Dik - Playing 1

Being a veteran virtual game player at this point in my life, I found the Boelstorff article interesting in that it is the first I have seen of its kind, and also mundane in some of its elucidation of activities game players experience/complete almost unconsciously daily. Taking that, I want to use his article as a springboard to talk about a specific issue concerning virtual mediation of the human conscious, or more so just give my thoughts in general about creating identity online –mainly based off of my experiences.

In unmediated environments you take people/bodies, and the roles that they play for granted. By isolating a person/body, his/her physical presence signals existence by its materiality. (I will use body from now on to speak of actual non-virtual people). The human body has distinguishable aspects that we are able to isolate and determine identity, race, age and other characteristics of a person. Through how one acts, clothes, et cetera, bodies can be used to convey a wide variety of attitudes, emotions, affiliations, and other identity formers. Even though we may see these aspects in someones virtual avatar, a person’s virtual presence is really just a string of numbers and periods called
an IP address. While bodies in the flesh sense are not present online, the virtual world is not free from the constraints of bodies of materiality -the virtual does not automatically equate disembodiment. As Boelstorff says “…[virtual] culture is profoundly human, it is not only that virtual worlds borrow assumptions from real life, virtual worlds show us how…our “real” lives have been virtual all along.” How people represent themselves and interact online is fundamentally influenced by their embodied experience.

When I first started frequenting virtual environments (I would play Counter Strike, Oblivion, etc.), it was common for participants to have no face-to-face interactions with one another (you used the keyboard to communicate - this is before the mic was introduced in these type of games). Likewise, the norms in these games did not demand that gamers model their online avatars to accurately portray their real bodies -the virtual bodies in
these games might not be “real” in the commonly understood sense. But this manipulation of the actual body in the virtual world to something foreign was not considered deceptive in these games… play in these environments encouraged identity play and other gamers did not assume that text was a sincere representation
of the gamer’s typing, unmediated body.

But as the years passed and the virtual online games progressed, the conciousness of different gamers were not restricted to online and left to the virtual sphere of imagination. The performances, conversations, interactions, and context of these massive player virtual online games, I can now see, are tightly entwined with other aspects of players’ lives. Gamers move seamlessly between different mediated and unmediated environments and their participation in these virtual game worlds are typically linked to unmediated encounters. Gamers participate in these virtual enviroments alongside people with whom they interact in unmediated environments. The ctions that take place online are not isolated acts, disconnected from the actual world, but rather conscious acts that rely on a social context that spans mediated and unmediated environments and involves people who are known in both settings. While identity play was commonplace in older games of the sort, the profiles that gamers create in more recent online virtual games are typically tightly connected to the identity that gamers embody in unmediated environments. The continuity between massive multiplayer online games and other environments affects gamers’ practices concerning the creation of a virtual representation. The virtual bodies/profiles that we see in these worlds are attached to the individual behind the profile, if for no other reason than because they serve as a direct virtual representation of that person for mediated interactions.

While I continue to read people not formally apart of these communities suggest that identity and these games tend to involve gamers creating fictional characters unconnected from actual reality, this is not a common practice, at least that I witnessed. For example I recently started playing the “Second Life” like “Playstation Home”, and met a girl (interestingly from Baltimore), we became friends in the same way Boellstorff indicates in the reading. Our virtual friendship progressed to a point where she was comfortable enough to show me her pictures among other things. Not to say that PSH has exact looking avatars, and not to diss the girl, but her avatar was as plain as her. She could’ve went overboard or made her avatar the most “beautiful” looking female online, but she went with the most accurate depiction of her actual self that she could. I feel some gamers choose to depict an idealized self or present a facet of their identity that they do not normally show in public spaces, but few generate self-representations that are completely disconnected from their everyday lived experiences.

Creating oneself in the virtual realm forces gamers to work through and around problems concerning identity. Gamers have to navigate character/identity formation, deciding how to most accurately present how they envision themselves, without the tools we have in the actual world that correlate with impression. The way gamers manage their virtual selves show the connection of actuality and the virtual. As Boellstorff said, our reality is virtual (in that we intercept the world through artifice, this is what makes us human), this means our actuality is only coming to encompass more realities with the expansion of technology, especially in the realm of MMORPGS, and other virtual representations of the human consciousness.

