March 31, 2002

7:17 PM

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face: How refreshing it was to see the pictures of the MetaFilter members who recently met for drinks in Los Angeles![Scroll down] Stevis, chacal and y6y6y6 all posted photographs of the group on this thread. It seems to me we're all becoming less anonymous and less cagey about revealing personal information about ourselves. Including real names, zipcodes and even professional details. Phone numbers are quite freely exchanged. Some of us have even started swapping CDs through the mail.

If this impression is correct, I'd like to hear others' opinions on what's changed and what it means. People here seem much more nonchalant about the possibility of being tracked down and checked out - by employers, actual or potential, for instance. Are we relaxing more or is it something else - say, a consequence of harder times or a reappraisal of basic(old-fashioned?) Internet anonymity and multiple-identity ideologies?
posted by MiguelCardoso to MetaFilter-related at 7:17 PM (22 comments total)

i miss y6y6y6
posted by BlueTrain at 7:34 PM on March 31, 2002

Well, Miguel, it's kinda like this. My freinds IRL are a good buncha guys, and if I took a tumble they'd help me; but half the time when I talk about subjects that matter to me, they look at me like I've just crawled off a wall on Mars(this confilct may be the central reason for my "defense of the common man" stance on MeFi but that's a whole other story).
But on the 'Filter I know that no matter what I bring up, someone is gonna be interested in carrying on a conversation about it. Some mefite's, I consider freinds, at least in the cyber sense of the word.This is why I've posted a pic on my profile and why I love exchanging email with fellow mefite's. It's one of the few places where I've been taken seriously and where people have gotten what the hell I'm talking about. For that I feel I owe them something beyond the usual internet anonymity.So, if people are more open to revealing themselves, great. I just wish we had a secret handsahke to reveal ourselves on the street. I remember when kittyloop came into my place of employment, it was incredibly cool;like two members of a secret society meeting in public for the first time. We've got a crazy kind of bond here, all internal differences aside, and that's incredibly cool.

posted by jonmc at 7:38 PM on March 31, 2002

Online communities mature. I don't think there's anything more to it than that. As for names and zip codes and other details on our "about" pages, people have fallen into different camps on that issue since day one.

Although there was just a story last week somewhere about how Internet privacy violations have turned out not to be anywhere near as prevalent as everyone was expecting; maybe we are just getting used to it.
posted by aaron at 8:19 PM on March 31, 2002

Whoa, those people are much older than I'd have taken the MeFi audience to be.
posted by wackybrit at 8:28 PM on March 31, 2002

No girls.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:37 PM on March 31, 2002

There were distaff MeFite's at the first NYC MeFi meet, remember, Paris? And if the thread for the new one is any indication there'll be plenty of MeFemme's in attendance at the next one.
posted by jonmc at 8:45 PM on March 31, 2002

I was refering to the West Coast pics above.
posted by ParisParamus at 9:07 PM on March 31, 2002

crap... now i feel REALLY young, here.
posted by lotsofno at 9:08 PM on March 31, 2002

age ain't nothin' but a number, lotsofno
posted by jonmc at 9:10 PM on March 31, 2002

I think now that we've met each other and seen that, other than optamystic, we're not raving lunatics, we'll all feel more comfortable with the idea of bringing female adjuncts to the next gathering. At least, I feel that way.
posted by bingo at 9:58 PM on March 31, 2002

How ya like me now?
posted by y2karl at 12:35 AM on April 1, 2002

Adjuncts?! That's LA for ya, every meeting a boy's club where powerful men gather and women are ancillary.

Joking — I have no idea what LA's like. But in Brooklyn we met card-carrying MetaFiltresses mdn, goneill, palegirl, and captain obvious. And I won't say from whom exactly but the women supplied most of our raving lunacy!
posted by nicwolff at 9:27 AM on April 1, 2002

Y2karl is

gorgeous.

I miss palegirl's comments.
posted by iconomy at 9:38 AM on April 1, 2002

Thanks for sharing the LA photos! Y'all look like decent fellows-- a bit on the serious side, if anything. This gives me a bit more confidence about convening a MeFi gathering at some point myself.
posted by sheauga at 10:55 AM on April 1, 2002

other than optamystic, we're not raving lunatics

Jesus, ya throw up on a guy's shoes one time and ya never hear the end of it.
posted by Optamystic at 5:24 PM on April 1, 2002

good god, jonmc, don't scare me like that with your linking! i checked my referrer logs and I thought I'd been dragged into some MeTa scandal. and i didn't have time to tidy up the place, so excuse the mess, folks.

and i have to say it was great meeting jonmc - i'd love to try and get to the next NYC gathering, if there is such a thing. as a "bonus" I'll try to drag along the cantankerous Sportsfilter regular pastepotpete, if I can crowbar him off the sofa.
posted by kittyloop at 9:18 PM on April 1, 2002

kitty-check the meta thread the NYC meet is on kiddo..

posted by jonmc at 9:34 PM on April 1, 2002

d'oh! serves me right for not scrolling down the page.
posted by kittyloop at 10:06 PM on April 1, 2002

optamystic: The funny thing is, you didn't throw up on my shoes, but you were so wasted that I don't know if you think you did, or if you're only kidding.

Then again, maybe I'm the one who doesn't remember. My shoes are clean though.

I vaguely remember calling the bluff on some guy we met on the way to my car who threatened to kick my teeth in, and I got away with it...that is probably not something I would have attempted had I been remotely sober, so anything is possible. Did I imagine that, or did it happen? Not that you're a reliable compass in this case...
posted by bingo at 10:20 PM on April 1, 2002

Damn I wish I'd been there, now. Trans-Pacific flight notwithstanding...
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:32 AM on April 2, 2002

bingo: that was me what threatened to kick your teeth in; i was taking you up on your offer here (as promised). but you did more than just call my bluff — you made me fall in love with you. that five minutes in the alley was special for me; was it the same for you? please call me soon; i miss you so much!

jon: you are a dog.
posted by mlang at 6:40 AM on April 3, 2002

mlang: Um, thanks, I didn't see your acceptance of my offer until just now.

I know this will be a big disappointment to you, but you're not one of the people I wanted to fight. I like you. You watch Buffy and you're a friend of Bud Court. You experiment with 5htp and SSRIs. You thought Confederacy of Dunces was boring. I haven't been keeping a tally, but usually it seems like when we both post to a thread, we're not in disagreement.

You were baiting me for a while with stuff like this, but I didn't know why, and I still don't. Upon reading a lot more of your text, it even seems out of character for you. I must have inadvertently hit on, or seemed to hit on, some pet peeve of yours. Whatever it was, I wish that you'd been willing to discuss it directly. But after finding that by all other indications you seem pretty cool, I just shrugged it off. (Incidentally, if you ever do want to hash it out through an actual discussion that is intended to go somewhere, I'm game, but let's do it through email.)

Anyway, I've never played Quake. I can't afford to fly to New York, but if you want to come out here just to fight with me, I guess it would be rude for me to refuse. Still, maybe we should come up with something to fight about first.
posted by bingo at 10:45 AM on April 3, 2002