I caught myself the other day referring to a blogger online, and was stumped as to what to call her.
An online friend?
Friend?
Blogger I know?
I settled for friend, but it got me thinking: do people think it’s really freaking weird that I can say that I have friends that I’ve never met in my life?
(Similar to people you have “met” online but don’t get along with. What do you call them? Enemies? People you don’t like? Person you’ve never met in real life but think you could definitely NOT get along with them?)
I don’t even know what’s considered “normal”, but when I first started using the Internet, I played an online RPG (role playing game) for about 3 years.
And I made some pretty good friends whom I managed to work out a lot of problems with and got help from.
So to me, it’s normal.
I’ve been doing it all my life.
You can say things to strangers you’d never tell your closest friends
Odd to say out loud (errr.. type?) but true.
I can blog about things I’ve never mentioned to my friends or family, and privately, I have email conversations with other bloggers and readers I’ve never met or seen a picture of, about real personal problems and doubts.
With that in mind, we basically act like we’ve known these online people for years, rather than treating them as strangers.
Generally, there is no money involved
Sure, we make a little advertising dough here and there (still waiting to hit $100 on Adsense, but who’s keeping count any more? :P), but it’s not enough to pay the bills and live off the income.
(Not that I’d want to. Don’t get me wrong. I love blogging but I love doing my real job more.)
Generally speaking, everyone on the web who does any of the following:
- write tutorials
- blog about their experiences
- write about tips
- warn people about review services and products
- support each other
- pass the word along about someone’s post/business/idea
…are doing it just to be helpful, or just for fun.
It’s also a little bit of a challenge, being able to find the answer, or the right product to match what people are looking for.
We’re doing all of this stuff, being generous, supportive, patient, and helpful for free.
No one is paying those awesome, independent IT blogs to write those screen shot tutorials on what to do in programs, or to solve problems.
No one is paying forum members to write back thoughtful responses and help each other out online, with their honest, raw opinions.
Faceless can be good sometimes.
For instance, has anyone visited Acne.org?
No? Just me? 😛
Well if you suffer from chronic skin problems, it’s pretty helpful to read about experiences, testimonials and just to get help.
In fact, I think just reading and browsing the posts and answers helped me figure out how to take better care of my skin and to stop overloading it with product, which had a huge impact on how great my skin is now.
We are connecting in a “disconnected” world
Just the other day, I went through something kind of difficult.
I didn’t call my best friend (it was too early in the morning), and to be frank I wasn’t sure she’d understand why I was so emotional.
In fact, I wasn’t sure if I could even talk to her without breaking down in tears.
So I wrote out a huge long email to an online friend, and got it off my chest.
It helped hold back the raw emotion and tears, because I was typing, rather than speaking.
Odd, right?
She immediately replied to my email and we had a good email discussion, which helped me put the issue to bed and get over what happened the night before.
The power in the kindness of someone I have never met or talked to, whom I now call a friend.
I know that I can just go on Twitter, or blog and find a range of answers to almost any question I can imagine.
It’s kind of amazing when you think about it.
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
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I agree that the friendships and connections are real, just like I think you can create a true bond through long distance online dating (not that I'd recommend it, but the feelings are real.) But, I do tend to refer to these friendships as "blog friends."
I think it is nice to have both. I love having "online" friends who aren't as emotionally attached to me and I love my "real world" friends, even though they (and myself) are very flawed.
Web2.0, baby!
I call the online contacts "friends" as well. Because it's people I resonate with, with whom I share my thoughts and who reply saying "I understand". Sometimes, as you said we don't talk to real life friends in the same way. The Internet has shed some of our inhibitions away.
I've met some amazingly supportive friends through my blogging. I can't wait to go to Vegas and meet some of them. I think it's good to be safe about it and to not overshare, but I can't imagine my life without my blogging friends.
