For this assignment, I decided to observe a chat room on meebo.com called “Flirty Teens.” Upon entering, I noticed a chatter named “gansta***” (asterisks added to preserve privacy) who seemed to have a fondness for talking in uppercase and being aggressive toward the other room members. Following are a few of his communicative gems:
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A short while later, apparently out of sheer frustration, he left the room.
From these outbursts and from his screen name, I guessed that gansta was a young male. I developed an impression of him being extremely hostile and, because of his blunt disregard for the tenets of basic English spelling and grammar, not very smart. Because of his antagonistic nature and seeming lack of self-discipline, I found him to be not at all agreeable or conscientious. His explosive irritability and up-front demeanor led me to believe that he had a high degree of neuroticism and was very extroverted. Finally, I got the impression that he was quite stubborn, unwilling to listen to the ideas and thoughts of his peers and, thus, not very open.
In essence, from the few lines of text above, I gained a very strong, negative impression of gansta. I found him to be quite rude and obnoxious, almost to a stereotypical, comical effect. Overall, this is in line with the SIDE and hyperpersonal models because I felt that he had a one-dimensional personality – but my perception of that one dimension was very intense. In other words, the minimal amount of cues that were provided to me led me to form a greatly exaggerated mental image of gansta. I felt that part of his persona might be drawn from the behavioral confirmation aspect of the hyperpersonal model. That is, perhaps some part of his attitude stemmed from the other room members egging him on, coercing him into reinforcing the stereotype that he had been portraying. It was also very possible that he was choosing to selectively self-present these aspects of his personality to make him appear tougher and more intimidating to his fellow chatters. However, one aspect of the hyperpersonal model that did not apply to this situation was the developmental aspect. I immediately formed a strong opinion of gansta - it did not grow over time.
2 comments:
Argumentative chatters are what makes the world go 'round. If only gangsta had stayed online a bit longer, you could have exposed the world to more of his rhymes/brilliant expressions of anger.
It's interesting that although gangsta seemed to perpetuate a "tough guy" persona, it was to such an obnoxious degree that it was almost completely unbelievable. It seems as though the Intensification Loop of the over-attribution process and behavioral confirmation ultimately backfires. After all, how much of a gangsta did anyone really think he was?
I honeslty find your encounter pretty funny because he was talking to you as if he wanted to jump through the computer to prove how tough he was.I agree that he is probably a young male who is TRYING to be a stereotypical gansta. I find it especially funny how he proves his toughness by mentioning the Bronx, as if that has to be the place that he is from because he is a "gansta". I am from the Bronx and there really is not many ganstas there so if you ever talk to him again, please let him know a thing or two. This conversation most definitely displays the Hyperpersonal model though. He is more than likely some middle school kid who has nothing better to do than to try to be "hard" with his computer verbage.
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