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There are only two people on this board: you and me

yawn - thing's buddy

19:25 / 14.10.02

Barbelith a funny old slag innit?

Sometimes I get the feeling all the other suits on this board are actually the various identities of just one person.

I've only ever met Ganesh IRL and a guy called Grim who doesn't sem to exist anymore so beyond that, for all I know, you're all part of one big giga-brain.

So, I was wondering, does anyone else get this feeling? Do some suits you observe seem to merge together? DO you spot similarities between voices? Are you all aware of eachother's multiple identities?

Hey, I know a while ago, we all outed our extra suits; hung em out for all to see.

This is not about that really. It's more to do with your perceptions of suits you don't know IRL.

hmmm?

19:42 / 14.10.02

We don't have to be all of a body to be a giga-brain, though. I experience Barbelith as an undercurrent of voices, like the Borg sort of. But with unique voices coming in and out constantly. In the beginning, it was only a few voices I could identify. I suppose the alarming thing is that that number's probably up to fifty or hundred, different voices that I can distinguish. Yourself included, yawn.

I find it all very soothing.

19:53 / 14.10.02

How very pomo of you, my dear. Huggles!
Oops, wrong suit...

20:28 / 14.10.02

i think YOUR'RE the only real one here and YOU'RE trying to fuck my mind. it won't work you son of a bitch!

20:46 / 14.10.02

My computer tells me things.

The Apple-Picker

21:23 / 14.10.02

I almost always believe people are who they say they are. I can't help it. I believe that pretty much everyone is honest with me, except for the people who try to pick me up.

Everyone here is a distinct person to me, though I may not be familiar enough with each to recall his personality by name, without extra text--I'll think about you sitting at your computer as you've just typed that message, or just about to run out the door to catch a train, or in the middle of making some pancakes....

But what do I know? Even after I knew that Santa wasn't real, I held on to the fantasy for quite a few years.

21:24 / 14.10.02

Lately I've been conceptualizing Barbelith as much like its big, red namesake - a kind of aggregate-entity, with lots of personalities it uses as feelers.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

22:18 / 14.10.02

I am the walrus.

Goo-goo-ka-joo.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:39 / 14.10.02

You may say you're the walrus.
But you're not the only one.

Murray Hamhandler

22:49 / 14.10.02

As I've said before, I unfortunately have a really hard time wrapping my head around the personalities of most individual 'Lithers. I think that 90% of my identification w/anyone on a personal level comes through person-to-person contact. Visual info, body language, carriage, etc. There are posters who stand out, who have a distinct enough voice that I'm able to distinguish them and read their posts as the posts of distinct individuals, but there are so many posters that I do tend to read the posts on the board in general as multi-faceted opinions espoused by Barbelith itself. So, yeah. I sort of do feel like the board is all one person sometimes...

As I said, though, it's an unfortunate thing as far as I'm concerned and it is, I'm sure, more of a failing on my part than any real reflection of a lack of personality among 'Lithers. The interviews are really helping me get over this problem, though, as I'm sure any potential IRL Barbe-meets would do, as well.

23:20 / 14.10.02

I had a dream recently where I could hear everyone on Barbe talking at once, (almost like celestial utterances). Until, I focused in on individual suit-names, then I heard that particular voice clearly.

So, yes and no. I percieve the collective, like the Borg, and certainly at times felt the cohesion of the shared consciousness here. Barbelith is much more like a gem for me, however, where each facet that is suffused in light twinkles individually or as a whole.

omg...

03:07 / 15.10.02

The people I've had the pleasure to meet stand out always in posts, as well as anyone who I know of that has lived in my vague area at soe point...I still mix up Haus and Trijhaos sometimes though.

05:51 / 15.10.02

i've oddly gone through being "a fan" of certain posters, like for a week or two i'll be sure to read posts that certain members have started and get a slight trill out of seein' their posts on other threads... it's like everyone on Barbelith can be my own personal pop-star for a bit... and the trill i'd get if the Lither for the week responded to my post and named me... sigh... sometimes i get the feeling that other people've thought i was an extra suit... but what do i know...

06:20 / 15.10.02

I've always thought of Barbelith as a Bosch painting; filled with wild, frenzied creatures. Sure, they represent every vice known to man, but at least they know how to have fun...

07:33 / 15.10.02

I've had that feeling - maybe we're all writing in Barb "house style" HMMM...have to make sure that doesn't spill over into my work..
This perception was confounded a bit when I met people IRL ... but the possiblity remains that they are all MI5 agents, convinicng ones at that.. or while I'm on the paranoid trip the whole of my life might be a computer generated fantasy, the real world being an apocalyptic wasteland run by a maleovent computer system.. that'd make a great film, wouldn't it?

Murray Hamhandler

17:48 / 15.10.02

This notion would be helped greatly if we all had "Jack" somewhere in our ficsuit names.

17:53 / 15.10.02

[suddenly creepy-spidery voice] Barbelith is a very large organisation, my friend... [/suddenly creepy-spidery voice]

23:19 / 15.10.02

I do tend to adapt my style for her a little. I'm less patronising.

23:20 / 15.10.02

I would edit the above but it looks so right.