A Greater Impact
"I have something to say to ♥Tim.♥ You're such a great guy and you're so funny and nice. I really really like you, Tim. I want to say who I am, but I'm sort of afraid to. I guess you already knew that someone liked you from that Claire thing on Sam's blog. (I'm the anonymous person who was freaking out. sorry about that, too.)
I bet you're wondering who I am. Well, I'm someone you see every day. I bet you would be shocked if you found out who I am. Well, I'll see you tomarrow, even though you won't know who I am. Oh, and I'll read all comments on this post.
Happy Valentine's day. ♥"
This was written a year ago today. It was put on the guest blog at 5:44 PM on February 13th, 2006. The full text can be read here.
I'd like to take this time to point out that almost no one remembers this post, and, when the author read it, she asked when it was written.
My point is that this is probably one of the most meaningful anonymous posts ever made, and no one remembers it.
Another important comment was the one referenced in this post, left by a stranger named Claire, and it was a comment on Tim's post "Run and Hide".
Claire's comment was extremely memorable.
No one remembers it.
Comments, in themselves, are highly forgettable, probably because most of them are unimportant ramblings, and it's very easy to assume that all of them are. Even the most vicious comments are rarely remembered, with the exception of a rare few.
I am not going to deal with how memorable comments are, because it will accomplish nothing to say that there are quite a lot of them and that you will never remember any of them because, frankly, you already know that.
The important thing about comments are the impact they make when they are current. Past comments, like old fads from the sixties, have very little impact on what we do in the present. Comments that are relatively recent however, may have an impact.
I doubt VOA ever took the time to really define impact. He liked the word to the point of an obsession, but I doubt he went as far as to really know what it means.
Impact in regards to a comment is the ability it has to make people think differently due to it, or, on a larger scale, act on it.
The comment that probably had the most impact was one I left on Tim's blog on December 25, which has since been deleted. Most of you will probably recall the comment in question. It was not posted anonymously, and if it had been, probably would have not received as much attention, mainly because it's easier to be mad at a faceless evil than a someone you know. This comment would have had nearly no meaning if it had been left anonymously, because the only thing that mattered about that comment was who posted it.
There is only one type of comment that has a greater impact when it is posted anonymously, and this comment is so meaningless it is hardly worth mentioning it in the first place. For the sake of the Valentine's Day quote I began this post with, though, I will mention it.
This comment is the one that draws attention to its anonymity, and within this category there are two types of comments.
First, there are the shrill, pointless kind that do nothing else but draw attention to their anonymity. These comments were, at one point, so numerous it was disgusting, but since the disappearance of VOA, these comments have faded (why? read the answer here). An example of this type of comment would be something like this:
ROB RHET said...
Anagrams Are Run! Figure Mine Out, I Dare You!
This Picture Is Disgusting. Hillarious, But Disgsting.
The other category of this type of comment would be the one that draws attention to its anonymity THROUGH its meaning, and it is this type of comment that is exemplified by the Valentine's day post that I quoted. Though this post would have been very exciting if we had known who posted it, it is more exciting when we don't. We know someone likes Tim, but the answer is just beyond our reach.
Another example would be a shady character known as "trojan" who existed for about two or three weeks before disappearing. There were several guesses as to who she was, but she never did anything but profess her love for spartan, and was therefore never caught.
Members of this category are few and far between, because the majority of comments with any real meaning are posted by someone.
Besides the category of anonymous commenters that draws attention to their anonymity, most comments that are left anoymously have no more impact than if they were signed. Some, in fact, have less. The vicious ones, for instance. No one really cares if an anonymous commenter bashes them, because there isn't anyone to get mad at. If it turns out, though, that it was your friend doing the bashing, you may go as far as to act upon it, and, as I mentioned previously, this means it has an impact.
So where does VOA fit into all this?
In a correspondence, I asked him to justify his anonymity, and he told me this:
"For my job, anonymity is a necessity. It prevents others from getting to me, and gives me a greater impact on the comment board."
We all know that his hypocritical nature is clear from the first part of the second sentence, but I've addressed that already. It's the second part that interests me.
Is his impact really greater, as he claims? Would we act differently towards him if he was not anonymous?
The answer to the second question is, of course, yes. We would treat the actual person differently, respecting his uncanny ability to figure out the identity of anonymous commenters, but, at the height of the VOA craze, we regarded him as almost a god. Would we have been as fascinated with him if he were merely a man?
We would have respected him a great deal, but we would not have been his cult members for that short time that we were. VOA has also claimed that his anonymity gives him greater credibility, and it probably did for a short time. But now, the craze is over. VOA's credibility is gone, we've seen his faults, we realize he is just a man, masquerading as something more.
We realize the masquerade is not cool, as we once thought, but childish. He is a little boy who learned a card trick and is showing it to anyone and everyone who will listen. At first the sleight of hand amazed us, but it grows boring now.
VOA had a great impact because of his anonymity at first, but now we grow tired of him. We have no face to attribute the talent to, and therefore there is little to remember. If he had really wanted a "greater", lasting impact, he should have revealed his identity from the start. Maybe if he had, he would not merely be a memory now. A memory of how foolish we were in the past to idolize such an unimportant figure.
Your impact, my friend, is no more.
