Do you recognize members by Name or Avitar?

Post Reply New Topic

In looking at user names here, I think one reason why I recognize avatar over name is a lot of the names appear as sort of gibberish to me. A lot of them are either some combination of letter and numbers like "QBM826" or some unfamiliar unreproducible name like "Blakonomyer".

If someone registers on my radar at all, it's usually by their writing style.

So....neither.

I recognize members first by name, then (occasionally) by avatar.

Avatar -- unless they don't have one or they change it.

It's kinda silly, but when I enter a thread and see certain avatars, I immediately haul ass.

To be honest, I don't really notice either names or avatars. Every once in a while, I'll remember who said something if it's from a very unique perspective; but it's people's ideas I'm most interested in, and I pretty much dissociate those from any individual identities.

Don't take this the wrong way--you all are human beings and therefore I think you are interesting and valuable, and I like to hear about what it is like to be you. If I didn't think people and how they thought was an interesting topic, I wouldn't be studying psychology. But it is hard for me, cognitively, to constantly keep all those identities in my mind all at once. It's just so much easier to think about what you are saying rather than who happens to be saying it.

I also don't really understand Internet drama... alliances, flame wars, all of that--it flies over my head. I guess it's related to my being autistic, but I'm actually rather surprised at how much other autistic people seem to engage in it, even those who seem to be more obviously autistic than I am. I'm not that much more affected, in terms of theory of mind, than other autistics... am I? How do you manage to keep all these things in mind--who said what, who thinks what about you, who likes you and who doesn't? It is just too much for me to juggle, all of those perspectives. Is there anyone else out there who's like me, who simply isn't capable of factionalism?

It's not that I don't want to know; it's just that I don't do the mental juggling necessary to keep it all in mind at once. It's a cognitive tendency, not a lack of interest--I see ideas as independent of the people who originate them, a very objective world where different perspectives are more like different ways to view the same thing than they are like little universes of their own.

I recognize the people by their names and avatars.

I eventually reconize regular members by avatar, easier to remember people in smaller forums. Problem for me is that many will want to keep anonymous and regularly change avatar and name, but often the person on the other end still expects me to remember them from their written content which is almost impossible.

It's easy to recognize Perfectly Dark Tails. NO ONE ELSE writes with large purple letters like that.

Both.

Both, also.