The Steep Approach

I’ve been embarking on a new project recently, which harks all the way back to this rather hopeful sounding post from days gone by. The idea discussed therein has now begun to blossom somewhat, and I have some collaborators – stalwart friends both – who are lending their skills and advice. The project goes live around the end of this month (you’ll know when I start shamelessly and relentless plugging it) and I’m rather proud of the idea, if not the execution.

Without giving a huge amount away the project consists of interviews. Interviews with strangers. Random interviews with strangers. In a bustling capital like London thousands of tiny interactions with those unknown to us happen every day – a glance, a thank you, a hushed ‘fuck off and die’ muttered under the breath – but actually sitting down and chinwagging with someone you’ve previously never clapped eyes on is rarer. It happens in Richard Curtis films and Match.com adverts, but despite a similar air of befuddlement I look nothing like Hugh Grant or Colin Firth, and I don’t even know how to play guitar.

So forcing myself to interact with strangers has given me some interesting insights into the nature of social interaction in general, but more specifically into the concepts of personal space and 'approachability.'

I had never given much credence to the concept of auras (still don’t, save for the purpose of this analogy), but there is certainly an atmosphere around people that is discernible, readable. This is obvious and second nature to all but a few of us: anyone able to read someone’s body language, detect where a conversation is going or steer around a touchy subject is doing it competently without even thinking about it.

The genesis of my project was in America, where people are famously more approachable. This is certainly true, but once a dialogue had begun American people seemed to need more management: to me at least they seemed quicker to lose patience, quicker to become suspicious or tire of a subject. Instead of being closed off and gradually opening up they often seemed immediately candid and then worried about giving too much away.

Perversely I suspect most of this comes from the natural ease with which Americans conduct their own conversations. Americans are very good at talking to strangers; they do it all the time. Their interactions are swift, and industriously handled on both sides. They were attempting to manage me: to ease me through the dialogue. The only difference: I was a strange English boy asking them personal questions, and was attempting to marshal the conversation to get the most out of them. Small wonder many felt the need to stage a retreat when I got too personal.

It’s more difficult to get stuff out of English people, but once they get talking, it’s hard to shut them up. In terms of thermodynamics, Americans are great conductors of heat, English people very poor. They stay warmed up for a good long time if you can get them comfortable.

All this is moot if you can’t find the nads to approach people in the first place, and that’s where reading people comes in. It can be nerve-wracking, going up to strangers, although now that I think about it I cannot say for sure why that should be so. I have a list of questions to ask them – so I know what I’m going to say at least – and I consider myself relatively personable. I am not particularly concerned that someone might haul out and punch me, or start screaming rape or similar. Even if they don’t want to be interviewed (as is entirely their prerogative) all I get is a polite ‘no thank you.’

My own apprehension means that I tend to gravitate towards those who give off an air of approachability. People who radiate some sense – through body language, positioning, even appearance – that they wouldn’t be terribly bothered if an oddly earnest young man sat down opposite them and asked them about their lives. For the purposes of the project they have to be alone, which makes it easier, if only because those who are alone and don’t want to be bothered are pretty easy to spot.

Then only problem is that approaching people who are themselves approachable tends to give a biased sample base. For example, they tend to be younger or older, not middle aged. Younger women are less likely to tell you to go away immediately, but are more likely to be distant. I had expected women to be less often alone than men and was surprised to find this not the case, but men are more likely to occupy themselves with something regardless of where they are. A newspaper can be a formidable shield. Elements of people’s dress can render them distant or affable (and interestingly, the eccentricity of dress has little to do with it). I’ve become very good at picking out the easiest person to talk to in a room.

Unfortunately the easiest person to talk to may not always be the most interesting, or for the purposes of my project, the most varied in terms of life experience. So I’ve learnt some useful new skills only to have to discard them. I’m much better at recognising people who might want to talk, but have to avoid that sort of person if I’m not to repeat the same sort of interview over and over.

I’m exaggerating, of course. The best thing about people in general and Londoners in particular is that everyone is unique. Talk to anyone long enough and you’re certain to hit on something interesting, so no interview is going to be wasted. And the more I force myself to talk to people the more I begin to realise that approachable or not, most people, once approached, are willing to give you the time of day, especially if you explain yourself clearly and concisely.

So what have I really learned? The same thing I learn every week on this blog. To get over myself. ‘Aura of approachability’ my bum. Just don’t be surprised when I sit down next to you.

Grief and upgrades

I learnt a new word the other day. Well, actually I try and learn a new word every day, to infuriate and patronise my friends, but this word was a little different, as it hinted at a concept – and beyond it a subculture of sorts – that I never knew existed.

