From "The Corner Shop" to "Electronic Love Letters", look at the characteristics of online interpersonal relationships (or virtual presence interpersonal relationships).
As an undergraduate, I watched the romantic comedy "Electronic Love Letter" starring Tom Hanks and the timely American sweetheart Meg Ryan. It tells the story of Joe, who opened a large chain bookstore, and Catherine, who runs a small bookstore on the corner of the street, fighting for business and concepts. , I look at each other and hate each other, but in the online chat room exchanges emails with the screen names of NY152 and shopgirl, from acquaintance, acquaintance, acquaintance to love story. Although they have their own lovers, they still develop this intimate relationship online and hope to meet offline. After knowing the true identity of shopgirl, Joe experienced inner turbulence, doubts and struggles, and finally decided to contact his real friend Catherine. The two people's identities on the Internet and reality gradually overlap, and the love established on the Internet is also able to land in reality.
Coincidentally, half a year ago, I watched his 1940 comedy "The Corner Shop" [1] because of the love of comedy master Liu Bieqian, and I immediately realized that the aforementioned film was a tribute remake of this film. In the film, the protagonist and heroine work together in a corner store. Through the anonymous friend-seeking advertisement published by the hostess in the newspaper, a pen friendship of anonymous correspondence began. The two people who have become rivals in daily life and work are facing each other in the letter. However, they fell in love with each other very much, and eventually they met and fell in love with their pen pals and became real friends.
The plots of the two films are similar, except that the protagonist's mutual complaints and the medium of relationship have changed from newspapers, letters and 237 mailboxes to online chat rooms and anonymous emails. The inspiration for the upgrading of the interpersonal communication environment and media comes from Donner, the producer of "Electronic Love Letters", on his understanding of online interpersonal communication. Anonymity allows people to reveal their privacy straightforwardly. As a result, they can reveal a deeper level of themselves and understand the other party more internally through the Internet, and their relationship will develop even faster than face-to-face contact.
However, I think the adaptation of this film does not fully reflect the influence of the Internet as a medium on interpersonal communication. On the contrary, "The Corner Shop" does not include the huge contradiction between chain enterprises and self-employed individuals, and can thoroughly analyze people. The face-to-face communication is fundamentally different from the asynchronous communication through text, and it can show the explanatory power of the super-interpersonal model. The product "cigarette music box" that runs through the whole drama and has different interpretations of the protagonist shows the difference between the outside and the inside. As the symbolic motif of the gap, I have to admire Liu Bieqian's unique brushstrokes and observational advancement.
The process of the two pairs of protagonists’ paper/online communication is highly similar: the coincidence of interests discovered by chance from many weak relationships (or originally unrelated) triggers the acquaintance that breaks the secular distance, and the communication is characterized by anonymity and asynchrony. The non-face-to-face communication shows a more idealized but one-sided self, and has a greater difference from the real self, and projects one's ideal standards on the opposite side, thus producing similarities (lifestyles and values) and complementary attraction (Listen to each other), therefore, the relationship between the anonymous space is getting closer and the relationship in reality deteriorates concurrently; and in the end, sincere emotional communication will reconnect the fragmented network and reality.
This kind of "virtual presence" communication and interaction has a series of communication advantages, which makes the protagonist's interaction effect better than face-to-face communication, and establishes an intimate relationship in the virtual space first. Anonymity, asynchrony, and non-face-to-face contact together provide the basis for abandoning reality, reducing communication pressure, and beautifying one's own image. People can express their emotions freely, express their thoughts, use better strategies to show themselves, and make virtual self It is more perfect and ideal than the actual self; in this non-immediate communication, careful consideration of words, psychology and thinking can make the communication of emotions and ideas more thorough, thereby enhancing affinity and fit. It can be said that in "Electronic Love Letters", Internet communication fills in the shortcomings of the two protagonists being unable to communicate effectively in front of their out-of-step real lovers.
However, the "absence of the body" has also added new obstacles: for example, no matter how eagerly online communication is, you will eventually feel that you need to see offline; the gap between virtual and reality makes the protagonist hesitate when meeting, and the heroine in "The Corner Shop" learns The words in his pen pal letter were actually quoted from the time when Victor Hugo, like a thunderstorm, said: "I thought all his beautiful ideas corresponded to me, and now I find that he copied the book."
It can be said that in "Electronic Love Letters", the shortcoming that the two cannot communicate effectively in front of real lovers who are out of step is filled by the network relationship, and through the communication and exchange in the real society, the network intimacy is transformed into a real intimacy. The network becomes an extension of people and an extension of the real society in mutual complement and mutual projection with reality.
[1] Note: The movie is called "Shop Around The Corner", also known as "Pen You Qingyuan". The comparison of the two translated titles can trigger an intuitive experience of the tremendous changes in the communication medium in the past 50 years. "Electronic Love Letters" pays homage to the classics, where the small bookstore opened by the heroine is also located on the street corner, and the name of the store is Shop Around The Corner.
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