Colonel Cancer posted:

The worst kind of parasocial relationship addled people are band fans and sport fans.

Daikloktos posted:

This is all also a linguistics-textbook example of Marxist reification, the symbol of the relation become the literally the relation-in-itself. That we've reached such a gaudy and infinitely meta point as "expressly, overtly commodified girl/friend simulator reifies in your culturally infected monkey brain as an actual girl/friend" only proves why they call his works "the immortal science". But as we can see from the past month, the symbolic relation frequently used for ironic purposes to joke about the community's relationship with Lowtax (deadbeat forums dad) overrode the increasingly severe and frequent signs of our actual material relationship with Richard Kyanka (deadbeat dad who owns the forums).

Lil Swamp Booger Baby posted:

The penis is composed of materials.

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Have you ever had a Parasocial relationship with a something awful forums poster?

Funky See Funky Do posted:

I'm too tired to properly articulate it but the way goons interact with Pick is a perfect example of a non-transactional parasocial relationship.

Funky See Funky Do posted:

I'm too tired to properly articulate it but the way goons interact with Pick is a perfect example of a non-transactional parasocial relationship. I post here but I don't really socialize here and from that sort of outside perspective a lot of people post at her in a very familiar kind of way but that familiarity seems to be completely one sided.

Grevling posted:

Some posters' posts are very good and even if I don't interact with them ever I notice if they're posting, read the posts and care about what they think. Maybe that's parasocial.

Still Dismal posted:

I only think they're really harmful when it comes to politics. A lot of extremely online people end up conflating loyalty to one internet clique or another with politics more generally, and I think that's frequently not a good thing. Otherwise I don't really care, let people have their online pseudo-friends. Especially right now.

dracky posted:

I mean, listening to some streamers or podcasts can cheer me up when I'm home working by myself, just to have some voices in the background like turning on the radio for a dog so he's not lonely when you're gone
I'll pay them to get extra content or requests or whatever, but I've never given a streamer any notice-me money

skooma512 posted:

If I listen to the same podcast a lot I do feel like, more empathetic towards the speakers and the feeling is kind of similar to friendships.

It's probably just hearing a voice frequently. It never goes to a weird place or anything for me.

Helen Skelter posted:

I used to date a camgirl. Of course, she got lots of money from weird guys asking for weird things (a guy paid her $400 to buy a cake and step in it barefoot in the Wal-Mart) but more often her big fishes were guys that wanted really normal things. I remember a guy that would pay $150 for a 10 minute phone call, nothing sexual, and she'd talk to him at least a couple times a week. Another guy would pay $5 a text message to chat with her 1 on 1 , again, not sexual. The guy just wanted someone in his life to swoon over his music career.

I don't remember where I was going with this...



edit:
In before "how much did you pay her? "

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

I don't think parasocial relationships are unhealthy per se, but they definitely can go badly, e.g. people who spend way too much money on twitch streamers and also stalkers.

Funky See Funky Do posted:

I guess it depends on what kind we're talking about. Someone on facebook or from SA or whatever that you talk to and maintain kind of a pen-pal relationship with are not inherently bad. Both parties get something out of it and it's a genuine interaction. I don't think it's a substitute for face to face relationships but it's not a bad thing.

On the other hand! I think the kind I'm mostly talking about in the OP, the transactional relationships people have with streamers or cam girls are inherently unhealthy and hosed up.

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Why do you feel so strongly about this topic? Do you know someone in an unhealthy parasocial relationship?

Raenir Salazar posted:

In QCS and elsewhere I've seen a number of threads and posts talking about accountability.

I think this is a bit of a funny concept to talk about, what is accountability?

How does one balance the needs of mods the ability to do their jobs, and being somewhat free to have some measure of privacy to confer amongst themselves, with the needs of the community to be reasonably informed about the decision making process of those decisions?

I don't personally have much stake in the game, this is mainly just my own idea that just popped into mind, I don't in particular think this suggestion is necessary but...

Maybe it could be fun or funny? In addition to maybe assuaging some concerns of some posters?

Here is my idea, there's a complicated version, and a simple version.

The simple version is having some small but not trivially so number of powers, elected in staggered terms. Lets say 12 posters. They get a subforum that's public, and a super secret subforum that's not public, the forums equivalent of a SCIF for anything sensitive that needs to be discussed.

This senate makes up its own rules as to what its order of the day and processes are, the important thing is the following:

-They but not the forums at large, either get access and can see the mod forum, or are to be given a "State of the Forums" by an appropriate Admin about things being discussed, and/or some sort of subpoena power where if a majority agrees that they wanna question Moderator/Admin XYZ, then Mod/Admin XYZ have to do a AMA in either the Senate forum or its SCIF (if sensitive content). And have to abide by and comply with orders to provide receipts relevant to the business of the day.


*The More Complicated version.

