I have been told that you can meet anyone on the internet, but I did not expect to ever encounter a character as incredulous as the self-proclaimed pimp named Gino. I first came across Gino during senior year summer, when my friends and I were looking for people to buy Warp Tour tickets together as a group for special discounts. My friend Dan, while working at a take-out restaurant, met Gino who ordered food there fairly often. Eventually, somehow Dan convinced Gino to come to Warp Tour with us. I did not see Gino in person until the day we went to the Warp Tour, but we communicated with him regularly for a week or so before the Tour.
Our primary method of communication was MySpace, and that is also where we learned of Gino’s “pimp” lifestyle, which was surprising as according to Dan, Gino dressed and acted normal (albeit not very respectful toward women) at the restaurant. He in fact listed “pimping” as his interest. Unfortunately, most of his photos were cell phone-quality and the faces were difficult to discern. However, Gino’s friends list was an impressive array of attractive women, and his journal posts often boasted his latest outrageous adventure with one woman or another. Later we messaged each other and I got to know Gino somewhat better – although I was sure that he lied about most of his stories with women. Gino turned out to be an all-around nice person otherwise, in spite of his sexist views. However, on the day of finally meeting with him, I was rather disappointed. Gino turned out to be a somewhat lanky Mediterranean man of about 5’8” height, and his “companion” was a middle-aged, completely apathetic lady who was actually taller than he. He did have a hat (but not purple, no feather either!) and a white overcoat, but the image certainly did not live up to my expectation. (No “bling”, other than an unadorned gold necklace)
The Hyperpersonal Model is definitely the best theory to describe the outcome. Because I had such a strong expectation of Gino’s “pimp” image, my CMC impression of him was vastly inflated. I envisioned a commanding figure with a cane and suit, but as the Hyperpersonal theory correctly predicts, I was indeed disappointed. Ramirez and Wang’s study, on the other hand, concluded that a short-term CMC relationship usually builds up to a positive impression after modality switching to FtF. Although this is not precisely true for my case, I believe that, had we talked longer over CMC, I would have had even higher expectations. So, while the result of modality switching was not positive, it was better than it would have been if the CMC relationship were long-term.
2 comments:
I really enjoyed reading your post! (you had me from the title) I think that this is definitely Hyperpersonal Model. MySpace is tricky. You can totally change your personality and the way people perceive you by putting whatever you want on your profile and selectively self-presenting. You can create a person that seems so real that people would never know (s)he existed (like that article about the mom and the girl). It’s really quite shocking how different people are from their ostentatious profiles. Great job!
Zeyu! Excellent post describing just how exaggerated online impressions can be, according to the Hyperpersonal model. Good description about how selective self presentation and putting "one's best foot forward" influences impression formation online. The hyperpersonal model did accurately predict disappointment upon the modality switch to meeting the person face-to-face. For further exploration, I would explore whether your impression would gradually improve over the long term, or whether it would deteriorate over time instead. In addition, would speaking through another CMC such as instant messenging or video/voice chat have produced a different result than if you had just formed an impression of him through his MySpace account?
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