Mistaken Identities: Problems of Movie Discussion Boards :: Online Cyberspace Web Essays

Mistaken Identities: Problems of Movie Discussion Boards â€Å"There’s always another mind there. Its like having the corner bar, complete with old buddies and delightful newcomers and new tools waiting to take home afresh graffiti and letters, except instead of putting on my coat, shutting the down the computer, and walking down to the corner, I just invoke my telecom program and there they are. It’s a place† is how Howard Rheingold described online communities in his essay The Virtual Community (94). Is this what the world has come to? The fact that shutting down your computer is such a horrid thought that walking down the corner to a bar or a cafà © becomes unrealistic and almost an absurd thought? That this small task has become too much effort to put forth? I would like to believe that such a mind frame does not exist throughout the population. These were just a few of the thoughts that raced through my mind after reading this essay. With Rheingold’s continual praise of online communities and in reading articles that confirm that others agree with this new lifestyle, I became extremely interested and wanted to learn more. I decided the only way to know what these communities were about was to join one. I chose Internet Movie Database (ImDb) Message board as my starting point. The topic of general film talk caught my interest. I read the posts left by those who had visited the site and found their knowledge of movies to be overwhelming. Many of the members were even able to name characters of many movies. One post was called, â€Å" Name that tagline†. It proceeded to list ten quotes from random movies. Within minutes responses were given with the answers to each quote; it was amazing that people were this indulged in movies on a daily basis. Another point I found a bit odd was the language in which the po sts were written. It was not typical everyday talk, rather highly structured, as if each person was attempting to outdo each previous post. â€Å"I realized this afternoon that the reason I can't stand him is not because he is dividing up the movie audience into marketing niches and then pandering to them. What he is doing is glomming onto daring artistic statements and movie projects that might be unprofitable if done with integrity, and guaranteeing himself a profit by dumbing them down and star sucking them up to make Oscar bait for a mass audience.