Additionally, another factor that determines popularity (acceptance) in the forum is the amount of time spent online, and the number of messages posted. The more often one logs on, the higher the number of one’s posts are. The greater the number of posts made, the greater the possibility that the rest of the members will remember you. Like any social system, it takes time to feel like you really belong and understand the culture. For me, during my highest peak of obsession with the forum and instant messengers, I signed on every day, sat there, and chatted to these people for at least three hours a day, which sometimes ended up until dawn. I have become a “regular,” and being a member for two years now, I have earned a high-status title, “regular” or “oldie”. My next step was to continue my role in this status.
A role is a set of behavioral expectations associated with a given status (Kendall). Since the “regular” members become more attached to each other, we begin to talk outside the forum. Either we talk on the phone, or chat on private instant messengers. We also tend to have that ‘responsibility’ to add and read each other’s private online journals that pretty much confers about the owner’s thoughts and personal experiences. Usually, readers post comments and advice for every journal entry. Consequently, this increases the bonding within the subgroup.
According to Kendall, role expectation is a group’s definition of the way that a specific role ought to be played. Forum-wise, everybody’s expected role is to post and contribute along with the discussions. Darwinists emphasize this role as a necessity for online members in order to survive, advance and keep up with their status in the group, because the more you post, the more you are known and accepted by everyone. On the other hand, however, role performance is how a member actually plays the role. I found out that only 25% of the forum members are regular posters, while the rest are inactive or idle. This suggests that role performance doesn’t always match the role expectation.
Individuals must earn their acceptance with their peers by also meeting the group’s demands for a high level of conformity to its own norms, attitudes and speech. Typically, the higher class members become the “reference group” within the whole group. In our case, these people are seen as ‘cool’ by the rest of the members. A great example is “MySpace”, which is a free service that uses the Internet for online communication through an interactive network of photos, weblogs, user profiles, e-mail, web forums, and groups, as well as other media formats. At first, none of our members cared about the service as it didn’t really appeal that much; we thought it was a pointless, boring idea of online interaction compared to discussion groups where people can actually discuss issues directly. However, after a few weeks, a couple of our “popular” members joined the “MySpace” network, triggering everyone else to join. People, who once said that the service is stupid, are now users of “Myspace”. What amazes me is that these people still admit the uselessness of the service and yet they still keep logging on to it. Internet craze, such as this, blindly takes over people by conformity towards higher status members.
Individuals often respond differently in a group context than they might if they were alone (Kendall). According to Irving Janis, group decision-making may be attributed to pressure towards group conformity. Sometimes, the JNF (JoliesNippleForum) group arrives to a decision that individual members privately believe is unwise and risky - groupthink. One case was when the group had a face-to-face meet up for the Mr. and Mrs. Smith LA movie premiere. Privately, there were some doubts to the effectiveness of the position that the group chose to stand to get a good glimpse of the celebrity amidst the crowd. But no one contradicted the decision, so we failed and ended up not getting close to Angelina Jolie. The other members felt like they shouldn’t undermine the group’s agreement, or challenge the group’s high status leaders. Thus, they left their opinions limited and held back, rather than have other options explored. The pressure towards conformity was so great that the members were willing to deny their own best verdict if the high status people disagreed with them (Asch).
Language is another issue greatly affected by conformity to high status members. The “popular” people unconsciously materialize a hybrid collection of commonly used internet terms and other words unique to the JNF community. It breaks down to two main categories: the actions and the abbreviations. The “actions” is when one uses words designating actions that can be taken towards the environment or towards other users. Habitually, they place this action word or phrase in between asterisks (*). Examples are shown below:
*pokes you* , *drives down to LA* , *eyes you suspiciously*
Here, the reader’s imagination is put to work. I think this is a way to compensate important symbols that are lost from unseen body language because these signs help people derive meanings from social situations (Symbolic Interactionist perspective). And so, members follow and use the language.
On the other hand, abbreviations are acronyms or short terms that make communication more efficient. Examples are shown below:
Brb (be right back), LOL (laughs out loud), pics (pictures), mofo (motherfucker).
Popular kids of the group also tend to continuously change these current terms to something creative. For an instance, the expression ‘haha’ have evolved from that to having it capitalized (‘HAHA’), to having the letters ‘B’, ‘W’, ‘E’, and ‘R’ included and increasing its length, such as ‘BWERWEHAERHAREWEAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA’. I think that more emotion is expressed this way, and it works amazingly to amuse readers. Hence, more members tend to use this expression, and conformity once again takes place.
With the rapid communications that link people around the world today, the question forever lingers through my head: “Are we actually able to form groups and establish communities with people whom we have never met?” A group is a collection of two or more people who interact frequently with one another, share a sense of belonging and have a feeling of interdependence (Kendall). I have come to realize that even though it is possible to form online groups and communities, “this may not add up to the establishment of true social groups in a traditional sociological sense” (Kendall, 120). No matter how the group – “JoliesNippleForum” - clearly meets all of these requirements of a ‘social’ group with all the factors present as previously discussed, still, the community is more likely be weak that will not last long as opposed to face-to-face affairs. If it does persist that long, then this group is very rare. By evaluating the chances we catch and talk to each other online these days, I have noticed how the group is currently in the phase of “avoidance” and “deterioration”, as we keep in touch less now. Everyone seems to be doing their own thing at the moment. It seems as if the rapid communication link that the internet provides makes forum members get so easily tired of each other. However, when you think about it, two years is an extended time for cyberspace and we, the members, didn’t expect that the group would even be this intimately close to one another, or even last this long at all. This makes “JoliesNippleForum” a one of a kind.