Well, well, well class. We have found the crazy person over on Black Voices. And by we, I mean me...duh. Anyway, I came across a user named "blkgrapes2000." Let me say, she is a real downer. Blkgrapes2000 posts on an assortment of threads, and no one ever responds to a word she says. She posts long rants about things such as Nikes, racism, Mexico's border, and boycotting the Koch brothers (owners of Koch industries, right wing extremists...I did not know this off the top of my head, fear not.). Black Voices shows how many views each thread receives, even if there are no comments. All of Grapes' posts have some views but no responses, which makes me wonder why she would continue to post when she isn't really interacting with anyone. This leads me to ask the following questions:
-What are people actually getting out of message board discussions?
-Is it enough to just post despite not receiving a response?
- What makes someone's posts off-putting enough that no one wants to interact?
Grapes has over 26,000 posts on this site, and 5 followers. What is this possibly doing for her? I feel like she's sort of the community outcast. Sad. I'm really trying to figure out what having a space online for a minority group can do for those in the group, but Grapes kind of shows that the answer might be not much. We'll see. Until next time...
I think that people who actually interact back and forth with others on message board discussions obviously get more out of the experience than those who don't receive any responses or are ignored. Being able to socialize with others seems like it would create a more enjoyable experience for those who are using it. On the other hand, for someone who seems as crazy as Grapes, a message board like this might be a good outlet to let out some thoughts and ideas. Maybe sometimes being able to publish comments online is satisfactory for someone who may no be able to share their opinions in real life.
ReplyDeleteJana