To the mixtape: Banana PancakesThe Delurker
Lurk \Lûrk\ (v) To exist unobserved or unsuspected. To read but not contribute to the discussion in a newsgroup, chat room, or other online forum.
One of these lurkers approached me today when I was having a lunch pause in the HF Library Café. Having read this blog since my Studblogg-days, she knew an awful lot about me, my house, my job and so on. All I knew at first was that a stranger came talking to me while I had bread crumbs stuck in my teeth. I got rid of the bread crumbs and got to know some more about this cute girl. Hardly as much as she knows about me, but enough to know that I easily could talk to her again sometime, and that she definitely won’t harm me in the future(!).
You see my Mom keeps giving me these signals. It seems she wants me to close this blog down. Or at least password protect it. This easter she gave me a criminal novel about this innocent little girl that had fun surfing the Internet and then all of a sudden she was dead. Probably something more happened in between the surfing and the dead girl, and some cool detective most definitely must have found the solution afterwards, but I haven’t actually read the book. I judged it by its cover. And by my Mom’s serious face as she gave it to me. Happy birthday, sort of…
Yes, indeed, there are freaks out there. I’ve talked about them before[N]. I might be naive, but I just refuse to believe that it’s better to shut up, than to be a part of this.
It takes some courage to walk up to strangers like the lurking girl did. I rarely dare to, but I want to get better at it. But I guess blogging has some similarities to it anyway (though blogging might also be about exhibitionism). I’m thinking about openness and about sharing. And those are good things.
April 9th, 2008 at kl. 17:49
Oi, så rart å gå fra å en være lurker til å faktisk delta i den bloggen man leser! Som du sier er det ganske skummelt å gå opp og indtrodusere seg for en man aldri har møtt før, kun via blogg, og som ikke har den fjerneste aning om hvem det er som forstyrrer lunsjen. Men du så grei og snill ut, så jeg tok en sjanse. For å prøve å kompensere for all enveisinformasjonsstrøm får jeg komme med en rask oppsummering av meg selv:
Fra høsten studerer jeg utvilklingsstudier med den drømmen om å engang utslette fattigdom og all annen krig og elendighet.
Jeg drikker masse te, kan ikke fordra kaffe men har lagt min elsk på moccaen i cafen på Hf biblioteket.
Jeg har prøvd meg på bloggskriving selv men glemmer at jeg har en blogg og oppdaterer den så sjelden at det ikke er vits.
jeg forfølger kun edderkopper og støvkaniner, ikke bloggere
Mvh Desta Marie
April 10th, 2008 at kl. 12:16
In general “the lurker” everyone online. I think the rule of thumb is something like on-nine-ninety. One percent are really active constructive users, nine percent builds around the first percent, and then the big group, 90 percent are lurkers.
Maybe we can categorize them as consumers? (in a world of users as producers)
We can’t always be the contributing part, the web is too big, our mind, interests and capacity to short/narrow. That makes us contributers somewhere, and lurkers elsewhere. Your mother (hi Kristins mother!) is probably to be considered a lurker, maybe even on this blog.
To guess that lurkers are bad and potential creepy criminals would be to guess that most people are bad and creepy criminals. That’s a sad expectation of life. (sorry Kristins mother)
I have meat several bloggers in real life after subscribing to their blogs, including Linn and Børge. People I I’m happy to call my friends, even though I do not see them too often.
Keep up the lurking. And remember that most people turn out to be nice people, if you just get to know them. Maybe a gentle
fingermerkecomment is the ‘icebreaker’ of the future?April 11th, 2008 at kl. 0:43
Eirik: I don’t think my Mom thinks everyone lurking at my blog are bad people. I guess it would do with just one crazy person - one crazy person too many for my mother ;) And probably one too many for me as well…
My Mom is definitely a lurker here. She was on your blog too until you started going all tech over there ;) And on Marit’s blog until she locked it for everyone except her MSN-friends - and that’s when she figured I should do something similar here. Hm.
Desta Marie: Hei igjen! Er det ikke deilig å komme ut av lurkeskapet? Det var i alle fall veldig hyggelig å snakke med deg. Om du ikke storblogger, så kanskje mikroblogging er noe for deg i stedet? ;) Ellers innser jeg at kanskje mocca i kaffebaren kan være et alternativ. Pleier som regel å gå for “fattigmannskaffen” til kr. 17 for å være fornuftig - og det til tross for at svart kaffe egentlig ikke er min greie.
Så da er det altså én lurker mindre å bekymre seg over for min mor m.a.o.! Om det er andre lurkere der ute som ikke har tenkt å forfølge meg, så er det bare å si fra. Om du er en lurker som har tenkt å forfølge meg, så kan du godt si fra da også, forresten. Kjekt å være forberedt.
April 11th, 2008 at kl. 2:35
Hi Dietrovetro’s mother! I won’t hurt your daughter, I promise! :P
Why don’t cute girls who are geeky enough to read my blog walk up to me like that? Hell, why don’t cute girls, period, walk up to me like that..? What do you have that I don’t? :P
Thanks Eirik, that means a lot! :) We have to meet up again soon! I’ll let you know next time I’m in Bergen.
April 11th, 2008 at kl. 17:02
What I have that you don’t have? I have my photos spread around all over the place. If I found Snusmumriken (a.k.a. Snufkin) in a café, I would have walked up to him. I doubt I’ll ever find him drinking his coffee anywhere near me, though ;)
I could meet up with you too if you come to Bergen any time soon. When both you and Eirik insist that you are harmless, I guess I have to believe it!
April 12th, 2008 at kl. 20:43
Hehe.. I guess you’ve got a point.. But I feel like being a bit more anonymous on the net. And I wouldn’t mind cute girls walking up to me without having seen my picture online first.. But I guess it doesn’t hurt to be recognizable.. How often do you meet people who recognize you from the net?
Meeting up with both of you would be great! Looking forward to it!
And yeah, I would definitely have said hi to Snusmumriken too! :)