I Am Not Your Manic Pixel Dream Girl

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

ke concert programs put on empty seats to keep me from sitting on the chair their idea will occupy any minute now.

Is this like sitting in someone else’s pew?

[Rolig Loon]

24 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

You do not want to pause mid-sentence to find the right word, because I'm itching to insert the wrong one. I've wondered if all the "ums" and "ahs" people say are like concert programs put on empty seats to keep me from sitting on the chair their idea will occupy any minute now.

That's me, Maddy.  It's one of the conversational features that convinced me a long time ago that you and I were separated at birth (and, miraculously by a couple of decades).  I love a good pun (or a bad one) and will rarely pass up a chance to wield one.  A sly distraction is a delight to see, even if I created it myself.  The group I hang out with in world are mostly librarians or library wannabes, so they are widely read and have what my mother used to call "minds like cross-index file cards."  We can volley for hours without tiring, slipping malapropisms, mangled references, and double entendres into conversation with quiet glee.

[Love Zhaoying]

16 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

The group I hang out with in world are mostly librarians or library wannabes, so they are widely read and have what my mother used to call "minds like cross-index file cards."

Check out http://awfullibrarybooks.net/ , which is run by librarians. I used to check the daily updates.

[Lindal Kidd]

4 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I think I mentioned that I once wrote a chapter for an engineering textbook. The editor initially rejected my submission, stating he didn't think it appropriate to laugh while reading it. A short phone conversation convinced him I was incapable of writing any other way. The chapter was eventually accepted with minimal editing. I taught two semesters of evening division undergrad tech, and had similar tension with the administration. As I said, there is a limited range to my "voice".

You would've gotten on well with one of my Statistics professors.  The text for the class was written by him, which you might think would portend a very dull class (couple that with the actual subject matter, and you'd think it would be downright somnolent!)

But this guy...the chapter on Measures of Central Tendency started with a cartoon of a guy on a riding lawnmower and the caption, "If the grass between the lanes of the freeway has been cut...does that Mean the Median has been Mode?"

[Syo Emerald]

I don't use text to fabricate any sort of planned identity for myself in Second Life. I just write and thats it and because of that, I have no clue what I "sound" like to people.

[KanryDrago]

4 hours ago, Syo Emerald said:

I don't use text to fabricate any sort of planned identity for myself in Second Life. I just write and thats it and because of that, I have no clue what I "sound" like to people.

More importanty should you care what you sound like to others in world? That way if they don't like what they hear they can avoid you rather than you accomodating them by changing how you sound only for them to find out later that they don't like you

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 hours ago, Syo Emerald said:

I don't use text to fabricate any sort of planned identity for myself in Second Life.

Well, that would be a little like role play? I suspect that there are people who essentially RP here on the forum, and there are a ton who, while eschewing conventional RP, do consciously fabricate new "selves" for themselves in-world (in the old days, we used to call them "immersionists"), but I think for most people self-fashioning is more subtle, and probably less conscious, than that?

 

7 hours ago, Syo Emerald said:

I have no clue what I "sound" like to people

And we're here to tell you!

Volunteers, anyone? ?

[Parhelion Palou]

@Scylla Rhiadra The thread's title has been gnawing at me for four pages. Like the "Shave and a Haircut" knocks to Roger Rabbit, I have to do this: If you're not my manic pixel dream girl, whose manic pixel dream girl are you?

As for your questions:
I type pretty much the way I'd speak, except in longer sentences. I'm not trying to establish a personality (see the "Do you think you are an interesting person in SL?" thread) and certainly not authority. I'll say what I think; people can do as they wish with it. I have one voice, and it's a quiet one. 'No' to the question about consciously using a voice that projects a different version of myself. Finally, I don't do roleplay, so the fourth question doesn't apply. Nice uninteresting answers, all of them. ?

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

59 minutes ago, Parhelion Palou said:

If you're not my manic pixel dream girl, whose manic pixel dream girl are you?

Actually, it's negotiable. My terms are quite reasonable.

1 hour ago, Parhelion Palou said:

I'm not trying to establish a personality (see the "Do you think you are an interesting person in SL?" thread) and certainly not authority. I'll say what I think; people can do as they wish with it. I have one voice, and it's a quiet one.

Par, it seems to me that quiet, gentle, and thoughtful voices sometimes possess the most authority of all.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

5 hours ago, KanryDrago said:

More importanty should you care what you sound like to others in world? 

Depends on what you want to do. Producing or just possessing an authoritative and trustworthy persona can make one influential or persuasive. And that can be used for good, or ill.

Or maybe you really just don't care. That's obviously just fine too. 

I'm probably every bit as susceptible (or more) to the allure of "popularity" as anyone. But I do like to sense the approval of those I respect, in part because it is a way of measuring my own conduct by their high standards.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Scylla Rhiadra

[KanryDrago]

4 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Depends on what you want to do. Producing or just possessing an authoritative and trustworthy persona can make one influential or persuasive. And that can be used for good, or ill.

Or maybe you really just don't care. That's obviously just fine too. 

I'm probably every bit as susceptible (or more) to the allure of "popularity" as anyone. But I do like to sense the approval of those I respect, in part because it is a way of measuring my own conduct by their high standards.

I think you misinterpreted what I meant, or maybe I phrased it poorly.

The point I was trying to make was that if you alter your voice deliberately because you care what people think of you then that means you are portraying a false image of yourself to that person. Sooner or later the fact it is a false image will become apparent to them and their reaction to that may not be good

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, KanryDrago said:

I think you misinterpreted what I meant, or maybe I phrased it poorly.

The point I was trying to make was that if you alter your voice deliberately because you care what people think of you then that means you are portraying a false image of yourself to that person. Sooner or later the fact it is a false image will become apparent to them and their reaction to that may not be good

Oh yes, absolutely you're right. Sorry!

Unfortunately, history is replete with examples of people realizing that too late.

Fortunately, the stakes are probably a little lower in SL.

[Donna Underall]

I'm not sure what different voices mean.  If I am hanging with girl friends, or a guy friend, or a guy I like, or a guy I do not like at all, I talk differently to all these people.  But always me in my voice, guess it's just easy to read my feelings.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

12 minutes ago, Donna Underall said:

I'm not sure what different voices mean.  If I am hanging with girl friends, or a guy friend, or a guy I like, or a guy I do not like at all, I talk differently to all these people.  But always me in my voice, guess it's just easy to read my feelings.

Yes!! I so agree.

We can have different voices, we do have different voices, that we use all the time, in different emotional or situational contexts.

And they are all really and truly us!

And that's one of things that makes us, all of us, so really interesting! None of us are flat; we are all multitudes of fascinating colours!

Edited November 3, 2018 by Scylla Rhiadra