The Profile is the Message in the Medium

Ewwwwwwwwwww! ;P



Yeah, that there are a lot of mind-BLEEPers in SL, unfortunately.

Yes, well, you are not doing a very good job at it are you? And your sentence is a little skewed.

Are you claiming success at "not wanting" to be pompous etc. OR are you stating you ARE pompous?

I think it's something to do with your modifiers.
I'm gonna assume you are pompous.

Reference the tombs of the Pharoahs.

It's not so modern. We're just putting old wine into new bottle as humans and painting ourselves pretty. The Victorians had a thing about photographs and portraits - their "cartes des visite" were thier equivalent of profiles. In the 18th C, people displayed their wealth on their backs amd on their faces. In tribal groups, men flaunt their masculinity and young women can be provocative to a shocking degree to western eyes to gain a mate.

We write autobiographies, we get interviewed for TV and radio. Some people have a lifetime of fame, some people have 15 minutes. We declare ourselves to all around us and we present our personas to the world at large.

To be seen and not to be ignored is everyone's wish - or should be in my humble opinion.

Can I use those "w"s towards my total still owing???


Yep. I am still convinced that there is a gender divide here: it's a HUGE generalization, but I think more of the mind-BLEEPers, at least in the context of relationships, are male. That's not to suggest that women aren't guilty of screwing up relationships, being bitches, etc.; just that, on the whole, they are screw-ups in a different way.

Actually, this is where the immersionist/augmentationist dichotomy that Brenda (I think) suggested breaks down a bit, because I think that men and women are typically both of those things in different ways.

This is what happens when Jig channels Pep.

Kind of scary, isn't it?

Personally,I rather be ignored mostly. Though that could stem from having a huge chest at 13 years old and boys and even men paid way too much unwanted attention to me. So now I tend to hide in the shadows.



/me calls therapist now.

A Profile is like a business card. You can get a senses of the image the person wants to project to others, but you'll get no sense of the real person.

I talk to people I want to know more about. Try it, you'll like it.

My God, Scylla, I've just woken up. Don't use long words like that until I've done my daily newspaper crossword and drank two cups of cappachino!

And dont take the limelight off what I just posted above - lol! Muttering as she stumbles to the kitchen: "immersionist augmentaationist dichotomy ... what the fu&k is she on about now ...?"

This is your brain:



And this is your brain on Pep:

Put that in your profile and smoke it! As my Grandmother might declare! And I did some pretty decent comments just above this and Scylla then shoved some pics in. Dp you have a degree or something, Scylla? You sound very clever.

Ohh pffft!

It's all about posting strategically, Jig!

The trouble is, there is so little room in a profile. With TwitFace and what have you, there is room to present lots of aspects of yourself (if that's the sort of thing you like to do) whereas I always feel that whatever I put in my SL profile can only ever present a tiny fragment of who I am and will therefore be very skewed.

In my first week inworld I spent about two hours trying to compose something short and representative of who I am, without success. In the end, I just borrowed the Adams quote, "Mostly Harmless" and that's how it has stayed ever since. My picks and groups probably say more about me, as I think is the case with most profiles.

I don't often browse other people's profiles. I suspect most of us don't really have enough self-awareness to present ourselves accurately in any case.

Absolutely not!!



Well that's interesting... You gotta take into consideration that you are probably not the target of mind-BLEEPing females, though. I would have said that most of the mind-BLEEPers are female, at least in my experience; but then I thought harder about it and a good percentage of those are men pretending to be women. So I concede.

Lol, I hadn't read that. But I always read a profile. It's what I am doing when a person is talking to me in sl. They are chatting me up and I am poring over their profile. If there isn't anything there I usually assume the person is either incapable of fulfilling the opportunity to write a paragraph on their reason / desire / personality IN sl and OUT of sl.
OR has something to hide like zits or a hare-lip. Or else they are a secret agent.

But the silent kind of person - I imagine - is usually the type in real who never says a word when you talk to them but smiles at you in a kinda "keep digging your own hole, you inane and sillygirl" kinda way. I often meet them. At a party or a dinner. The have that "I'm better than you because I don't use my vocal chords to express who or what I am. I have a brain and you must unlock it".

They usually wander off after a while to speak to some equally intensely vapid chick like themselves. That's what happens when I see a blank profile. Or the person takes ten minutes to answer my IM. Then if they do that I use CAPITAL letters. Really.

I will concede that this is probably true. But I would still hypothesize that the KIND of mind-BLEEPING will, typically, be different from male to female.

I think . . . and yes, this is an AWFUL generalization . . . that women are more interested in emotional connection and somewhat longer-term attachments, whereas men are interested in . . . well, we all KNOW what men are interested, right?

/me hurriedly ducks lest a firestorm ensue.

Profiles are good.

I do not consider them a substitute for conversation and getting to know one.

But they definitely can be a conversation started (as my profile often is), and they also sometimes give you extra tips about a person. One guy started this Gorean preaching to me, and I asked him if he read my profile, he responded he had not, and then after a minute, sent me an IM apologizing for the lameness he was saying to me.

I like surfing profiles, even if they only have actual locations in the picks instead of random bits of info about the person or their SLife.

What i do not get is why no one ever uses the 1st Life tab...

I hardly ever look at profiles and I have no idea off the top of my head what I put in mine.

Which occasionally has lead to some odd conversations when someone walks up with a total non-sequitur related to my profile.

Someone above (Darien? I'm too lazy to check) suggested that profiles are like business cards. In the sense that any info that we present about ourselves is part of how we present ourselves to others, I think this is true. But I suspect that profiles are more important as NEGATIVE influences. Maybe this is just me, but I am much more struck by something in a profile that I DON'T like, than by the things that I do.

Somebody put it really well in a thread that I believe was deleted...unfortunately I cannot remember who said it... That the mind-BLEEPERS like to nurture relationships like tender flowers only so they can get LOLz from smooshing them all up or walking away. I think that is the basic premise for mind-BLEEPers of either gender.

(OK Yeah it's true guys want sex; I really really want sex But ultimately I am looking for one girl to love, understand and sex me like nobody's business and vice versa )

Really insightful. But I agree. In my Ist life profile I list what I hate in real and its all true. In fact my entire profile is true. So in that sense our profile is our shield in sl rather than our banner.

I am sure this is true for the most part. (I try to include things that will negatively influence the kinda people I don't want to talk to anyway )

But I will always IM someone whose profile I happened to read if it is extremely clever, sweet, profound or otherwise touching in some way.

Pretty good. This is actually a question I'd like to explore further one day. Seriously.

That's probably a more sensible attitude.

I think, Jig, some people DO use the profile as a shield? But most, I suspect, aren't that clever.

I know you wanna make a thread about it

Yeah . . . but not today. Today it is beautiful outside, and I need to go for a bike ride!

YAY!!!!