Addictions

A few years ago, an article appeared in Yahoo! Internet Life about a study released by the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society. The study claimed (at the time) that almost fifteen percent of online users were in danger of losing contact with "real human beings." "The more people use the Internet," the article said, "the more anemic their offline social life becomes." Note 1

The article went on to debunk this theory, offering reasons why this study (and others like it that have been done in recent years) shouldn't be taken too seriously. It points out that the people taking part in this study weren't really an accurate representation of Internet denizens.

I didn't really need the article to tell me this, of course, because I've seen for myself that the Internet doesn't necessarily turn people into a group of social misfits. My lab? The online Xenite community.

Now granted, we are all well aware that fans of Xena: Warrior Princess who inhabit the digital realm aren't a very good sample of the show's fans overall (however vocal they may be). But I do think that it provides a fairly respectable sampling of the general online population. After all, Xena has clearly demonstrated an ability to cross-demographic lines -- remarkable for what is basically a camp genre show.

So I don't think it is too much of a stretch to use the online Xenite community as a representative sample of the Internet as a whole. Xena Online Resources lists over fifteen hundred different websites in their directory. Whoosh! has had over eighty issues (as of November 2003), with hundreds of contributors. There were dozens of mailing lists, some of them with thousands of members (Chakram for instance, had over 2000 registered members). Needless to say, the online community is huge.

My experiences with this group over the years has shown me that these fans aren't a bunch of acne-faced nerds with coke-bottle glasses downloading pictures of Renee O'Connor to drool over (though admittedly, that is going on). To the contrary, a perusal of any random issue of Whoosh! will show that while they may have time on their hands, Xena fans are, for the most part, an intelligent group of folks.

But they're a social group too. Sure, there are some cliques -- the subtexters, the GJRS, and the MacConnors, just to name a few -- but when events roll around, most of the differences are put aside to celebrate the shared love of the series. A fan was likely to find a group that got together to watch the show on a regular basis in any major city in the United States. You only needed to make a couple of inquiries online to find them (and secure an invitation to the next gathering).

Indeed, I think that the Internet has done a wonderful job of bringing fans together. There are several people I have come to know over the years I've watched the show that I count among my friends -- even if we've never met in person. Through a common interest in the show, we have developed a deeper bond of friendship. I have yet to attend a convention but I really would like to -- not just to see the stars in person, and maybe get an autograph -- but also to meet some of the people I've gotten to know online.

In fact, if it weren't for the online community, I would probably have felt cut off from the show, and most likely I wouldn't be as fanatical about it as I am. I have a friend or two in the area that enjoys the show, but I can't talk about the themes and issues and developments in it like I could with the folks on the mailing list.

So while the news media may hype this pop culture theory of Internet addiction and social withdrawal, I'll take my chances. I don't think I'd enjoy the show as much as I do without the hundreds of other fans to share thoughts with.

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Internet Madness, Austin Bunn, Yahoo! Internet Life, July 2000
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