Playing1-Lauren Mattia

Reading Boellstoff's piece, "Coming of Age in Second Life," was interesting to me, mainly because I'm not specifically familiar with the game, but at one point of time (although I usually fail to admit) was a fan of the computer game The Sims. I couldn't help but use that game as a reference point for Second Life. Do people play these games to free themselves from their typical, "real life?" There is obviously a sense of disengagement in these sorts of games, where one can leave and start up again whenever he/she pleases, and that freedom is often, well, freeing for a lot of people. Yet when we hit the X and leave our virtual worlds, do they really end? Boellstorff notes, rather astonishingly, that these created virtual worlds (created by real-world people) actually persist when that creator decides to stop playing. Just because we decide to leave this virtual world (if it is or is not created by us) doesn't mean that it simply ceases. The same idea can be applied to Myspace or facebook, or even the over-advertised E Harmony. Once we finish our communications, our wall posts, or our albums, it's out there for everyone to see and in a way create an idea of what you are. Once our fingerprint is somewhere in there, whether it be in the gigantic myspace network or the second life network, it's there to stay, whether we decide to log in frequently or not. Our virtual reality persists and exists just as much as our real world does.

I think what both interested and alarmed me the most in the article is the segment about Zazzy's nightclub, located on an uncommercial sim in Second Life. At first, one would think, why the hell does everyone care so much about this nightclub? Why make such a huge fuss over something that doesn't even really exist in the first place? But for many the game is a second life, and is just as important (or sometimes more important?) than the first, held together with the same norms and cultures. Sure, there are obviously things you can do in this game that you simply can't in "real life," like flying, for example. But at the same time, this game is based on our world, because people choose to make it that way. Many people choose to make avatars that are just like themselves in real life, and create houses that are similar to their own, in "real life." Take Wii for example. With its Mii program, there are innumerable possibilities that a person has to create an Mii. You can be old, young, fat, skinny, white or black. Despite these possibilities, almost every person I have come across instantly chooses to make their Mii look like themselves in the real world or like someone they know from their real world. It assumes that you will choose to make your virtual self in the image of your "real" self. The name Mii just reinforces the actuality that avatars are often recreations of the maker. I think it is these concrete and real life ideas and norms that make "make believing" more interesting on games like Second Life. Flying is probably cool in this game because your character is a human, in a virtual real world defined by gravity. Going to a punk rock show as a housewife in the game is fun because it's outside of the norms of housewifery in virtual real life and real life. It is the breaking of "real" rules and norms that make these games fun.

Here is an ad for Wii's Mii program.

The people in the commercial create a Mii based of a real life character, the somewhat intimidating boss. What makes them laugh is the small divergences that can be made between the real life boss and the recreation of him as a Mii. It is the disparities between the real life person and the recreation of that person that is entertaining, because those disparities can't be created in real life.

Playing-Tommy Duerr

The Boellstroff readings from Coming of Age in Second Life” stir up many questions about what it means to be a person. What is the difference between the concrete lived reality and the virtual one? In the concrete world I have a body that has certain assets and limitations, some self imposed and some are the result of the cards I was dealt at birth. In the virtual world as an avatar I can create the body and persona of my choosing, I can try different looks and behaviors out in the virtual world that would be impossible in my concrete reality. While I can express my personhood in “RL” and “SL,” I might be more apt to take a greater risk and be a little more extreme in the virtual world. The idea of flying, visiting new belief systems and new places is like a comic book come alive. To have the opportunity to interact within such a creative environment from the comfort of my couch is very attractive. The virtual world seems to offer a concentrated amount of creative energy that can be very inspiring. The opportunity to practice living and try out new combinations presents itself with such ease in the virtual experience.

The virtual experience reminds me of the way myth and poetry has been used to add another dimension to the lived reality. “Second Life” is a place where the imagination can bring forth its’ creations and we can virtually go to those places beyond the horizon. Just because our physical body does not travel to these places haven’t we, the person inside really gone there? Dreams and fantasies can be explored. While some may say “SL” is escapist and for some it may be, nonetheless it can also be creative and self revelatory. The participation in a virtual world can be a form of expression that fosters self knowledge, even if it reveals your “addiction” to it.

The SL experience is very similar to “RL,” in both the person/player acts out roles, behaves according to programmed patterns, seeks out like individuals, pursues creative activities, and participates in commerce. Likewise both lives express the person/players self. If the person is open to observing self, both lives, concrete and virtual, can be self revealing.

