socialization.........internet style

"socialization is a process that begins at birth and continues throughout the rest of our lives. from the perspective of society, we are "barbarians" when we are born. as we come into contact with other individuals and groups we learn various rules of behavior...norms...and we learn to conform to particular roles. this process is referred to as socialization and it helps us to define who we are and how we are expected to behave in social situations. "

beed got that definition from a paper he read on the effects that the internet is having on our socialization patterns. that paper does not say so but beed has read other articles that stated that the internet is the equivalent to anathema in re socialization. they say that we folks that enjoy the internet are faceless souls that never get out and mingle, preferring to hide in our basement family rooms in front of a monitor.

now beed is sure that is the case with some folks. they will say things on a message board or in an i.m. that they would not dream of saying to another person face to face, and that is a powerful thing. the old saying "sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me" is not entirely true.

they can't physically hurt you, but palabras (words) are very powerful indeed and once they've left your mouth or your keyboard it's too late.....that bell can't be unrung. beed sees examples of it all the time on the sports message boards he frequents. someone sees a dissenting opinion and they go into bash mode calling the dissenter names and completely trashing their opinion. and beed is by no means without sin on this subject. he has written some truly stoopid shit and wished he could have taken them back.

but beed digresses.....he wants to state that in HIS particular case he has made many new friends just because of the internet and especially because of a particular sports message board. on the absolutely freak occurence that anybody besides beed's 3 or 4 buddies that read this site would read this blog beed will mention the board. it's the hilltopperhaven.com sports message board. there is a link to it on the right hand side.

several years ago, we all decided to meet some of the faces behind the names and br1045 (jan) put it all together and around 15 or so of us showed up at o'charley's. it was like we already knew each other from our on screen personalities. since that time we have had an annual gathering and one year beed met a college kid that was getting called out by a drunk toppah fan at buffalo wild wings. the kid really handled the situation well and beed was impressed with his maturity and hung out with him the rest of the night.

beed ended up inviting the kid (murph) out to his house for a home cooked meal. that was an awful long time ago......my how time flies. murph would bring his college buddies out on friday evening for pizza and fun with the beed household. he was old enough to speak on sports with beed but young enough to fight and argue and play video games with beed's two boys.

beed wuz wonderin' one time......why would young college kids want to come out to an old guy's house on a friday night instead of doin' sumpin' with other kids. it finally hit beed, his casa reminded murph and all his friends of their casas and these were just a good bunch of kids that didn't run home every weekend.

beed still keeps up with these kids as they are now young adults. last night there was an impromptu gathering at b-dubs to watch the western kentucky vs. denver hoops game. beed didn't count how many were in attendance but there were a bunch of us there. lots of people were introducing themselves by their screen names.

beed has made many new friends directly from the haven. he has 2 new college kids that he has invited out for a lasagna dinner on sunday afternoon. they are ricker and topofnky. they are both one year ahead of beed's son dahbicito who is a freshman at western. or they might be 2 years ahead of him. beed can't remember for sure.

beed has made friends with a gentleman who goes by the moniker of shunpiker. he's the only person beed has met on haven that may very well be as quirky as him. beed met swordfish at a game this year. there's not a wittier guy on the board.

beed has known txtop through the internet for at least 12 years and as his job finally brought him to bowling green we have become pretty good friends. the same goes for tjo. good guys that beed now counts as a friend.

beed guesses u could easily become an internet hermit but he and his friends now get together after every home game for some wings, a couple of brews and a whole bunch of laughing and doggin' on each other. beed don't unnastand why, but he usually has the biggest target on his chest for gettin' dogged out.

btw, on the little video clip at the top, the first kid is beed's son....dahbicito (little david) and the really skinny old man with the shiny dome and wearin' a wku 33 jersey is none other than yours truly, the beedster. one of beed's new college kids shot that with his phone beed believes.

beed didn't even come close to mentioning all of the new friends he made via the internet but he can personally refute that the internet is stunting socialization in beed's tiny little world.

yours truly,

beedle (in honor of google)