Dear Julian Dibbell,
Your article titled “The Assclown Offensive: How to Enrage
the Church of Scientology” was quite interesting indeed. It illuminates certain
facts about society that may not normally be noticed. One important fact that I
noticed after reading your article was the ease in which people can come
together for some cause. While in this case, project Chanology, nothing really
useful was immediately being accomplished or aimed for. However, the amount of
members that eventually joined the fight was astonishing to say the least for a
cause that had no real purpose. Even so, I believe this demonstrates just how
much the internet has affected communication throughout. Large amounts of data
can be easily and instantly transferred now a days thanks to the internet. I believe
that this is responsible for the formation of project Chanology as well the
medium that allowed them to carry out the actions that they did not only here,
but apparently across the world as well. While the overall event was somewhat
of a failure, it still demonstrated the ability to people from all walks of
life to gather together and participate for a common cause.
Along the same lines, it is interesting to view how the
internet in this case was not only the medium on which communications were
carried out, but also a place where a community could be formed where shared
interests were present among the members. The basis of project Chanology was
that of trolling, or to essentially cause discomfort for enjoyment. In other
words, there was really no point to the actions that occurred during the course
of actions that unfolded during their online protest against the
scientologists. However, within the community itself, the members must have
seen some form of true purpose for their actions. Some of the protests as
mentioned in the article were of a large scale and did require a fair amount of
coordination in order for it to be completed. This indicates that there was a
real amount of effort put into what other would consider a pointless task,
however “IRC war rooms” were created just for this. Other examples, include the
fact that some individuals physically caused trouble by entering scientology
establishments as evidenced by “Operation Slickpubes.”
I believe that you are trying to illuminate the fact that an
online community can be just as serious as an offline one. As long as there is
some sort of common agreement among members, any ideas can be put into motion.
To this extent I agree greatly, as the physical location of a community in this
day and age may mean little. This lends itself to the somewhat merging real and
virtual worlds, a concept that is being explored more and more as time progresses.
The trolls that participated in project Chanology most likely act the same way
in both real life as well as the virtual world in which they carried out their
actions against the scientologists. Thus, the blurring of the boundary between
online and offline life is occurring. While I’m sure there are other reasons
that you wrote this article, I believe that this an underlying statement that
is trying to be conveyed. Correct me if I am wrong though.
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