Sunday, May 14, 2006

Remote control persona

I thought a good name for what we create or pilot as we compose a Web post or speak into a telephone is a "remote control persona." A major attraction of the Web is that it lets us present a whole lot to others--including video, audio and text without limit--even while we censor. A Web post can be a a very conscious and very controlled display. It's vastly more under our control than how we act in the cafeteria at lunchtime. But potentially much richer than a letter and in many ways richer than the phone. So, as I suppose it's practically a cliche to observe, I think indeed that vanity and control are aspects of its appeal, and that it is inherently cowardly compared to face-to-face dialog, such as our species did more or less exclusively before hieroglyphics were invented . But who can blame us? Anyway, remote control persona: The wave of the present.

2 comments:

Stroll said...

What is this face-to-face contact of which you speak?

MT said...

Who me? I don't know who authored that post above.