ROFL

Sounds so much like me its spooky. Just spent an hour on the phone with my partner - after about 50 mins of listening to BB and why Jade got naked and how much I hate PJ (even though I have told him 100 times before) He politely asked if everything is OK on the property front - no last minute shocks or anything.

OH well, I suppose he did listen till he couldn't bite his tongue any longer

LK is not a BB fan - not at all. But I just know if I keep watching long enough I will find the answer to life, the universe and well everything

I too am waiting for that, honest. I'm expecting Jade to announce it any day now.

Having read the review of the DS:BB site in 'Web User' it's really good to see that we have beaten the Official Channel 4 site and earned a Gold Award. The scary thing is, what would we be able to do if we had their resources and access to the live uncut feed!

No need for sorry Mavis. You weren't rambling at all. Alex also seems to have a certain nurturing father/mother aspect to his character too...
As for identifying with characters because of their voices - Adele drove me mad. Her voice was IDENTICAL to an ex-friend of mine who I hadn't seen for many, many years, and yet everytime Adele spoke I jumped in recognition. It was eery. I told myself not to pre-judge Adele, because as it turned out, this same 'friend' happened to be extremely two-faced and machiavellian - it felt like history replaying itself watching Adele meld into this scheming, conniving character, yet for all that, she was reacting to a pressured circumstance, and is no doubt an intelligent, balanced individual in real life (as was my friend, in time, once certain circumstances had altered in her favour).

I was sitting slobbing on the sofa with a good book keeping my eye on E4 when suddenly I felt compelled to start gobbling up dust bunnies with the vacuum cleaner and join in with the HM's in their cleaning spree.

lu
*had to fix the damn thing first cos it had a 2p stuck in it*

I'm not even sure how it happened for me. I loathed the first series so much - I stopped watching after about 2 days - then got mildy interested again during the Nasty Nick thing. I didn't watch BB2 (which I regret as it sounds as if it was the best so far - some of the comments by Brian I've heard on these forums have cracked me up). And when a friend of mine was getting excited about the first day of BB3 I hoped I would never be subjected to a single episode.

I think it was catching part of a C4 highlights show that had Alex and Sandy bitching in the garden in the first week that got my curiosity going for BB3 and probably Graham Norton had something to do with it - but since then I have watched as much of possible, and, sadly, I have sought out forums like this for an additional fix.
I even subscribe to the internet feeds since losing my E4 when I moved house the day before BB3 started (I am upset that I don't get to watch BBLB).

I think, for me, it is probably something to do with heroes and villains - the desire to see the good'uns do well and the bad'uns get their due. For example, much as I dislike Tim, he has been the focus of a lot of discussions I have had with like-minded friends, and I tend to make a bee-line for threads with "Tim" in the title.

And, of course, the odd injection of humour. I love it when the otherwise quite dull Alex comes up with lines of dry humour like "My servant isn't functioning properly" and "How do you dry a chicked - none of us have been professionally trained". For the record, I'm a big Alex fan - although I fully understand why a lot of people don't like him a lot of the time.

Er... so those are my thoughts on this subject anyway...

RHP

I woke up at 3am this AM and came down for a glass of water - looked at the laptop and switched it on for a quick look. I then, through bleary eyes, started to try to answer your questions - got to the penultimate one and BINGO my ISP booted me off assuming I was not 'using' the Internet (oh for Broadband)

So - happy to answer all your questions if you'll break them up into bite-size pieces and bung them up one at a time. Might be less arduous for the others too

MGOM
<knackered>

'Who will rid me of this turbulent priest'

hello again MGOM.. back from work? just for the record, i agree with you about the unreality of these forums.. or electronic communciation in general! it's a great way to interact, can be fun and thought provoking and yes you cna make friends, keep friends etc but something like 90% of communication is body language, tone of voice, the odd touch here and there and true live interaction (not post one, post two etc) and you just can't get that through a medium where people are hidden behind pseudonyms and have much greater control over who they interact with adn to what degree etc. i don't think that's a bad thing at all, but nothing beats face-to-face communication!

Hi Petal.

Yep back from a shift at the coalface
You put that much better than I did earlier

MGOM

Thank you MGOM!

It's something i've been thinking about recently, as some very good friends of mine have moved abroad and so our communication is now based on messengers, email and phone calls - it's so much easier to have misunderstandings electronically and electronic communication is not the way to discuss serious (personal) things etc even with smileys! especially with a sarcy bitch like me!!

anyway, i think people change when they can post under a different name and no one need know anything about them, because immdeiately noone can make assumptions about you... for instance, i have quite a posh accent (entirely by accident) and when people meet me they often make up a whole host of assumptions about me, my life, who i vote for etc within about 5 minutes.. 10 minutes later they start shaking their head as they realise i'm a bit mad, but the point is on these forums you start over.. i find the anonymity great, but 'real-life' interaction involves first impressions, overcoming them, getting to know someone's little habits, what it means when they smirk in that way etc etc.

i hope the coalface was a barrel of laughs!

reading the above i am not sure how much sense i'm making but i'll post it anyway!

and to drag the topic back to BB before i incur Beth's wrath, i think for me one of the biggest attractions of BB is that it gives you an element of control that you can never get in real life - ie you can see both how people interact with other in their company and then how they are about tehm when they're not there! in your own life, you are only ever a 'player' and not an observer... sometimes BB has made me think very hard about things i have said/done in the past in relation to others.. there is a thin line between two-faced and diplomacy!