I think Tom Boellstroff is correct in saying that the world carried out in electronic media, Second Life, is a place and classic anthropological methods of study are useful in speaking about this place. Boellstroff’s “extended experience in close proximity amoung those whole lives he wished to speak”(p.4) is the same in “SL” as it would be in any other field site. Virtual worlds would seem to be our new field sites offering the opportunity to witness customs, ceremonies and transactions over and over again within cyber-cultures. (p.4)

playing1- Eunice Kim

In Coming of Age in Second Life, Tom Boellstorff applies his knowledge of anthropological theories and methods into a virtual medium, a game on the computer screen. His purpose in doing so was to explore how anthropology might help in the understanding of “virtual” culture as opposed to the natural human interactions we see everyday through our “real” lives. But the question becomes this—are the two really that different? Second Life (SL) is the internet-made virtual world that allows individuals to gain personhood—identity is always made and can be shaped into whatever one would like. Boellstorff mentions that “Second Life culture is profoundly human”(5), and we ourselves are “virtually” human, not to mention there are many different ways of being human. This contradicts our assumption that the virtual is only a representation of parts of reality or parts of ourselves; we think we are in control of the non-physical mediums that is portrayed through very physical objects—televisions, phones, and computers. After all, don’t we essentially choose what we want to watch, hear, and interact with? However, Boellstorff puts into account that our “real lives have been virtual all along,” that the “culture” of humans in itself is merely a virtual understanding of how to identify oneself with it. Maybe reality is just a movement between the actual and virtual dimensions. Even modern mass media (cellphones, radio, etc.) were built upon existent forms of “cultural” mediations. Thus it is valid to think about the statement quoted during lecture: "Anthropology has always concerned the virtual reality of human being."

The virtual and the real are informative of each other, however, they cannot be the same. Reality is and will always be more than what we can see or sense directly. More interestingly, they are not the same but they can occur at the same time. There is a possibility we are actually here, but virtually elsewhere; which reminds me of the idea of the personal experience and wandering one has while listening to music—the notion that the mind and body may not be together. Going back to Boellstorff’s theories, virtuality is the potential side of our actual experience, which results in the constant state of dynamic tension between our virtual and actual worlds.

playing2 - Alexandra Watson

For me, the most interesting aspect of Tom Boellstorff's Coming of Age in Second Life was his examination of the relationship and interplay between the real and the virtual in regards to Second Life. Early on in the text, Boellstorff defines the virtual as that with "approaches the real without arriving there", explaining that there is a gap between the virtual and the actual, and further explaining that the essential dichotomy in any discussion of real and 'fake' worlds is not between reality and virtuality but between virtuality and actuality. Indeed, Boellstorff suggests that many denizens of Second Life see that virtual reality as being just as real as the three-dimensional world in which we live.

As I read through these arguments for the first time, I accepted Boellstorff's claims-- but as I continued to read through the rest of the book, I began to imagine the system relating reality and virtual reality in slightly different terms. The more Boellstorff described the ways in which Second LIfe denizens related their SLs and their RLs, as they abbreviate them, the more I began to see the two types of lives as existing in a sort of self-perpetuating feedback loop, where each informed the other in an endless cycle composed in part of the rarest sort of virtuality-- the type which eventually becomes actuality.

Boellstorff suggests that Second Life denizens have complex relationships with their avatars-- their avatars represent their RL selves, but also represent the selves they wish they could be in RL. And in some cases, as with Priva, the imagined avatar self-- the virtual self-- could eventually become the actual RL self-- Priva, of course, had imagined himself in Second Life as a woman, and had ultimately come to see herself as being transsexual in RL too. It seems important, however, that the realization of transsexuality in RL was prompted and made possible by the exploration of the idea first in SL. In this case, as in many others, Second Life served as a sort of template for RL-- a sandbox, as Boellstorff calls it. The virtuality of Second Life, which Boellstorff said must by its definition "approach the real without arriving there", did the unthinkable-- it achieved reality by virtue of channeling back into it.

Second Life is in many ways a copy of reality-- it is a virtual arena in which everything can approximate but never quite achieve the reality we know in a flesh-and-blood world. But its virtuality approaches an asymptote of reality that does or can actually exist-- it's the world around us. Just as Second Life is informed by RL, so too can RL be informed by SL, virtuality achieving reality, reality inspiring virtuality-- the loop is endless and endlessly self-informing. That's what's interesting about Second Life-- despite people's complaints that it causes RL stagnation, that it simply mimics a world people should actually live in, SL is capable of actually provoking change within that world that might otherwise never be accomplishable.

playing1 - sarah grant

The part of Boellstorff’s book that I found interesting is when he explores the identity shift between Second Life (SL) and “Real Life” (RL). He begins by stating the evident: cybersociality allows for a large degree, if not the largest to date, of anonymity. The real question is how this anonymity effects people and ultimately plays out in RL. Boellstorff, in return, gets a variety of answers.