I have met SO MANY wonderful people online! My (now IRL) best friend and I were trying to come up with something better to tell my family when she came to my wedding, etc than “we met 8 years ago on diaryland”. It just sounded lame to us.
My hubby works a lot at night so it’s fun to hop on the computer and chat with a fellow blogger. There are a lot of pf bloggers I consider close friends and would love to hang out with IRL!
.-= Mrs. Money´s last blog ..Advertising is Everywhere =-.
If I need to mention a blogger I know online, I'll just say, "a girl/guy I know" and not really elaborate unless it's necessary.
I definitely don't think it's weird to be friends with people online. Look at it this way – most people communicate with IRL friends through the internet now anyway – think Facebook, email, etc.
I used to have penpals too, so I don't think it's all that weird.
OMG, I used to peruse acne.org like a bitch, hoping to find the magical cure in my miserable teens. I found some help and eventually cleared up. And to be honest, it's always good to know there are others worse off than you. I tried some weird stuff – like the tape method to remove scars! Glad those days are beyond me…
It IS amazing, isn't it? This is why I was so bereft without internet the past few days, with not-so-good news updates and stuff. :}
It's funny that in some ways, we're more connected to our online friends – I suppose we don't take seeing each other for granted since our only contact is online. With real friends, there's this tendency to let the friendship drop by the wayside because you "can see them anytime" but you really don't!
Anyhow, y'already know how I feel about this. 🙂
That might be it. We don’t feel as guilty that we don’t see our online friends in person — we are always in touch with them throughout the whole day
With my offline friends, I rarely call or email them.. it’s more of a face to face thing that we have, and I feel guilty!!
I have a livejournal that originally started with me knowing only a few people who would read the posts. By participating in my school's online livejournal community, I ended up meeting a bunch of these people who I only knew from online, and a few of us became good friends (and still are today!).
I used to update daily, but that slowly changed as I got older, and it's now a "sometimes" outlet for posting something I wanted to share, or thoughts. With my posts locked to those on my "friend list", I would definitely consider these people to be friends.
In third year of university, a friend and I were going on a trip to the US and we stayed with the family of someone we regularly interacted with online. (Though she was a friend of a friend of a friend, [yes I know], so we felt safe enough – though told our parents she was in each others class)
I would definitely say that the people we interact with online can be real friends. Why do you have to see a person to be considered friends? If kids can have pen-pals and be friends, why can't we adults have online friends? It's just a quicker version of pen-pals, right? 😉
That’s a good point. I had a couple of penpals when I was a kid, so perhaps that’s why I am less weirded out about the idea of having met people online first.
BF is still difficult to pull around — he’s an old fashioned luddite 🙂
That too, does not weird me out — going to a city and meeting someone you have never met in person, and staying at their place
As long as my 10 minute radar vets them when I first shake their hands of course 😉
The family was great! But there was no way we were going to tell our parents that we were getting a plane to Florida and staying with a friend that we know from online.
Also, your mention of calling someone by the "tag" – it was so hard to use her real name around her mom when I'd known her as "clam" for a year!
LOL!! “Hey Clam..”
The VERY few who have met me IRL, still call me “FB” which I am okay with
I completely agree. It's like you are less likely to be judged by your faceless 'online friends', who are essentially your digital age penpals….
Less likely to be judged but more likely to get good, positive feedback
They can think and review their words before typing Enter, whereas in real life, you can’t take back words.. 🙂
When it’s typed, you can see how it sounds, just by reading it back to yourself.
lol on the adsense comment. i signed up in jan 2009 and i actually did finally hit $100 this month so i think i might see a check in feb 2010
Correction: I’ve had $100 before, but that was a whiiilllle back, so it’s as though it’s my fresh new $100 coming 🙂
Now days I think its pretty normal. Back when I started my first blog back in '97, well they weren't called blogs then, it was a bit awkward to talk about my some of my best friends from online that I'd never met before with my RL friends or family. In many cases I didnt even know their real names. Before the Internet took off imagine trying to explain to your parents that you are flying across the country for a week to stay with a family over spring break that you've never met before to build a downstairs room for the handicapped mother. More than half of my online friends from back then are now married to people they met online and thats how I met my current girlfriend also.
