM on January 30, 2021
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posted by Going To Maine at 3:18 PM on January 26, 2021