Chat Rooms
Created | Updated Jan 17, 2003
Chat rooms and forums seem to be taking over our lives. They've become such a prevalant part of day to day life that we've had to invent not only a time zone, but an entirely different way of keeping time. It's called "Internet Time" by Swatch, and it breaks the day up into 1000 equal portions, rougly equivalent to about 86 seconds I think. I mean, while Roman emperors managed to get the odd month named after them, they never really went in for messing with astrophysics for the most part. My guess is they tried the "repealing gravity" trick without much success and decided to kill christians for amusement instead.
In reality, I guess it's a good idea. It means that many people, who may or may not be who they say they are, can meet up with other people of similarly dubious identity, to share their thoughts on topics they may well know nothing about.
It all seems rather odd when every day we travel to work, surrounded by more people than we could ever keep track of in a chat room, yet we say nothing. Hop on a train and there are no animated conversations, no witty, flirty chat-ups, no charming intellects discussing the nature of the universe. Just silence and clacking of the tracks. Yet these people are *there*, you can veryify their identity by asking for a driver's license, and we say nothing.
That is, of course, until we get home, log into the Virtual Irish Pub, and probably wind up talking to all the people we were just travelling with.
Maybe tommorow you'll be sitting next to the guy you bared your soul to tonight.
Will you say anything?
In reality, I guess it's a good idea. It means that many people, who may or may not be who they say they are, can meet up with other people of similarly dubious identity, to share their thoughts on topics they may well know nothing about.
It all seems rather odd when every day we travel to work, surrounded by more people than we could ever keep track of in a chat room, yet we say nothing. Hop on a train and there are no animated conversations, no witty, flirty chat-ups, no charming intellects discussing the nature of the universe. Just silence and clacking of the tracks. Yet these people are *there*, you can veryify their identity by asking for a driver's license, and we say nothing.
That is, of course, until we get home, log into the Virtual Irish Pub, and probably wind up talking to all the people we were just travelling with.
Maybe tommorow you'll be sitting next to the guy you bared your soul to tonight.
Will you say anything?
