you mean like “freaky friday“?

Lauren: OK, OK, you’ve got me! I’ll do it. Actually, I was thinking about the whole “chain letter” nature of this yesterday while I was standing in the shower. I would like to see a diagram, like a family tree, of who tagged who and what they led to. I think it would be an enormous job, and the diagram would be huge. Each site tagging 5 others, each of these tagging five in turn etc. Holy Exponential Growth, Batman! How would you even represent that graphically? It would begin to look like an enormous crystalline molecular map.

and you don’t get any of that quirky stuff in real life either. well, except porn of course. in fact, we generally shy away from that really lame stuff in real life and perhaps we all get a bit too cool for school.

i’m just sayin’…

Noticing that you’re ears pricked up too, I did some snipping from everyone’s comments:

“But wasn’t part of the motivation for the decision that you are not really in the emotional centre of your lived world?”

“validation from my social network”

“draws out feelings from within people. I’m interested in those feelings, I want to be a part of that discussion.”

“as an online persona, you are as real and present in people lives as the person sitting next to you..”

“wouldn’t it be plausible to compare your departure from a ‘contactable form’ to an overseas departure.. to an isolated island”

“For us, you having internet means little snippets of what’s going on with you. Do you REALLY think you will ring and send postcards?”

“it has created a whole lot of opportunities for staying in touch that were never there before.”

“We’re gonna have to make more time for face-to-face socialising. Which, if I can be honest, has actually been a bit of a lack in our friendship in the last few years. Which is a shame. You know, the old Sydney phenomenon: “we don’t have time to meet up, let’s just form an e-group”

PS….
Teddlesruss, I second Lucas’ question to you and add that the link under your name (where you commented) does not lead anyhere - so how do we find your blog?

But, with all the spare time I will have away from this infernal screen (and my compulsive desire to communicate) I am sure that there will be an obsessive postcard sending equivalent in the place of emails. And I don’t mind the idea of coming back to Perth for a while. Why not?

Diego, I’ll miss you too! We’re gonna have to make more time for face-to-face socialising. Which, if I can be honest, has actually been a bit of a lack in our friendship in the last few years. Which is a shame. You know, the old Sydney phenomenon: “we don’t have time to meet up, let’s just form an e-group”…

AnnaP, it’s funny how you describe those “old” ways as “analogue”. They are now defined in relation to the “norm” ie digital. Before, we never called them analogue. We never used the term “landline” before mobiles came along. etc etc. But yes, let’s do Post Office Box! What fun.

Lauren, I dunno about perpetuating this meme. I will think about it… It seems pretty daggy. But maybe that’s why I should do it…

Teddlesruss, what kind of cross-media projects are you thinking of?

For us, you having internet means little snippets of what’s going on with you. Do you REALLY think you will ring and send postcards? Maybe. You didn’t much before you got internet … (and neither did we, but we like the emails now!!)

P & J would be disappointed. Photos will not get sent because I never get round to printing them.

So, I’ve decided it will work for us if you move back to Perth for that year!

Maybe you could invest in a parental control thing (give Lizzie the password control if you’re really weak) and only set it to allow you 10 mins of internet time each day before you’re cut off.

uhmm

The synchronicity with Dilbert is interesting - I worked at a software house for a few years here in Perth and for one year at least, it felt like Scott was drawing his inspirations direct from our workplace as incidents happened. (Yes, sadly it was a place like that… %)