According to Ralphfan, he uses proper spelling in real life. What could that possibly mean? First of all, since I saw him say that, I know that he was in fact implying that I am not real, which doesn't get us off to a good start. Second of all, if not when communication with another human being, what is possibly "real life" to him? OK, maybe he thinks that speaking to people and being able to see their face is "real life". So, does he just constantly spell everything out instead of speaking normally? Of course not. What he means is that in his mind, writing something down on paper is a real thing, and talking to people on the internet is not. According to Ralphfan, a piece of paper is more "real" than a human being is. And it's not just idiots like him, almost everyone I know over the internet says stupid shit like that.
Maybe it's just because most of the websites I go on are about gaming, so it's embedded in their minds that anything inside a screen is fake? Couldn't be, since multiplayer games have been around for long enough to have stopped that. Is it because people were brought up by their parents to think that they should never mix up "real life" with the internet by meeting someone over the internet in "real life"? Probably not because I've met people who have met people on the internet and then met them in "real life" who still think that. Maybe it's because they're just not trusting people and think that everyone on the internet is lying about whatever they say? If so, these people would stop using Wikipedia, Google, etc. Were they brought up religious and just taught to refute science, and thus just assume computers are magic or something? Probably not, since most of them seem to be atheists or agnostics.
I honestly have no idea why the "internet =/= real life" thing is so deeply embedded in everyone's heads that even writing something down on a piece of paper is considered part of the universe, while the internet is considered a figment of their imaginations. Computers are real physical things, and although these people rarely understand exactly how they work(I don't either), they can be connected through the internet and used to communicate with real people in other places rather quickly. Maybe it's because these people are all fat geeks who have subconsciously assumed that there really isn't anything else outside their house and decided that because they never meet people who interest them in "real life", then the internet must be a completely different realm?
It confuses me to no end. People run businesses on the internet, some of the largest businesses of today are based around the internet. Many many people are on the internet, and communicate using it daily. It is easily one of the most prominent things in our lives today, and yet so many people think that there is not a single "real" person on it.
