*nods* I've been thinking about that ultra-competitive atmosphere a lot lately. Oddly enough, my awareness of it sharpens due, in part, to the tangentially-work-related projects I've been doing. Lots of reading about gaming plus lots of reading about women in IT equals "why do our work environments so closely mirror MMORPG culture?"
One of the things I find difficult to explain to people is that there are certainly areas of online culture that are just as closed as "real life" culture used to be/still is. That I don't read Fark.com because 13 year old boy humour and misogynistic remarks rule the day. That I hesitate to start gaming after hearing about some of my female friends' experiences with men in game. And how very much it bothersm e that this seems to be okay.
Argh. I seem to be better at the irritation this morning than the coherence. One good thing that came out of not taking those classes, though-- I didn't get boxed into what my professors thought I should be learning. I got the chance to research around the library community and decide what would be useful to me later. That's how I got interested in the social software/open source movements. I'm a lot self-taught, and that's both good and bad.
no subject
One of the things I find difficult to explain to people is that there are certainly areas of online culture that are just as closed as "real life" culture used to be/still is. That I don't read Fark.com because 13 year old boy humour and misogynistic remarks rule the day. That I hesitate to start gaming after hearing about some of my female friends' experiences with men in game. And how very much it bothersm e that this seems to be okay.
Argh. I seem to be better at the irritation this morning than the coherence. One good thing that came out of not taking those classes, though-- I didn't get boxed into what my professors thought I should be learning. I got the chance to research around the library community and decide what would be useful to me later. That's how I got interested in the social software/open source movements. I'm a lot self-taught, and that's both good and bad.