ok, a closing statement

This research was interesting at first then very tedious, it is very hard to get passed what I am reading on otherkin forums.

Comparative analysis offered some insight on the the different dynamics of the otherkin interactions and customs of different sites. The idea of tolerance from outside and within the community is an ongoing issue as well.

As for the research question, otherkins are much too open to anything to really understand what it is they are actually about because of the all-inclusive all-accepting and have little to no use of any concrete explanations for anything. So what I do think is that they basically cyberspace people, an anything goes people in a pretty much anything-goes environment.

While there is a hierarchy within the communities most members are quite similar in posting and dialog, it is a very welcoming and supportive community but also a very suspicious and guarded one.

In closing, otherkins, despite their very alternative view on things, are very much like everyone else; harmless and bound by conventions.


--> So any word on those presentation marks?

Last post

H-Hour is approaching.

I can't wait to hand in my research paper.

Good luck to everyone from the class, I am glad that you shared your research (even though you were forced to) I learned a bunch.

have a great summer.

No Safe Word.

fursecution bandits?

I posted my questions on the forums and got some answers, pretty much what I had expected.

as a side note one informant filled me in on how otherkin communities get attacked by groups who want to destroy their community, one group was called the Fursecution Bandits. Aparently they are a serious group with a very real agenda but i couldn't find anything about them through a basic google.

I suppose that is the other side of the coin when dealing in cyberspace, while it is mostly an open community it mostly an ungarded one.

confessions and foucault

After reading some of Beatrice Button's blog about the implications of Foucault in her study I could not help but evaluate the relevance to the Otherkin posts i read and the aspects of guilt and confession i see in them.

I wrote earlier about the tone of the posts in the introduction section of the website but I dont know why I overlooked the whole aspect of confession.

I feel as though because otherkin identity is always a secret to those people close to the otherkin, then there must be a common reason.

My interview revealed that for "obvious reasons" almost all the otherkin keep it a secret. Therefore there is a shame in admitting to the other identity even though it is supposed to be so liberating to experience.

Now does having a secret give us power? Information is power and the ability to exclude people from information is also power so i think that having an otherkin identity and keeping it a secret empowers the otherkin, I'll see what they think.

thanks again "beatrice"

narrowing down

My initial research problem was about the transferability of internet Identity: Whether nota piece (or all of) of your internet identity can come back with you.

So I chose the Otherkin as a people to research because of how extremely differing the identity they express online is (as dragons, elves, angels, ect...).

I found that the 2 most informative forum sections are:

Introduction

and

Support


Introduction forum:
This is where we meet all the new members and they explain who they are and their "awakening"

The awakening is the term used to describe a person's realization that they are an otherkin or have an otherkin identity.

I mentioned earlier in the blog about this section and how it tends to go. Now why is this so interesting? Because it a total request for access. Without patronizing otherkins it is like your introduction to the AA: You say your name, why you are there and the last experience involving said subject.

the rest of the group welcomes you. However this is formal for any community forum. I remember when i bought a Jeep I was crazy about it but I didn't know much about cars so i turned to the internet to learn about how to modify it. I came across a Jeep Cherokee community site. I registered and posted about how i just got a jeep, the year, the model, the color and I asked what kind of modifications I could do.

Within a day, the summary of the 5-6 responses i got we all pretty much: "Welcome to the Jeep family, congradualtions on your Jeep, this is what you can do and here is where you can get parst".

So really the introduction to the forum was standardized. It is not the format though that interests me. Sicne Otherkins are not a religion you aren't really joining something organized whereby there is a code or ethos that calls to you, you are joining it for support and safety (two themes that I mentioned were very present). So really you are pretty much using the otherkin community to deal with your problems of negociating your real and otherkin identity. It is not like there is a common goal, its a support group everyone's common goal is helping themselves our of it: like the AA...

The real kicker is that (according to my interviewee) negociating your otherkin identity is an ongoing process, it doesn't just HAPPEN where you know for sure about it (because that is what Fluffs do and we hate them). So jumping into the community means involving yourself with it until you can do it on your own.

So why are the introduction forums useful to look at? Because of the discourse used in them by the new members, you see how reticent they are and how unsure they are. Most importantly you see how they are seeking approval into the group. Its not like they just need to say they own a Jeep, they really need to sound authentic and have a plausible back-story.

------

Support forums.


This is where they present their problems, while not all of them involve an identity crisis, more often then not they present a problem that is really only understandable by other otherkins. Some problems are just average personal troubles (that resemble teenage angst and mood swings). Some of the support problems I read were pretty wild and you see how believing in otherkins is almost a part of a package deal with other beliefs about mysticism and magic. Again. why is any of the latter less "real" if the premise of you even being there is that you believe you are dragon in a person's body...? Almost every otherkin keeps that identity a secret to those closest to them only to reveal it to strangers online.

none of if it is... because you can apply -----> METAPHYSICS.... ?!

The progress of my research has not been what I had anticipated. My research question almost seems irrelevant now. Everything I've learned when getting lost in the otherkincommunity.net website has led me to believe that there is a much bigger picture I should be looking at.

I have found very little to say about identity formation and an existence of a "cyberspace-only" identity. If anything I only encountered evidence against this theory. However I have learned about the use of space for identity creation.

I finished reading over the transcript of my interview with a member of the otherkincommunity.net website.

I am really glad that it was as insightful as it was. I learned that a lot of the observations I made about the dynamics of the forums were shared by my interviewee.

I will share some of these on Monday in my presentation.