I bet you're wondering who I am. Well, I'm someone you see every day. I bet you would be shocked if you found out who I am. Well, I'll see you tomarrow, even though you won't know who I am. Oh, and I'll read all comments on this post.
Happy Valentine's day. ♥"
This was written a year ago today. It was put on the guest blog at 5:44 PM on February 13th, 2006. The full text can be read here.
I'd like to take this time to point out that almost no one remembers this post, and, when the author read it, she asked when it was written.
My point is that this is probably one of the most meaningful anonymous posts ever made, and no one remembers it.
Another important comment was the one referenced in this post, left by a stranger named Claire, and it was a comment on Tim's post "Run and Hide".
Claire's comment was extremely memorable.
No one remembers it.
Comments, in themselves, are highly forgettable, probably because most of them are unimportant ramblings, and it's very easy to assume that all of them are. Even the most vicious comments are rarely remembered, with the exception of a rare few.
I am not going to deal with how memorable comments are, because it will accomplish nothing to say that there are quite a lot of them and that you will never remember any of them because, frankly, you already know that.
The important thing about comments are the impact they make when they are current. Past comments, like old fads from the sixties, have very little impact on what we do in the present. Comments that are relatively recent however, may have an impact.
I doubt VOA ever took the time to really define impact. He liked the word to the point of an obsession, but I doubt he went as far as to really know what it means.
Impact in regards to a comment is the ability it has to make people think differently due to it, or, on a larger scale, act on it.
The comment that probably had the most impact was one I left on Tim's blog on December 25, which has since been deleted. Most of you will probably recall the comment in question. It was not posted anonymously, and if it had been, probably would have not received as much attention, mainly because it's easier to be mad at a faceless evil than a someone you know. This comment would have had nearly no meaning if it had been left anonymously, because the only thing that mattered about that comment was who posted it.
There is only one type of comment that has a greater impact when it is posted anonymously, and this comment is so meaningless it is hardly worth mentioning it in the first place. For the sake of the Valentine's Day quote I began this post with, though, I will mention it.
This comment is the one that draws attention to its anonymity, and within this category there are two types of comments.
First, there are the shrill, pointless kind that do nothing else but draw attention to their anonymity. These comments were, at one point, so numerous it was disgusting, but since the disappearance of VOA, these comments have faded (why? read the answer here). An example of this type of comment would be something like this:
Anagrams Are Run! Figure Mine Out, I Dare You!
This Picture Is Disgusting. Hillarious, But Disgsting.
The other category of this type of comment would be the one that draws attention to its anonymity THROUGH its meaning, and it is this type of comment that is exemplified by the Valentine's day post that I quoted. Though this post would have been very exciting if we had known who posted it, it is more exciting when we don't. We know someone likes Tim, but the answer is just beyond our reach.
Another example would be a shady character known as "trojan" who existed for about two or three weeks before disappearing. There were several guesses as to who she was, but she never did anything but profess her love for spartan, and was therefore never caught.
Members of this category are few and far between, because the majority of comments with any real meaning are posted by someone.
Besides the category of anonymous commenters that draws attention to their anonymity, most comments that are left anoymously have no more impact than if they were signed. Some, in fact, have less. The vicious ones, for instance. No one really cares if an anonymous commenter bashes them, because there isn't anyone to get mad at. If it turns out, though, that it was your friend doing the bashing, you may go as far as to act upon it, and, as I mentioned previously, this means it has an impact.
So where does VOA fit into all this?
In a correspondence, I asked him to justify his anonymity, and he told me this:
"For my job, anonymity is a necessity. It prevents others from getting to me, and gives me a greater impact on the comment board."
We all know that his hypocritical nature is clear from the first part of the second sentence, but I've addressed that already. It's the second part that interests me.
Is his impact really greater, as he claims? Would we act differently towards him if he was not anonymous?
The answer to the second question is, of course, yes. We would treat the actual person differently, respecting his uncanny ability to figure out the identity of anonymous commenters, but, at the height of the VOA craze, we regarded him as almost a god. Would we have been as fascinated with him if he were merely a man?
We would have respected him a great deal, but we would not have been his cult members for that short time that we were. VOA has also claimed that his anonymity gives him greater credibility, and it probably did for a short time. But now, the craze is over. VOA's credibility is gone, we've seen his faults, we realize he is just a man, masquerading as something more.
We realize the masquerade is not cool, as we once thought, but childish. He is a little boy who learned a card trick and is showing it to anyone and everyone who will listen. At first the sleight of hand amazed us, but it grows boring now.
VOA had a great impact because of his anonymity at first, but now we grow tired of him. We have no face to attribute the talent to, and therefore there is little to remember. If he had really wanted a "greater", lasting impact, he should have revealed his identity from the start. Maybe if he had, he would not merely be a memory now. A memory of how foolish we were in the past to idolize such an unimportant figure.
Your impact, my friend, is no more.
posted by Sam Austin at 5:24 PM
2 Comments:
sam?
let it go.
I've said it before: VOA wasn't correct that often. Everyone just made a big deal out of the ones he guessed correctly, while his other (incorrect) guesses were left unanswered. Also, guessing identities is almost like taking a multiple choice test with every answer but 2 or 3 crossed out. Wouldn't you try to guess too if the odds were that high?
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