slimothy

People speak of online "spaces" but online does not have physical space in it and that is the problem.

It's like if all the conversations people ever had in public had to take place in a huge warehouse-sized room where everyone could hear and see everyone else at the exact same volume and with the exact same clarity no matter where they were standing.

Some people are seriously discussing political action. Some people are goofing off. Someone is panhandling, someone is venting to their friends about something awful that happened to them, someone is giving a speech about a topic that interests them, someone is crying about the pain in their life, someone is just thinking out loud to themselves, a bunch of people just want to watch movies or hang out with their friends. Someone is trying to sell some junk. A bunch of people are passing around newspapers.

And all of these people can hear and see each other perfectly so that they don't even know if they themselves or anyone else is in an intimate conversation with people who sympathize, if they're having a town hall meeting, if they're attending a lecture, if they are behind the podium giving a lecture, if they're hanging out at the bar with friends, if they're in their friend's car, or if they're just in a public park watching the clouds.

If someone who thinks they're in the movie group makes a comment about the movie, the people who think they're in the audience at the lecture hall will think the movie watcher is the lecturer behind the podium. So, they will turn to their friends and say "wow, get a load of that guy, they just said..." but the people who think they are at a town hall meeting will think "wow, this is clearly an important concern," but the person who thinks they are crying to their friends is like "Seriously? We're talking about a MOVIE when my life is falling apart?"