The positive side of a presence online is that you are free to say and react any way you wish, to anything that anyone else out there said or did. A real Freedom of Speech thing. You can voice your opinions, encourage others, inform them of your day’s events, et cetera…..the negative side of a presence online is everyone else in the world can do the exact same thing I just mentioned. Everyone is now allowed (metaphorically) to scream “fire!” in the online theater of social media interaction. Online social commentary has no filter and few rules. The ‘Sticks and Stones’ to break your bones aren’t online, but those names to harm you are. Criticisms can kill you. It has literally happened. Documented cases of teens taking their lives because of the jabs they received from hateful online posts and messages. Neighborhood watch groups start with good intentions but too often grow into something Dystopian with vengeful repercussions if you happen to be on the wrong side of the political situation in your burg. Countries around the world harbor people that want to destroy the world’s happiness for their entertainment, and I stumbled onto a new gaggle of them in the Metaverse.
My recent purchase of a Meta Quest II headset had me excited to jump into the virtual wonders of the Metaverse. Games, programs where I can be expressive, exploration of places all over the world and beyond. A whole new line of social platforms now at my fingertips which led me to venture out to explore the world of virtual folks, just like myself. This is the Pioneering age of virtual reality for humans and it seemed a great place to explore. One of my initial procedures for venturing into the Meta World for social apps* (*applications: programs) is to create a virtual representation of myself; an avatar. Most apps have a pretty large selection of visual characteristics you can give your avatar and I used these to get something that looks similar to the real world me. I wasn’t going to catfish the virtual world, falsely represent myself as being, let’s say, a young Asian teen girl calling herself JODIE6XXX. My avatar has white hair and beard and resembles an older man. My Username I created is (was) DPAllee, a sig to help identify me to other old fucks like myself who know me, who are venturing into the Meta Verse. So I was all ready to jump into this new ‘Meta’ social world to bond with my Augmented Reality Brothers and Sisters.
The first social app I jumped into launched me into a room of 10 people and I actually jumped into a conversation everyone was having. The entire room had various avatars, different looks to their appearance, yet all visually represented as younger than myself. Being an old fuck, I couldn’t help opening my mouth and some point to give an opinion and found I was accepted and felt welcome in the gathering. At one point, some girl addressed me:
Girl: “Hey, guy hey you.” *points at me*
Me: “Me?”
Girl: “Yeah-hey, say this for me…..Shut up Donny, you’re way out of your league!”
It took a moment for me to recognize the line from the movie “The Big Lebowski” I wasn’t sure where this was going but I cautiously said the line for the room. The girl immediately points at me:
Girl: “I knew it! I know who that guy is….it’s John Goodman!”
And from that point on I was working to convince them that I was not the actor John Goodman and after directing them to some of my online animation and art, they began to accept me for who I said I was. My headset battery was running low so I left with an enjoyable experience that day.
A few days later I decided to jump into the Meta Verse again and chose a different social app to try. Now usually when you go into some virtual gathering place there is an initial start spot where your avatar lands on to begin.This initial landing spot always seems to be a clusterfuck of people from all over trying to jump in and re-orient themselves into the new area. I was getting myself oriented in the social room I chose when all of a sudden, I hear someone address me and tease me about my choice of online name for myself:
Dude: “DPAllee? Hey DPAllee, what’s the matter, didn’t have enough room to type your social security number too?”
Before I could chime in, another jab from this mixed crowd of young guys and girls sprang out.
Another Dude: “Hey man, how old are you anyway?”
I told them old enough not to want to listen to this shit and left the room immediately. This left me with little desire or hope for entering another social gathering place.
I find myself victim to Ageism, online and in the real world. This is one of the few acceptable groups of individuals everyone will taunt, and one of the groups that God willing, they will become a member of. That’s a weird thing to think about: knowing the prolonged and slowing building sorrow to suffer from aging is preferred to over Death. Our subconscious is determined to keep us alive, despite what mental and emotional challenges it brings up. They say we don’t talk enough about dying in this country, and they are right. Few prepare themselves for it, until it’s knocking at the door. Everyone has heard older people say how inside their body, they still feel like a kid or a teenager, that their mind, they are still a young kid. That is a perfect description of it. The mind tends to clink a bit as we age and falters here and there, but inside, we all still feel like kids….and when I get online and see younger people taunting people who are older, I don’t think they realize how much we still feel like kids and how vulnerable we feel. It’s horrible to have to suffer this twice in a lifetime. I was already bullied as a kid, why am I being bullied now? Am I the only one out there being bullied?
Why, you might think that this type behavior on someone might cause them to snap and grab a gun…not me though.
…but why are there so many shootings these days?
The Church of the Ass Bleeding Morons 