The good thing about online friends is they dont have to remain just words on a screen. If you're ever in the area you can meet up for lunch or dinner and once you get over the shock of them not being how you expected its like you're catching up with someone you've known for years. Its also nice to know you have an extensive network of friends around the country and around the world with open invitations of couches to stay on. That comes in handy on month long motorcycle trips 🙂
Its funny that a lot of my online friends have called me at one point or another for help with fixing their car or computer. Hi this is Carl, you know so and so from the photography forum. Oh HI!!
When I started online gaming, text based PRGs, 15 years or so ago when you had to type modem commands by hand to get "online" you were a weirdo computer nerd and bit of a social outcast if you had online friends, if I wasnt also really good at sports anyway. These days its pretty commonplace, even my mom has an extensive network of online friends through her dog breeders mailing lists and my grandmother has her network of online card game friends and my uncle has his MMORPG gaming guys. Theres not as much of a social stigma attached to having met online either, my girlfriend and I dont have to make up stories anymore when someone inevitably asks "how did you two meet?" LOL 🙂
I think it’s more of an issue for people who aren’t very connected online. Like BF. He doesn’t really go online, blog, read forums, participate in any online activity or has ever played an online RPG
So to him, the entire idea is foreign and scary.
For me, it’s just normal and acceptable if you are smart about it — who you are meeting, why, for what purpose and where.
The scariest can be flying across a country to meet someone you’ve never met, or to host someone you’ve never met (been there, done that)
I dont think that it is weird. In fact sometimes it is better to talk / type to someone that you dont really know rather than get dissed by someone you used to call a friend and besides most people are very understanding for the most part.
Which is the nice thing about being online. 90% of people have good intentions and good hearts most of the time 🙂
I’m part of an online forum and am closer to those women then irl friends. My husband calls them my imaginary friends, and the term has stuck. I’ve been known to say ‘Oh yeah! My imaginary friend Susan does that too!’ and people don’t really say much… maybe they are scared. ha ha If they do ask, then I explain…
I am too! I mean, closer to bloggers & twitter people than I am to some IRL friends..
🙂 I don’t call them imaginary, but I call them friends.. even by their handle online, rather than their real name LOL
Love this post. By the way, I think it’s totally normal.
I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot lately and feel as if you so eloquently put together so much of what I want to say. I never imagined when I starting blogging or twittering that I would find such amazing people. I feel like I’ve been exposed to this whole new world of people and things, that otherwise I would have never known about if it weren’t for these social networking arenas. I’ve come to rely so much on my twitter and blogger “friends” over the last few months, whether it’s for – fashion advice, dealing with frustration or difficult situation, sharing recipes, or learning about how to be more financially savvy. I think you pen pal comment is so valid, because I feel like I have all these ‘friends/penpals’ all across the world, and although I’ve never met any of them, I feel such a strong connection to all of them. I’ve learned and gained so much from establishing these relationships. Case in point, when I was considering who to hire to revamp my blog, as soon as I found out you could do it, I jumped at the opportunity to support a “friend”. I’m grateful for all the connections and relationships I’ve established through social networking and can’t wait to build more.
Thanks for the wonderful post, FB!
.-= Chelsa Bea´s last blog ..My Favorite Holiday Drinks – Vin Chaud =-.
And thank you for the wonderful comment back 🙂
Seriously, it makes a difference when you “know” the people online in terms of figuring out who and what to trust
We don’t have an interest in giving bad advice, because what we want is to just give an honest opinion
“Oh that isn’t so great. Try this instead.” and all that…
😀
I'm into it. And I know this type of interaction is becoming increasingly normal for our generation, but in my experience, I've become a little bit more socially retarded IRL than the norm. Just saying.
