Tom Boellstorff’s Coming
of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human
comments on virtual life and its effects on identity and culture within those
parameters. Boellstorff talks
about the importance of ethnography and actually creates his own avatar, Tom
Bukowski, and participates in a virtual world called Second Life. Many of us in class are aware of these
virtual worlds, most notably World of Warcraft, and we believe these worlds to
be just some silly game that people get over-anxious and serious about. Boellstorff disagrees with this mindset
and believes that this world is “profoundly human” (Boellstorff 5). Obviously, there are a number of people
who would believe that this statement is crazy and believe that a virtual world cannot possibly be reality. I myself felt the same way when I first starting reading the
article, but then I began to understand what Boellstorff was saying. There are so many aspects about virtual
life that are similar to or the same as reality, so who are we to establish a
difference. Can the two not be one
in the same? The author states
“Two ‘real’- life sisters living hundreds of miles apart meet everyday to play
games together or shop for new shoes for their avatars. The person making the shoes has quit
his ‘real’- life job because he is making over five thousand U.S. dollars a
month from the sale of virtual clothing” (Boelstorff 8). Are these not actions that reality
every day? I have two sisters and
they love shoes. They are
constantly talking to each other hundreds of miles away and looking at the same
shoes on their computers that they want to buy. This is the same experience that is occurring in Second Life
as well.
There are obviously many things that one can do in virtual
world that we cannot do in real life, such as fly. But is the same phrase not used when we get off a plane at a
destination? “Yes I flew in from
Los Angeles this morning.” Did you
personally fly or did you use a machine that flies for you? There is a lot of grey area in between
these virtual worlds and what we believe to be reality, so how do we
distinguish between the two. Guess
you will just have to create an avatar and see for yourselves. True life could be waiting for you.
11 comments:
Tom Boellstorff's Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human was a very interesting and weird reading this week, to say the least. I do not want anyone to think I did not like it, for it was really cool, but I do have to say it was pretty weird to hear all about this "second life". It was really interesting to hear about how this author studied this virtual world by creating his own avatar, Tom Bukowski. I have always known, like John says in the lead post, that these virtual worlds exist, but I had no idea how in depth this medium influenced it users. After reading these excerpts, I completely had a change of heart about what I thought was a waste of time game. Similar to the other post, it was fascinating to make the distinction that human beings have always been virtual beings. I completely agree with this statement, and think that our "culture is our 'killer' app, that we are virtually human. This is quite confusing at the same time though, because we aren't fully human in virtual worlds. Like last weeks discussion on Internet, however, I thought the connection of how this medium is controlled and constructed by its users was clearly evident. Another connection to last weeks topic I noticed was how users of second life referred to it not as a game, but as a social scene and deeper experience, one that is able to be accessed, used, and dependent on many people simultaneously. I really was struck by this one quote, "the Pasadena Rose Bowll is a stadium, not a game" -Bartle. I really made an inference here that users were almost offended by the criticism of their medium, a reaction I have found when studying the medium of my project. There were many other really interesting and somewhat off-putting aspects to second life also. Such as the ability to attend an avatar's funeral or that one avatar can be controlled by more than one person/user. And also that SL real estate is truly "real" economically. Of the most interesting and related to my ethnographic work is the idea that SL users can possess more than one, and different, identities through their avatars, an ability shared in many social mediums on the internet. All in all, I was fascinated by the "cybersociality" of this medium and agree conclusively that at the end of the day, "human experience is always culturally mediated"- so don't be so quick to judge.
I agree with the previous blog posts in that I, too, was skeptical of the “reality” of these online worlds such as Second Life. At first I was bothered by the idea that many random people sitting behind computer screens lived through an avatar created by a machine instead of walking outside of their houses and interacting with other living humans, especially because most of the exchanges were about shoes or other relatively simple topics. However, as I read on, I began to understand how the actual and virtual worlds are not so different. People can take ownership of online real estate just as they can in the actual world. In our prior discussion of Facebook, it always baffled me how people could spend money on games, such as Farmville, when it was just a game. However, those people could spend just as much money on other games, such as buying tickets to a sporting event, and that would be deemed socially acceptable by many more people. But who can say that either is better? Just because there are virtual avatars representing the players instead of live humans doesn’t make the game any less real to the participants, and it shouldn’t to spectators of these games as well.
