Thursday, January 08, 2004

• Anonymity...

  I visited the site of some guy who recently wrote a comment. He wrote about anonymity on Xanga and it got me thinking...

  Someone by the name of SAITO Ayaka once wrote an article/essay in the Asahi Newspaper about  living alone in Tokyo. My students know this cuz I make them read it for my advanced J-class. It was, at the time, a controversial piece because she exposed the thoughts and acts of young single women in Tokyo: They live in cheap apartments, they have guys supplement their lifestyle in exchange for "favors", and if money really became an issue there was always the "water trade", i.e. clubs, cabarets and other seedy joints to work at as a hostess. Ultimately, she concludes that men and women use each other for sex, and this is a kind of self-love: the partner is just another face in the city, and you are masterbating using the other person as your tool (for her, I guess that wold be a dildo...) 

  Anyway, I mention this because she states that this is possible because she is able to stay relatively anonymous in Tokyo, a great big place populated by millions of people, who know and yet don't know the person they see everyday because they blur and meld into the sea of other people... kinda like Xanga...

  Now, as narcissistic as Xanga can be, I'm not saying that I'm masterbating here, using your sites, your comments, your e-props as my dildo... uh, wait, bad example, but you know what I mean... But I think, Xanga is a place where people can pleasure themselves by freely expressing their thoughts and feelings with ease. Why? Cuz they can maintain a modicum of anonymity. Have you noticed or read the many sex related sites? There are a lot of people that talk about their sex lives, adventures, fantasies, histories; and virtually all of them are anonymous: no name, no photo, no location, no date of birth, no nothing. I used to read some of these and found some interesting, but ultimately they became boring. They were either rants or mere fantasies. Which is fine, but rants or fantasies are interesting only in context, the context provided by--at least in some measure--the identity of the writer. I mean, I don't need to look at you driver's license, but some background--occupation, approximate age, activities (besides sex)--allows the reader to make an investment in the "character". Without that, the stories become meaningless. Take Paiky for example. His stories are funny because I have come to know him, or rather his persona. I know where he's from (TX), how tall he is (over 6'), he tends bar (Orange), he's looking for a full-time job, his cousin (Ken), his siblings (he isn't on speaking terms with his younger sis). This is stuff he shared on his site. And while this information alone doesn't blatantly identify him, people who do know him would recognize him--his photo doesn't hurt either... Anyway, pure anonymity is fine for those who really need to get something off their chest, but personally I think it takes away from making the site interesting.

  Practicing what I preach: I usually talk about myself and many can figure out my persona, but if you need more, go to the JAJournal to get a better bead on who I am...

  • 1:49 PM
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