(Please don’t read this first! It’d be a real drag as the first segment)
Dear Wolfpac Players,
WWE hasn’t given me a lot to talk about recently so I’d like to respectfully challenge you again on the “internet fans” thing, as I think there’s a lot of self loathing in the internet wrestling community.
What Dave said was what literally every internet fan who believes in “the IWC” has said when challenged: “internet fan/IWC doesn’t mean fan on the internet/member of online wrestling community, it means a person who is a walking stereotype”. The problem is that nobody sees these stereotypcial elements in themselves, only in other people.
Consider this: I go on Twitter, I listen to Online Listening Experiences, I frequent message boards, everything – I have not met one single person who thinks THEY are a cynical, hipsterish, stereotypical, douchey internet wrestling fan. They do, however, think that these IWC douches are all around them. How can this be possible?
It’s not possible. The reality is we see hundreds of different individuals saying different things and we attribute it all to the same person: “the internet”, “the IWC”. If you got to know any individual fan, you’d find they have some typical views but many non typical views. Some people will have read tweets of mine and decided “he’s a typical IWC guy” because they haven’t seen everything else I’ve said, they’ve just read one 144 character complaint.
I think our brain is very bad at accurately perceiving other people – it knows it is unique and special yet it perceives other people as groups. How often do you hear “the IWC was complaining” or “the Christians/Muslims were complaining” rather than “20 people complained while the other 1,000 said nothing”? Nobody “complains about everything all the time” – we just see different individuals complaining and say “the internet fans hate everything!” because we don’t know who Brandon or Dave are, we just see “internet fans”.
Either we’re all internet fan/IWC stereotypes and we just don’t see it, or the stereotype is a product of the broad brush strokes with which we paint people we don’t know or understand – not realising that they too are stereotyping us.
From everybody’s fifth favourite Mark,
RiC David
Hey guys! Another roller coaster of a week in WWE!
1) What are your thoughts on the release of Justin Roberts and him being replaced by Eden (I don’t even know who that is)
2) This may be more for Brandon…what are your thoughts on the WWE 2K15 DLC? Is this game a “first day purchase” for you or are you still not convinced?
We Will Rock You…Well, he will.
(Please don’t read this first! It’d be a real drag as the first segment)
Dear Wolfpac Players,
WWE hasn’t given me a lot to talk about recently so I’d like to respectfully challenge you again on the “internet fans” thing, as I think there’s a lot of self loathing in the internet wrestling community.
What Dave said was what literally every internet fan who believes in “the IWC” has said when challenged: “internet fan/IWC doesn’t mean fan on the internet/member of online wrestling community, it means a person who is a walking stereotype”. The problem is that nobody sees these stereotypcial elements in themselves, only in other people.
Consider this: I go on Twitter, I listen to Online Listening Experiences, I frequent message boards, everything – I have not met one single person who thinks THEY are a cynical, hipsterish, stereotypical, douchey internet wrestling fan. They do, however, think that these IWC douches are all around them. How can this be possible?
It’s not possible. The reality is we see hundreds of different individuals saying different things and we attribute it all to the same person: “the internet”, “the IWC”. If you got to know any individual fan, you’d find they have some typical views but many non typical views. Some people will have read tweets of mine and decided “he’s a typical IWC guy” because they haven’t seen everything else I’ve said, they’ve just read one 144 character complaint.
I think our brain is very bad at accurately perceiving other people – it knows it is unique and special yet it perceives other people as groups. How often do you hear “the IWC was complaining” or “the Christians/Muslims were complaining” rather than “20 people complained while the other 1,000 said nothing”? Nobody “complains about everything all the time” – we just see different individuals complaining and say “the internet fans hate everything!” because we don’t know who Brandon or Dave are, we just see “internet fans”.
Either we’re all internet fan/IWC stereotypes and we just don’t see it, or the stereotype is a product of the broad brush strokes with which we paint people we don’t know or understand – not realising that they too are stereotyping us.
From everybody’s fifth favourite Mark,
RiC David
Hey guys! Another roller coaster of a week in WWE!
1) What are your thoughts on the release of Justin Roberts and him being replaced by Eden (I don’t even know who that is)
2) This may be more for Brandon…what are your thoughts on the WWE 2K15 DLC? Is this game a “first day purchase” for you or are you still not convinced?
Thanks!
@JLinnick on Twitter