John’s World of Warcraft example reminded me of the end of a South Park episode based on the video game. Here is the link to the episode ending (http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/104292/battle-won). This episode epitomizes how “real” these virtual worlds are to the gamers that immerse themselves in them. Cartman’s exclamation that they can “finally play the game” after defeating the highest scorer is genius in exemplifying that the experience of participating in these worlds is so much more than just playing the game itself.
I agree with the author and John’s thoughts about Second Life about the difference between virtual and reality and virtual and actual. I really liked how the author explained how a typical Second Life session would go. By describing this, he really points out this virtual world is not any less real than the actual world. Real friendships are made and from the people’s encounters that he describes real emotions are felt as well. The fact that people can get married on Second Life without even knowing each other may be odd, but the relationship they have formed is still real. I really like the quote he used that said, “man is a history and culture making creature, who by his own efforts has been able to change himself after his biological evolution was complete.” I think this sums up his point very well. It is a human tendency to want to create and be submersed in cultures. This is a real tendency so when humans created this “second life” what they are doing is real. It is part of who we are as humans. As Boellsstorff mentions through his research, virtual worlds are not just used as a means to escape the actual world. These are real interactions, real cultures, and real ways of communicating with people. I personally would not find it appealing to make relationships using an Avatar rather then in person, but from the quotes and the description of the Second Life program, I can that for some people this world is real and everything that happens on it should not be taken as simply virtual.
One of the ideas from the reading that I found particularly interesting was the idea of “lag”. Boellstorff defined “lag” as a “sense of disjuncture between actual-world time and virtual-world time” (Boellstorff, 102). The author provides an example of a Second Life resident, living in the United States while her boyfriend lived in Europe. The women and her boyfriend had “time issues”, because while Second Life was able to provide a virtual meeting place, the actual time difference between continents made connection difficult. As Boellstorff notes, “Even when place becomes virtual, time remains actual” (105). While Second Life may be accelerating an individual’s ability to experience a “life” without repercussions or limits, actual time will always continue to pass in the world beyond the computer. Boellstorff’s work did not change my previous opinions of Second Life or other shared virtual worlds. An individual’s immersion in Second Life will always hinder their immersion into the physical world. While there may be opportunities available to an individual within Second Life that are not available to them in the real world, I still question the validity of these experiences. One thing I found particularly strange was Boellstorff’s description of the post-wedding party he was unable to attend in Second Life because he had to eat food in the real world. He states, “As you go to the kitchen to chop vegetables, you think about all those people still dancing away in a club with the bride and groom” (16). Second Life is desensitizing him. Though he discussed the idea of presence without immersion in terms of being “afk” in Second Life, I think his return from the virtual world in this instance demonstrates that presence without immersion in the real world can be a direct result of time spent online.
-Daniel Gergen
The Boellstorff reading for the week was a bit peculiar to me, probably because I have never before heard of anything called the Second Life. I am familiar with games like the SIMS or World of Warcraft, as mentioned above, but this concept of carrying out a virtual world within a physical world seems to play significant roles in some people’s lives. One topic that baffled me the most was the idea that people are making real money from this virtual reality, such as the person selling virtual clothing and the designer earning $3,000 a month. I do agree that humans can be characterized as virtual beings, based on the notion that “it is human nature to experience life through the prism of culture” (Boellstorff 5). But, if we are to equate the virtual with the real in the instance of the couple getting married, could this then be considered adultery if one or both persons are already married?
