So fandom, Harry Potter and Avatards alike, do you think that the relationships you build online are worthless?

Isn't that what a fandom is? If all a fandom was was a group of people showing eachother their work without any other sort of social interaction there would be no fandom! Fandoms consist of the exchange of ideas, opinions, and creations based on an item of popular culture.

But does speaking to each other solely on the internet narrow our human experience? Are we more bold online? Is the fact that we may act even slightly different online a bad one because we are shirking from acting genuinely?
And who is our genuine self? Our online self or the self we present to "reality."
Which self do we like better.

And through speaking to each other online are we ever able to truly know each? Since we present ourselves how we would like to be perseived online or how we interperet ourselves does the person we are talking to actually know us?

Well I would concede that we cannot really know each other.

So what?

What are the implications of that?

Does that mean we're wasting our time?
Does that mean we shouldn't be obsessing over Avatar or Harry Potter together?

Does that mean the people we have met online and have known for years and have built relationships with are not our friends?

And how could anyone convince us that they're not?