#mod moonar

The blog with a poetic flowery username with a carefully constructed aesthetic, and the blog that managed to snag something brilliantly ridiculous for a username before anyone else, and mostly reblogs shitposts, can be both just as telling to what an individual values and thinks about.

We can intuit the aesthetic blog has an appreciation for art, and might be an artist themself. This aesthetic they’ve built actually matters to them, if you can sense a clear theme in what they reblog, and post about. If they credit their sources or not also says a lot…

The shitposter blog might value comedy, or maybe just honesty. Looking through the ridiculous, kinda funny, very human posts, and hitting reblog. Shitposts are just that, shit. They cary a sort of impulsive attractive crudeness that more thoughtful humor just can’t have. This is a user that values that… or maybe they think it’s just dumb.

You can intuit politics even, and morals. Is this a user who’s aesthetic consists of old controversial language, or reblogs of edited photos of riots in the streets with a vaguely meaningful quote below? Or a lack of anything political or controversial, doesn’t that also speak to who they are?

There’s so much we can guess and see at a glance, without even speaking to them. Although, these are judgements we also make in real life too. But in real life, the way others perceive you at a glance is significantly harder to change than it is online. How we portray ourselves online isn’t just a reflection of who we are, but of how we WANT to be seen. When you control the narrative, what do you become? Who are you now?

The glass house

While in real life, controlling and presenting only your side of your story in your personal drama and problems, and doing so VERY publicly… it’s distasteful, to say the least. But there’s an understanding that your online space is treated like something of a glass house. Sure, everyone can see right through it at every hour of the day… but it’s your house. It’s your right.

At the same time, this is a house you choose to live in. Does the difference between a post intended to state your opinion and create discussion, and a post about your “private” feelings, really matter? Is it really private when you chose to post it, for anyone on the internet to see, instead of talking about it with a friend, or writing it down for yourself?

This isn’t a condemnation, only a comment. But even with the glass house… we can simultaneously know hardly anything at all about a person. People can lie! People can also make multiple blogs, to contain and separate the difference facets of themself, and all of them are still only either a portrayal of the self, or the glass house, or both! And all of them are equally nebulous, and equally telling.

And all of this, every judgment and assumption you make, it all assumes that your perception is reality.

I think this and What Happens Next connect beautifully. WHN being told through this way, unable to certainly, 100% tell what’s the front and what’s the glass house… and the story being told from the perspective of different characters too! How are they perceiving this? Perceiving others?

This is a story about the aftermath of an incident that became and remained relatively popular in the eye of the internet. When hundreds of people are engaging with something like this, there are so many different perspectives, experiences, and reasonings we cannot even begin to fully grasp. WHN is a wonderful glance into the grand nuances of these things.

Would really love to know what other people think.