The word was ‘griefer,’ and I doubt very much that it’s in the OED. I ran into it on the fun and informative website TVTropes, a place where any writer of fiction can easily while away a deadline or three learning about the cultural archetypes that help stories work (if you haven’t already clicked on the hyperlink I recommend postponing it until you have no pressing engagements, appointments, workloads or meals that you need to get through. The website is high-octane procrastination fuel).

A griefer is, in the simplest terms, someone who gains enjoyment from ruining other people’s experience in organised play. Basically, they fuck up videogames for their own pleasure. A police artist's sketch:

The term exists mostly in online videogame forums and chatrooms, where its existence is much debated and derided. The TVTropes page has an incredible list of observed ways that a griefer might muck about with your videogame experience.

This isn’t my first encounter with a completely new cultural concept on the internet, but it’s not like I’m at the bleeding edge of online memes. I’d do better in a 4chan message board than, say, my dad, but I’m hardly a huge presence on the information superhighway, or whatever they call it now. But I’m interested in the concept of a ‘griefer’ because it might be a completely new way of expressing oneself.

My first point is this: what exactly did griefers do before the opportunity to spoil other peoples games existed? Online gaming provides the twin buffers of distance and anonymity; annoying someone over the net might result in hurled obscenities, threats, or at most in a ban from the game being played. Beyond that, the person you’ve pissed off is stymied; they’re unlikely to show up and egg your house, for example. In ‘real life’ no such buffer exists: if you deliberately puncture someone’s football there’s nothing to stop them from pounding the snot out of you in retaliation. At the very least, you won’t be allowed to play, and here another difference from online games becomes apparent: because there are millions of games on thousands of servers, beginning and ending all the time, once a griefer has messed up one group of people’s online experience he or she can simply move onto the next one. Even if they are caught, booted or banned they can always begin again elsewhere.

Did this desire to seek gratification by spoiling other’s enjoyment always exist, or is it a new development? Are these the same people who knock over litterbins and smash peoples windscreens in the dead of night?

I personally do not think that it is a new phenomenon, rather an old one in a new garb. The online videogame revolution certainly did not ‘create’ the potential for griefers among the population; instead it provided a new and (mildly) destructive outlet for a certain type of person. And clearly if it occurs enough to have a TVTropes page dedicated to it, there are more of these people than might immediately be imagined.

This train of thought reminded me of a conversation I had nearly a year ago, not long after I started Verbal Slapstick. I was having dinner with my step-mother, and was trying to explain the purpose of this blog to her. This was quite difficult, partly because I was on my third glass of wine, but mostly because this blog has no real purpose, beyond my own vanity. It isn’t a diary, and it’s not really about things that happen in my life (save the things that happen in my head). I’m not reviewing anything, and I’m not, as many of my friends and colleagues do, gatekeeping my own media experience by posting photos or videos or anything like that. I get the occasional piece of free crit for my creative writing which is cool and much appreciated, but beyond that this whole platform is simply me hurling my own badly formed musings and self-deprecations into an indelible public sphere. Why do I do it? Because I’m an unremitting egotist and I think I know best, obviously. And if I didn’t have a blog, if the opportunity to blog didn’t even exist?

What my step-mum really wanted to know related to the apparent readiness of my generation to transcribe their experience for all to see. She pointed out that when she was my age, there wasn’t the readiness or desire to constantly communicate with friends and acquaintances, either by phone or online. People her age (and she is not, in truth, that old) are far less comfortable with keeping everyone they know posted on their likes, dislikes and movements. If, as has been argued, a blog is just a diary that you show to everybody, why the sudden need to show each other our private lives? Why, in short, was my generation so self-consciously media savvy?

My answer? Because we can be. It is my firm belief that human beings have a desire to communicate their experience and feelings that is so strong they will wholeheartedly adopt any new method with which to do so. Until we finally all learn telepathy and are able to instantly and accurately experience and empathise with everybody, we will boldly take up any new technology or concept that allows us a greater glimpse of ourselves and each other. Maybe, and this is mere conjecture, we always wanted the world to read our diaries. Like griefers, the potential is within us already: all things like the internet are doing is giving us new ways to realise this potential. Mobile phones have not created a desire for constant contact. We always wanted to be in touch with one another all the time. Now we have a way to do it. Is it any wonder that these new media forms become so quickly integral to the fabric of our existence?

All this leads to one final, obvious question. If the potential for mass media uptake, for instant and gregarious communication, even for the sadistic inversion of organised play, all already reside fully formed within us, waiting for an outlet, what other strange and novel patterns of behaviour exist in our collective psyches? A whole raft of behaviours, some which could become integral to the way we act as a species, might be restrained by a gap in our technological development, waiting for a bridge to to flow across, out into the world. It’s a potentially scary concept, la, but it sure is exciting.