Random Thought

It happens.

Every now and again a little thought forms and I can’t shake it.

Just ask Lyssi about my random inquiry regarding Twilight vampires that I *had* to stop mopping the kitchen floor long enough to pester her about.

(For the record, I still believe that real men don’t sparkle and the Twilight series has taken a shit on the vampire mythos. But I digress, this post is about a random thought, not a random tangent.)

Anyhoo.

We’ve heard a lot about the internet dickwad theory, the theory that states anyone, given the anonymity of the internet has the capacity to turn into a fucktard of an asshole using the various excuses as “it’s just the internet” or “your mom.”

With various research showing that we identify very closely with our avatars and the anecdotal belief that our avatars and avatar behavior mimics our real life personalities, albeit to an extreme, it can be presumed that most of these fuckwads are in fact, fuckwads in real life. (Too lazy to find the links and I think most require subscriptions to read the full articles anyway. You’ll just have to trust me on this.)

I would like to propose a corollary to this theory.

Perhaps you can help me name it.

The essence of this proposal being that regardless of the asshats on the internet, there are also some people that when hidden behind that same veil of anonymity appear to be helpful, genuine, caring individuals.

Could we therefore extrapolate their behavior backwards and come to the conclusion that they are probably nice people in real life?

The ones that are there for you, always have the mats you need or know where to get them, willing to set aside personal gain for the greater good, these are the people we want in our lives, inside WoW and outside.

We spend a lot of time griping about the idiots and the assholes, let’s not forget to take a moment to thank the ones that make playing enjoyable. Our world is better for knowing them. Can we say the same of ourselves?