• Wogi@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      There is no ghost inside you, simultaneously piloting the same meat suit you are, who suddenly takes control sometimes.

      It’s you. You said those things. You may have been drunk, you may have been anonymous, but you still said them. If you’re willing to go on a racist tirade online, you’re willing to go on a racist tirade. If you’re going to make death threats anonymously, you’re going to make death threats.

      Statements remain true without qualifying where, or how. Because you still did a thing, regardless.

        • Ech@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          No. The person choosing to “act” like a dick on the Internet is making the choice to be a dick. They don’t just happen to be a dick in their roleplay or whatever - they’re making that choice.

          And it’s not some pretend space where their words and actions don’t count. Being a dick in a multiplayer video game is being a dick to a real person. Being a dick on a forum about a game or show you don’t like is being a dick to real people who play and make those things. You don’t get to copout and say “it’s just a character” when it’s affecting real people. That is your impact on the world. Take some damn responsibility for it.

          Also, Audrey II is from Little Shop of Horrors. Check it out if you haven’t. It’s a good flick.

        • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          An actor literally says the lines they say, but they are playing a character,

          Yeah and everyone knows it’s a play. With actors and an audience. Kinda different.

          Despite what Shakespeare said, online isn’t a play. Neither is RL. You can still put on a facade or a persona. But in either case it you treat people like shit, you’re an asshole.

        • zaph@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          If you’re in a role play forum and you role play as an asshole, you are correct. If you are on the internet, for example Twitter, and you act like an asshole, it’s because you’re an asshole. Hope that clears up the difference between context.

        • Wogi@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          You had to know while you were typing that how full of shit that response is, right? On some level, cognitively, you know you’re grasping at straws here.

        • MoonManKipper@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Be an actor, sure, but an actor isn’t ‘being someone else’ - they’re acting - they’re **pretending ** to be someone else. It is different.

      • AlDente@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        Do you say the same about those who role-play in video games? Even if I set out with the intent of being someone else in a RPG, I find myself eventually reflecting my own behavior. It’s hard for me to relate to those who can do a ‘complete asshole’ playthrough. Are these people closet psychopaths?

    • MoonManKipper@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      “Yourself” is the totality of everything you do. You don’t get to do stuff and then decide “No, that wasn’t me, it doesn’t count”. If you do that you’re just deluding yourself

      • Ogmios@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        Too often though, such arguments are used by others in the attempt to define a person by one specific example in ignorance of everything else that person is.

        • Wogi@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          You will always be defined by others as your relationship to them, and the actions they know you take. You will always be more complex than you’re observed to be.

          You have little say in how others define you.

        • MoonManKipper@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I’m talking about personal interactions - online or in person - if that one specific example is the only interaction a person has with you then that’s the only information they have about you. If you don’t want to be classified as an asshole, don’t be an asshole.