I can say, however, that I am able to sympathize somewhat with the consumers of this Second Life phenomenon, in the way that they are enveloped within the world that they have created. When thinking back on the times when I had a Sega, PlayStation, or even Gameboy, it is easy to become overly involved in these gadgets and filter out my surroundings to the point where I was focused on nothing else but the screen in front of me. A pertinent theme that I found from this reading was the idea that “it is with regard to time, particularly synchronic sociality, that the actual world intrudes most fundamentally into online culture” (Boellstorff 102). There is a necessity for people to share the same virtual space and time in order to interact. Although the characters that I was controlling were not my personal avatar and managed idiosyncratic timing compared to Second Life, I was still dependent upon them to navigate through their own world so as to successfully complete the game.
The crossovers between Second Life and actual life as described by Boellstorff were fascinating to me. The fact that Second Life is actually a “commodity economy” where people spend real money to buy virtual items makes absolutely no sense to me. What are people actually buying? Some 0’s and 1’s that code for a house or pair of shoes that they can only access via their computer screens? The quote, “While residents from across the actual world could be found in Second Life, the predominance of North Americans in its early years meant that residents from (elsewhere) sometimes complained of getting “left out” because important events would be scheduled in the middle of their night time,” also struck me as intriguing because time was an aspect of second life that “resisted virtualization.” Hmm. So even though time isn’t physically tangible, it resists virtualization, while physically tangible things like landscapes and monetary exchanges are virtualized and incorporated into Second Life with no apparent glitches.
The mixing of real and virtual that occurs in Second Life, and the grayness between these two realms of existence that the program creates, caused me to wonder, among other things: how can this be a fully satisfying lifestyle for people? How can our physical and emotional needs as tangible and non-virtual human beings be met by a virtual environment? Does the ability to be satisfied by a virtual world represent some sort of depravity in the users of Second Life? Do we find it sad- or natural and normal- that people can be fulfilled by this type of existence? Is this “Matrix”-like experience of life the inevitable way of the future? I hope we can talk about some of these questions, because I personally found this look into Second Life to be equal parts fascinating and disturbing.
In a class called Modern Skepticism, we delved a little into this distinction between real and unreal. We participated in a thought experiment were we thought back to our most recent dreams. In a dream, we see with our eyes an incoming attack, we are able to move our bodies to avert the danger, we feel our hearts beat, and we hear people’s voices. Back to reality, if someone was asked if the chair he were sitting on was real, he would say “Yes, because I can feel it underneath me.” The question is, if when dreaming one can see, feel, touch, smell and hear, and the same goes when a person is awake, how can one determine if a specific activity is real? One way to combat this is to establish certain criteria as truths. To take the example from the lead post, I might establish that in my definition of reality, flying is impossible. Therefore, if in a situation, I find myself flying, I can immediately tell that I’m dreaming. The same goes for this week’s reading. In the people are certain fundamental beliefs. The cool thing is what one man considers truth might not be the same for others. The people in this virtual reality are united in the belief that this alternate universe is real. Therefore, they invest themselves in ways that others, like me, would consider crazy. One example is found when the avatars get married even though they know nothing about each other in “real” life. To the celebrants and spectators alike, all that matters are the activities in this alternate world. So that even after they have returned to our reality and are chopping vegetables in the kitchen to feed their empty stomachs, all they can think about are “those people still dancing away in a club with a bride and groom, watching a virtual sun set over a virtual sea”(16).
-Emmanuel O
I was very struck by this quote that a lot of people have referred to in their posts: "Man is a history and culture making creature, who by his own efforts has been able to change himself after his biological evolution was complete.” I think it's fascinating that mankind continues to reinvent itself over time, even past its "biological evolution." From politics to fashion to technology, people have surpassed what might typically be considered their natural boundaries and found a way to extend reality. In this way, I'd agree with Boellstorff that virtual realities are in fact a reality of sorts. Perhaps people use virtual worlds to act as they wish they could in the literal world--maybe it's like a trial run--who knows. No matter what the motivation, people are still controlling their actions in these virtual worlds, making them a reality. An avatar is not a fictional character, because it isn't just created and done with. It leads a life of its own, controlled by the desires of its creator, therefore acting almost as a projection of oneself onto a screen. In this way, it is real, and so is the world it lives in. Virtual reality could not exist without literal reality, so, who are we to strip it of its realness?
