“Why don’t you try my friend’s web comic? The main character of the comic is himself and he can always use new readers.” Not knowing whom this person was, I was intrigued of my friend’s idea of learning about a person through a comical representation of his life and decided to give it a try. Half an hour or so later, I was able to make some clear remarks on “Donovan” through not only the visual representation that he has given to himself but the choices of topics and words he uses in it.
The very first panel of the first comic that was drawn shows a male with dark hair, holding a can of soda smiling happily. The second panel shows the male drinking the can of soda. The last panel shows a skeleton holding the same can of soda with an angry face. The comic proceeds with jokes of the sort that varies between everyday observations (Seinfeld-style), puns, video games, derogatory jokes, and alcohol consumption. Not knowing anything about this person (only that he is a friend of my friend), my first impression of this person throughout the beginning of the comic was that he was a fairly young white male from a small town and had little experience outside of a stereotypical “gamer”.
I decided to proceed to learn more about this person through the web comic in hopes of changing my negative opinions of “Donovan”. I eventually went through about 200+ comics in the span of that half an hour and more topics were exposed. It appeared to me that he was indeed rather young (not having started college yet at the start of the comic) and was rather liberal in his personal views. There was more to “Donovan” than I had initially thought. My impression of him changed from somewhat negative and put off to seeing a more intimate side of his ideas, views, and even an innocent side of him. The words that he uses and the topics that he chooses portrays a young person about to enter into a larger unknown world (my guess was starting college) and is using comic relief to subset the fears he may be experiencing.
I think my impression formation of “Donovan” follows in line with the hyperpersonal model. Some of the characteristics I have associated most from the hyperpersonal model are the over-attribution processes and re-allocation of cognitive resources. In the beginning, I learned few traits about this person, judging “Donovan” by the jokes he uses in his comics. I formed a fairly negative impression of him right from the beginning because I lacked so much information about him. However, since I am at home, reading something on print, without the distractions of his social cues, I was able to process the content of the comic. This may actually in result give me a different interpretation of him because my feedback would not affect his (possibly negative) reactions to my immediate feedback if we were conversing face to face.
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4 comments:
I've never heard of people putting cartoons online! It sounds interesting. I'm just curious... were the cartoons hand drawn or scanned onto the computer? My first reaction to your negative impressions of him makes me think it had to do with this mode of communication. Since comics tend to poke fun at real life, they can be sarcastic and a bit negative in tone, so that might be why you felt negatively towards the author. I'd be interested to see what you thought of him if you had conversed online or in person.
Very interesting choice of expression. I wonder if your first impression came because of that choice. Would he have come off as sarcastic in real life? I suppose it is a good sign of his sense of humor. It's a very interesting way for him to self present though. Given the choice of the medium, I would think that he would want people to view him as funny and creative.
Thats a very good choice of topic for the assignment. When i normally think about visual expression on the internet my mind immediately jumps to facebook and myspace and the use of actual photographs instead of cartoons. I'm not sure why i didn't think of internet cartoons as part of visual expression on the internet, especially because i read the political cartoons in the newspaper almost everyday and know many people who are in the field of graphic design. I'm not surprised that you could form an impression of Donovan almost immediately after seeing one comment. After all "a picture is worth a thousand words" and pictures with captions are even better!
Actually, I found it hard to come up with a creative and unique psychological space to write about since that was facebook/myspace/blogs/youtube was the first thing on my mind. I was so sure someone would've written on all of the above. It was actually interesting because I actual know a few people who have their own web comics but none that really tried to simulate their own life (to an extent.)
He actually drew it the computer using MS Paint which may have been a reason why I have a slightly negative impression. The comics were fairly carelessly drawn and didn't really show much ambition or artistic ability. Perhaps, right off the bat, I thought negatively already without even realizing it.
While I know that jokes are meant to be jokes, there were definitely some blatantly offensive jokes that were displayed that under the general face to face audience, would be unappreciated and have negative connotations attached to the person making those jokes. However, in defense, in the end, I did change my opinion of him slightly and even noted that under face to face interaction, I may not have given him more than 15 minutes of my time whereas my whole opinion of him changed later on.
I thought this was a very interesting and different way of presenting oneself that would actually open the eyes of the audience rather than have the artist be shunned. One can be much more expressive online, where freedom of speech is definitely much more accepted than in other forms of media.
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