-Two Houses. 1 Senate, 1 House; the Senate is appointed or elected by Mods of respective subforums on staggered terms. DIY, Games, D&D, etc all get to send 2 Senators. The House is elected forum wide. Each Subforum maybe gets to determine how they pick Senators. This is to provide specific forum-contextual representation in addition to forums wide representation of the user base as a whole. Something like there's 2x, say 69 Represenatives more than the number of Senators, and enough senators for 2 per subforum (sub-subforums don't get representation, they are like territories).


Other than that everything is the same as above.


-Who would want to be a Rep/or Senator? Why would you do this?

Perhaps they could have perks. Such as a special gangtag or avatar to reflect their heightened status.

Other perks could be something like 1 get out of cat jail free card a month, free pm's, archives, and so on.



-Pros

The regular forum usership would have representation that have a higher degree of power to ask questions of the moderation team, and be able to see things "behind the scenes" to some degree.

Imagine just how fun it will be, for us, the common forums user, to see our duly elected forums reps devolve into the UK House of commons in slapfighting once they have the chance to, a new form of forums entertainment.

In addition that depending on how it is structured, could be a fun forums game underneath it.


-Cons

Probably a lot of work to set up. Coding and organizationally.

Probably a lot more forums acrimony. I.e imagine the reps from two different subforums at each others throats. This could be considered a pro, but also probably a con if we do expect this to be somehow constructive.

Could easily perhaps go from "being accountable" to "witchhunt but now with official powers" without a strong and motivated loyalist faction to play defence.


Another forum I've been to, Stardestroyer.net did something like this, and the forum's owner had to nuke it because of how dysfunctional it ended up being. So precedent would tilt this towards being possibly a bad idea, but on the other hand, are we not the greatest forums in the world that's ever been or ever will be? We could probably make it work.

Classon Ave. Robot posted:

So like do the mods want there to be a separate thread for the obviously bad MS-DOS probation rather than actually having the mod in question come answer for it in this one? That seems like kind of a waste of time for no real benefit but like we can make one if that's what is required.

Fluffdaddy posted:

Mods aren't required to come in here and answer for every sixer they give ok out. Qcs is not the demand to speak to the manager forum. If you have some feedback about a probe, reach out to the mod and the admins. If it is something more serious than a sixer make a specific thread about it. But again there is no requirement for the mod to come before the goon tribunal.

exmarx posted:

Ez8 posted:

Is this what the kids are calling "simping?"

Grevling posted:

Some posters' posts are very good and even if I don't interact with them ever I notice if they're posting, read the posts and care about what they think.

Chewbecca posted:

I'm best friends with everybody itt

Funky See Funky Do posted:

You know now that I think about it does seem to be almost exclusively a male thing. I watched a couple of documentaries about it and they interviewed bunches of guys talking about their experiences with it but not a single woman. As the viewer I mean, obviously a ton of streamers are women and a lot of the parasocial relationships are standing in for a lack of romantic connection.

doverhog posted:

Parasocial relationships where you watch someone talk on youtube are one thing, giving them money and begging for shout outs are another.

That said dunno if even the second one is wrong really, it's not harming anyone. I've considered throwing some money to certain youtubers, but it was always when I was too drunk to successfully sign up to patreon.

TheAardvark posted:

shawn and gus of psych are my friends and nothing you say will change that

Wizard Master posted:

Nick Stav and Adam are my friends

Armitag3 posted:

You can also pay people to play games with you these days, grandpa.

Funky See Funky Do posted:

I would disagree about the second part. I view it(at least the industry that has sprung up around it) as predatory and dysfunctional through and through. While of course there have always been obsessed fans who took it that step too far to where their imagined relationship with that celebrity filled in for a lack of real meaningful relationships in their lives they were always the outliers.
There haven't been multibillion dollar industries built around exploiting those people for profit until now. It's easy to feel when you donate to a streamer that it's a direct and personal interaction. It's easy because it's been very carefully and cynically designed to feel that way.
I don't think companies like Twitch created the social circumstances that lead to this epidemic of lonely, depressed, and isolated people seeking validation through paid online transactions but they sure as hell have an interest in maintaining them.

Riot Bimbo posted:

As far as the other side of it, it feels kinda exploitative? Like it's fundamentally uneven and I feel like it's a product of exploiting faults in our brain chemistry in a way that makes me real uneasy~

Funky See Funky Do posted:

It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. Especially with the drama here and some peoples extreme reaction to the possibility of this place closing down. It's easy to brush off these sorts of relationships as pathetic and sad but clearly there's a massive demand for it. We're all so isolated and these parasitic companies like twitch are making billions off it.

Real Mean Queen posted:

I do not believe in the whole alpha vs beta dichotomy, but I definitely remember there being a difference between the kids that agitated to get to play the nintendo and the kids who were content to sit and watch the nintendo be played. I find it very upsetting that there's an entire living to be made from the grown versions of the kids who want to see somebody play the nintendo and make friend sounds at them, and how they actually pay money for that experience.

Strumpie posted:

apart from that i pretend Pick and i have a long running friendship but we keep it private and i see the little in-jokes they make in their posts that everyone else misses.