I agree – I feel very close to my online community. It's kind of like when I lived in the dorms during college – the best part was that there were 300 other people there I could talk to if life was getting rough.
Definitely normal, definitely "friends". I actually wish I had money to have a big round-up/meet-up with a few of my friends-I've-never-met. It's been the best part of blogging, hands down.
If only we could just meet a spot in the middle of North America, get free flights & lodging there and have a good ol’ meet up 🙂
as someone who's done ALOT of reflecting and analyzing about internet relationships and identities (on a personal and academic level – it was the basis of my Honours thesis), I have come to the conclusion that the process of befriending someone and creating an identity for yourself is essentially the same. Think about it. Deciding what you say, how you say it and what you wear to a party tonight is the same as deciding what text to type, what font to use, what display picture to put on your blog or windows chat window.
The biggest difference though is that with online communication, there can be a delay and as such people can spend more time crafting and tweaking their identities to exactly what they want and their heart's desire. Imagine someone who can edit and re-edit to their words are perfect and with a method of communication such as online, a certain amount of delay time is common. Whereas in real life, you can spend hours primping yourself but you can only delay in speech with someone for so long. And what comes out of your mouth… Well, yknow. Sometimes people aren't as eloquent and there's no 2nd chances to edit. And unfortunately, some people put their foot in their mouths.
Also, I've found that with a certain number of people find "keyboard confidence." Not being afraid of how they will be judged for their appearances, people tend to relax and "shine." On the flip side, due to anonymity, some people can be jerks. For example, some people posting on blogs being blatantly rude. I'm betting most people wouldn' behave that way in public in a crowd. The reason is there's no penalty for acting this way. They can say what they want anonymously (even if they do give a username – they're still that username – no one knows who they are in real life) and hence face no penalty. They can just turn off the computer and that's it.
so in a nutshell, yes – this new technology is introducing a new way of communicating. a new way of befriending. but the essential process is still the same. in the same vein, due to the method of communication, how one present oneself to others and act in real life can vary greatly from the one presented online.
Anyways, that's just my 2 cents…. Erm. Nickle.
AWESOME points!!
That was something I just thought about too in one of my other replies — that you can’t take back words, but you can edit and perfect your typing.
I also find that people online who act a certain way, can be VERY different in real life, good or bad. It’s difficult to get a range of emotions and the feel of someone when you are just reading their words.
I once had online friends when I was younger, and they were kind of quiet online, not typing or talking much, but in person they were firecrackers 🙂
I completely agree. I feel like other bloggers that I read, who read me or who I interact with on Twitter are just as much my friends as anyone I've met in school. In fact, bloggers are usually quicker to comment on a situation that some friends are to return phone calls. 😉 I think to our generation there's no question. It doesn't matter if we meet someone online, in class or at Starbucks because we're online SO MUCH that those people are just as real to us as anyone we meet face to face.
Hey – a certain blogger I know was a BIG inspiration to me over the past few days… ahem, that would be you! The face of the world is changing – in the streets we may be strangers, but in the digital world you can be friends with everyone! I think it’s awesome!
.-= L.L.´s last blog ..Big girl panties – the low cut bikini edition =-.
I saw that! *turns pink*
Thanks so much for the kind shout out.. 🙂 You can email me any time for help, you know that right? 🙂
I completely agree. The Internet was just “catching on” when I was in middle school, so I started in chat rooms and forums when I was really young. I’ve connected with people online in ways that I haven’t with people face-to-face because I find that people out in the “real world” (as those non-web friendly folks call it) are more guarded about their emotions and lives.
I’ve also sometimes felt like bloggers who I communicate with through Twitter or through blog comments are “friends” because they’re sharing my experiences with me. And they’re usually quicker to leave a comment or tweet back than some of my “real friends” are to return phone calls. 😉
.-= Red´s last blog ..Herbal remedies = expensive and disgusting? =-.