-Jessica DeBakey
After reading Boellstroff's piece and the comments, the first thing I wanted to do was creating an avatar of my own and discovering "Second Life's" world. The examples Boelstorff gives are indeed absolutely fascinating. However, I don't think that the real distinction is between "real" and "virtual". To explain this, it is interesting to look at the name of this world - "SECOND Life". The real question is not whether it is real or not, it is to understand how our culture has created a "second" life. I am not trying to put forward a weak Nietzschean argument, but I am trying to say that no computer screen can convey the physical experience of life, the smells or the things you touch. People never interact directly - even in the streets - as layers of conventions and barriers of communication craft a highly mediated world. However, there is a great radical aspect in the extreme mediation of Second Life: bodies and - to some extent - nuances, details are taken away from the experience of life. We might even say that Descartes's dualism between body and mind is fully experienced in Second Life.
I think Second Life offers a great new medium to discover new aspects of the human being's relationship to culture - through the development of "machinimas" for instance. However, we have to notice that the great number of users of something like Second Life put the emphasis on distance and real time communication, but when your eyes are on a computer, they are not on what directly surrounds you.
I would tend to say that Second Life is a hyper-reality, a hyper-mediated reality (rather than a virtual), that proves however how some aspects of Western culture keep disqualifying the body from the experience of life.
I just thought about the "sex" scene in "Time Cop", when two characters have "sex" with helmets on their heads sending to their brains orgasmic signals.
- Ayan Meer.
Like Daniel, I was very fascinated by the idea of time-lag. Most of the technologies we have studied in the last few weeks of this class have been medium that lessen the time gap between two individuals. Phones, television, internet etc. The notion that in Second Life there is a time lag seems very counter-intuitive at first, as it is a technology much like these other technologies we have studied. The critical difference it seems, is that in virtual worlds, while we communicate via impersonal means, our standards of interaction are brought to the level of our standards for face-to-face conversations. On facebook, there is an expectation of delay, from the moment you post on your friend's wall to the moment he or she posts a response. No one expects that interaction to happen instantaneously, because although we call Facebook a social network, we understand that it is not actually the location of our social interaction (or it is, but we recognize what that social interaction means and how it is different from real life interaction). In virtual worlds, there are manifestations of people in virtual form. it is no longer just someone's wall and their profile picture that define them but their avatar which moves in "physical" space and time. This is a very minimal distinction in terms of why it should affect the way we interact temporally, but for some reason the physicality of it, the fact that we are not communicating via a page but we are instead communicating with an individual who is manifested by an avatar, creates an environment in which we expect standards of immediate response. Hence, you get things like time-delays, which are really no more severe than the delays in communication on Facebook, but which seem more severe as Boellstorff's narrative demonstrates.
Like many of the students in our class, I too am new to this concept of having a virtual self in Second Life. I automatically assume that anyone that spends hours role-playing in a virtual world must be very unsatisfied with his or her actual life. Tom Boellstorff’s Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human gave me a different perspective on the matter. One of the arguments that caught my interest was how real the virtual world can actually become. Boellstroff pointed out that the virtual world even includes the “fabrication constitutive of all human society, from language to kinship, from agriculture to desire, from governance to ritual. They are not distinguishing features of virtual worlds but a key point of continuity between them and the actual world” (21). Although the framework of the virtual world is very similar to the actual world, people have the ability to change their own identity within the world. As one of the Second Life residents suggests, ““Second Life is a chance to be someone else beside yourself, which you can't really do it in RL unless you want to lead a double life." For this resident, living a virtual-world and actual-world life was not a "double life"; with one self for the actual world and another self for the virtual world, there was no necessary sense of doubleness or overlap. Instead, in the words of one resident, the gap between virtual and actual "allows you to define your own role instead of being the one you are in RL (in my case, mother, wife)."” (120). To me, this suggests that this resident is trying to escape reality to build a different, more desirable life. Boellstroff, however, suggests that living a virtual life is not the only escapist activity that people partake in. So many of us go to amusement parks, watch movies, or go camping. All these activities are socially accepted, but in a sense also escapists in their nature.
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