Fear of The Other: Text vs. Voice

This is more from that "Fear of the Other" discussion I mentioned:

The Behaviors

Lee said:

I've seen the behaviors range from as simple and harmless as an expressed preference ranging all the way to the most violently active and hateful of behaviors including harassment, stalking, forming anti-fill-in-the-blank groups and promoting and recruiting.

I've seen heated verbal arguments in forums. I've seen the Second Life groups like 'anti-furries' or 'texters against voicers.' I've seen websites devoted solely to the hatred of furries. I've seen furries and vampires and voicers excluded from clubs. I've seen people treated harshly inworld because of their affiliation or appearance. I've seen griefers seek out and attack BDSMers, Goreans and "perverts." I've seen avatars attacked and sims crashed.

12-04-2010, 03:12 PM

Lee said:

Texters vs. Voicers.

I commented in this thread in the Second Life blogorums, which went from being a question about text versus voice roleplays being bored and blew up into a war of texters vs. voicers.

This is what started it off...

Love Leonoase said:

Is most roleplay on SL done in text (versus voice)? Does that not get boring??

Apparently text is considered either

✘ boring, cold and dry
✘ slow
✘ cut and paste
✘ banal, contrived, maudlin, phony, pretentious and shallow
✘ annoying and lazy if it is textspeak (e.g. u & ur for you and your, lol for sentence enders)
✘ the dominion of the broken, socially awkward or those with something to hide
✘ a cover for men pretending to be women
✘ a crutch
✘ walls and barriers
✘ more conducive to people going on and on and on
✘ more conducive to misinterpretation or misunderstanding (especially over subtleties in sarcasm, etc.)
✘ lacking emotional tone
✘ subject to parsing and twisting, to pervert the texter's original ideas and intentions

or

◆ enjoyable and entertaining
◆ like writing a book or play
◆ creative and imaginative
◆ beautiful prose, literary
◆ transcendent, maintaining the illusion and the fantasy
◆ an acquired (and acquirable) skill
◆ inclusive
◆ more personal
◆ a way of slowing things down to either level the playing field, savor the moment or self-edit and voice knee-jerk reactions that may be regretted later
◆ a necessary enhancement to the animation
◆ suitable to the character being played
◆ suitable for someone operating multiple avatars
◆ more appropriate for storyline paraRPers
◆ easier for speakers of other languages to participate in (slower speed, translators)
◆ easier to follow, track, copy and keep
◆ easier to moderate
◆ free of the barking dog, crying kid or ringing phone in the background
◆ practice in patience
◆ more conducive to reflection
◆ more conducive to maintaining the mystery
◆ more conducive to being truly "heard" and to truly "hear" what someone is trying to say
◆ an excellent medium for the hearing or speech impaired
◆ easier and more discreet if you don't live alone
◆ anonymous

Apparently voice is considered 

✘ rude
✘ annoying
✘ overwhelming and confusing 
✘ a mood breaker
✘ interfering
✘ exclusionary
✘ insular
✘ invasive
✘ too intimate
✘ too revealing
✘ reactionary (not based on reflection)
✘ an unwelcome interruption
✘ unimaginative
✘ too much reality, spoiling the illusion and the fantasy
✘ suitable to fewer character possibilities
✘ might be recorded without permission or control
✘ the dominion of the rude, oblivious, uncreative, unintelligent or intolerant and kiddie-social media addict types

or

◆ enjoyable and entertaining
◆ like acting
◆ like real life
◆ sexy
◆ intimate
◆ creative
◆ easy
◆ spontaneous
◆ a verification (typically gender and age)
◆ conveniently hands-free for masturbation purposes


There really are anti-voicer groups and the like out here in SL.

More from "Fear of the Other" to chew on if you are so inclined...

 Originally Posted by LeeHere Absent
I believe the reason for the antagonism of the Two questions about role play thread (texters vs. voicers) is the (unfortunate?*) choice of words people used to express the differences between the two. 

The answer to the question, "Is text RP boring?" is "no, not for everyone," with, perhaps, a list of the positives of text RPing and a qualifier that it is not for everyone. End of discussion.

When the replies include an (unnecessary?*) disparagement of someone else's choices, then a defensive response is inevitable.

* I question how unfortunate or unnecessary the choices were due to the fact that there are people who long for drama in forums and will actively engender or manufacture that kind of contentiousness for entertainment or some other purpose.

 Originally Posted by LeeHere Absent
I roleplay in voice. I am far from being alone. (And I am hardly "insular" and definitely not the "kiddie-social media addict type.") I find plenty of people to play with in voice and there are even groups and sims dedicated to voice users. Some days I voice. Some days I text. Ya know, some people do write so very wittily and seductively. Second Life has lots of tools and toys. Different people in different moods use different things. Vive la différence!


This was interesting to me, continuing on the subject of text and voice...

Vesper Pinden said:

When you say "roleplay" I wonder whether you are thinking only of conversations and intimacies. A lot of the roleplay that goes on in SL is in places like Gor or COLA where people may be living stories that can be very complex and long term, and there are actually some subtleties that you'd have a hard time communicating in voice, such as facial expressions and body movements (like "involuntarily" looking at something in a guilty manner), or such things as the sound of a sword being drawn.

Nadia.Chatterbox said:

The majority of people here talking RP are talking medieval, gor, vampire, cops & robbers, cowboys & indians or something similar.

Ceera.Murakami said:

A lot of experienced, 'full paragraph text RP' people have a prepared word processing document open at the same time, containing many pre-written paragraphs that can be cut and pasted for descriptive sections to add to their posts. For example, I may have half a dozen different ways prepared for a description of how I cross a room, or how I may perform an anticipated action, or how my clothes look, or other descriptive details, where all I have to do is edit in the appropriate names, and perhaps alter the most suitable paragraph a bit to respond to the other people's actions, then cut and paste that. The result is often faster than I could type two normal sentences directly into chat.

The two significant points to my mind being that a) even using the term "paraRP" is not quite specific enough for a conversation like this and needs to be drilled down a little further to context and setting and purpose and player and b) the idea that some people use pre-written cut-and-paste paragraphs for their RPs.


 Originally Posted by LeeHere Absent
Nature abhors a vacuum. Virtual worlds crave division. Jets vs. sharks. Bloods vs. crips. Furries vs. humans. The dead vs. the living. Texters vs. voicers. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet and an "other" by any other name would smell as foul. Speaking of smell, has anyone seen, or heard for that matter, HarryPalmer.SecretSpy lately?

Reposts.  LeeHere Absent, Feb 17, 2011  http://gotvirtual.net/community/threads/thats-what-she-said.772/page-6#post-24514 LeeHere Absent, Feb 17, 2011 http://gotvirtual.net/community/threads/thats-what-she-said.772/page-6#post-24518  LeeHere Absent, Feb 18, 2011  http://gotvirtual.net/community/threads/thats-what-she-said.772/page-8#post-24690
LeeHere Absent, Feb 18, 2011  http://gotvirtual.net/community/threads/thats-what-she-said.772/page-8#post-24691 LeeHere Absent, Feb 19, 2011 http://gotvirtual.net/community/threads/thats-what-she-said.772/page-8#post-24913