Some people believe that SL enhances people’s ability to interact with strangers in RL because they become accustomed to it online. Others believe the opposite, believing that SL is used mainly because people consciously do not act the way they do in SL for a reason; SL is more of an outlet or escape from RL’s restrictions (i.e. the Hollywood star that uses SL, pp. 120).

When I read excerpts about Second Life, I kept finding it hard to focus on simply just Second Life. While it is certainly an innovative technology – with its digital capabilities – it is a blend of MySpace and the Sims, I just kept thinking about the yin and yang like quality of anonymity versus identity.

The notion of eschewing one’s own identity for someone else’s (imaginary or real) is ironically how one typically discovers things about themselves. Teenagers and young adults are usually the age groups concerned with role play – “trying on” different identities, figuring out likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses. Thus, it is no great mystery why these very age groups permeate online identity communities like SL, but also gaming networks, chat rooms, MySpace and play games like the Sims.

I think that the real danger to these online communities, like SL, is that while Boellstorff’s interviewees say that people don’t act the same way they do online as in RL, the truth is that people DO mix up RL and SL; and when they do, the outcome is rarely positive (i.e. the mother that is on trial for impersonating her son.) People are consciously and constantly manipulating themselves and others online and SL is perpetuating this – making it more accessible and all encompassing to do so.

The fact that SL literally creates a “world,” not just a single person identity, but has a “grid” and “money system” is only going to reel people’s imaginations in further. The bridge that SL creates with RL is uncomfortably close when thinking about the dangers of the Internet. Another negative to living in this SL is that while it is entertaining and may be an “outlet” to some extent, it is just another media source that is setting societal expectations way too high. People who are mesmerized with SL and live the life “they’ve always wanted but can’t actually have,” must find RL awfully depressing.

I don’t mean to “hate on” SL; I know that if I ever started, I would be the first one hooked. But living in imaginary worlds, while stimulating to some degree, is very likely to bring about depression and insecurity in RL, because while we can live vicariously through the digital world, no one gets a "second life" unless you are Tom Cruise in "Vanilla Sky." Reality bites.

Playing - David Mieles

When reading Boellstorffs book, I found it hard to find the initial motivation for players to join Second Life. I’ve played other MMO games before and there always seemed to be some sort of distant goal that one sets his/her sights on. And once that goal is achieved, there is an even further goal on can get to (this how these type of games work). These games allow the player to play by themselves, not requiring aid from other players, but only up to a certain point. Once a player has advanced enough, the player is forced to join a group of players in order to advance through out the game. But Boellstorff continuously reminds us that Second Life isn’t a video game (users aren’t considered “users” or “players”, but instead “residents”). He shows us the endless amount of ways people express themselves, whether it be by the way someone dresses their “avatar” to the way people construct and decorate their own “virtual” homes and businesses. So when it comes down to it, Second Life’s main appeal must be its freedom of creativity, which in turn, is sometimes able to compensate the “resident” with real life money.
Boellstorff also makes sure to inform us that Second Life isn’t a form of escapism. It is not because people hate their ordinary lives and we wish to change them that people log onto Second Life. It is because it’s in our nature as creative beings to be creative. Everybody is creative is some sense or another. Here, people are able to communicate with people of similar passions and are able to demonstrate ones creative side through developing programs that can do practically anything. Second Life, along with rollercoasters, movies, videogames, etc., is designed to distract us and entertain us. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be as successful as they are today.
Another thing that caught my interest was the amount of time people surrendered to Second Life. I can see how one can get caught up playing an MMO game, especially when missions and objectives in these types of games are extremely time-consuming (the main reason why these quests are so time consuming is so that players maintain their monthly subscriptions). But to spend three hours simply walking around and admiring “virtual sunsets” seemed a bit absurd to me. I could also understand if one dedicated themselves to programming a new animation for Second Life and therefore required a lot of time to complete (at least there might monetary motivation for that). But to attend a “virtual” wedding and later go dancing at a “virtual” club seemed a bit ridiculous. But then again, that’s just me…