Yes Petal.. this is good. All the cues work together to create assumptions. So someone f2f is - black, white, thin, fat, tall, short, has welcoming or negative body language, an accent, makes or does not make eye contact etc etc. After all body language is the language of the human ANIMAL. As with animals all these cues tell us if the other animal is a threat, a victim, an equal etc. The Japanese have a whole set of hierarchical rituals from business cards to shoe quality to enhance these cues and counteract their introverted displays of emotion.

Emails, forum posts etc are OK but they are dreadfully devoid of good cues. Even the cues are ambivalent. So can mean - I'm joking or I'm laughing at... or I'm laughing at myself or I'm laughing at you. can mean nudge nudge - know what I mean or even I see through you etc.

I'm interested in how some people can successfully communicate on this medium and some can't - because not everyone can - or at least not everyone is comfortable doing it

MGOM

Gosh you are good. I hadn't thought about this but you are right. It's not just what we post but also the times we don't post especially when others may expect a post and we do not. That can be so misunderstood or it can be a ploy

MGOM

Two things.

If they had continual rolling big brothers as someone suggested it would become a social problem for many causing a public outcry and forcing the government to intervene.

Is message board contact as "valid" as real life interaction? This is a difficult question. I think FJ may have been a bit pedantic in critiquing your earlier post MGOM but on this occasion I have to agree with him, in principal at least. Interaction is fundamentally about information passed between two people. So just because some modes of communication may be restricted does not imply that any less information may be passed. Your intuitive response, that seeing, touching etc. provide the means for a more comlete interactive experience, is simply because you have these extra senses. You see the level of interaction on the forums as comparatively lower. But if you were permanently without real human contact (e.g. in a state of continuous big brother shows) you would find ways to adapt. Having said that, if you have the option of using additional senses this will always seem like a more 'complete' interactive experience.

Hope this makes some sense (no pun intended).

I've been 'chatting' for quite a number of years now and find that quite often angst is caused because of a person's 'style' of chatting. As has been mentioned it can be difficult to get your point across without someone taking offence and the same applies to humour. I think culture differences can be a problem too, e.g. what we as Brits find very humourous can be lost on an American for example and vice versa {seen it all too often).

I actually met my hubby 5 years ago through chatting online (been hitched 18 months) which was quite weird to a lot of people (probably still is to some)

lu
*prattling on....head's mince tonight*

BB3Man yep I get your drift. It's actually an example of what I'm looking at in this forum. I use the word 'valid' and it means something to me. FJ rightly challenged my view but what he was actually challenging, as you highlight, was the semantics of the word 'valid'.

In a F2F conversation this difference in 'used meaning' would be immediately apparent as one person would challenge the other - in real time. On a forum there is a delay factor - which can be up to several hours.

I find quick pithy posts work best as they are easier and quicker to read and respond to as well as to upload.

MGOM
Not a pedant

Good for you Lu. I've met one or two people after 'meeting' them
online and its been very instructive. I'm glad it worked out for you both

MGOM

Thanks MGOM . Our best man, I met him at my first OU SS

lu

lu am getting worried - I met my partner online as well ..... ermmm Your's isn't a fireman is he?

LK - loves getting to know new people online but goes white at the thought of bigamy

That's great Lulu. What are the odds?!

My brother has met someone online and is going to meet her this summer. Unfortunately she's in Hawaii...
What a nutter.

Oh, better make this post about big brother... So, Johnny has been moaning a bit today I see, what does everyone make of that?

bb3man
Also likes short pithy posts

and didn't we stay up all night doing our assignments

MGOM

Thanks . oooh odds....long ones I think, but it's happening more often these days! Good luck to your bro .

Jonny he is the epitomy of the word boring !

lu

ooh errr definitely . I've come over all nostalgic now *sigh*

lu

lol, nah not a fireman he's a web developer . I'm a chat addict, love it . A crowd of us from all over the UK & Canada meet up every six months.....brilliant

lu

The lovely Beth says that some of the GD forums are okay: haven't check myself yet, but I'm not going to argue with Beth!

fjh

I mostly agree here. Hiding behind pseudonyms can give greater freedom to express yourself though. I've posted quite a few examples of my (not so great) childhood on here, not something I'd usually do in a room full of strangers!