Reading Response 3

Discussion Blog - Robert Gapinski and Sara Greer

I was planning to write a dialogue post in response to a blog that was posted on this week's readings. However, there was no blog on which to respond. By Sunday evening, I couldn't wait any longer. Of all the articles we've read this semester, The Star Wars article was my favorite. I identified with it became I am an amature videographer myself. The following is a response to Robert Gapinski's 4/21 blog on the middle portion of the Castronova book. Sara Greer has posted about this blog as well.

Before reading this book, I didn't give much thought to synthetic environments. When I thought of WOW and people with WOW addictions, I thought it was really stupid. This book has changed my mind and I now have a better understanding of the importance of these complex worlds.

Like Sara, my personal experiances in the kinds of synthetic worlds are limited. However, from time to time, I do play in the virtual community Neopets. (Unlike other worlds, I think this world would be very hard to become addicted to because a strong social element is absent. )I do see elements of real life in the game. There is a rather complicated economy, a fluctualting "stock market", currency, you can have your own house, and you can run a store . One of the main points of the game is to collect many items to sell in your store and and take care of your pet. These experiances have helped me to understand what the Castranova book was trying to say. Virtual worlds definately do immitate and have implications in the real world.

I do agree that the lines between virtual and real life are constantly becomeing increasingly blured. People have a lot of time and effort invested in thier avatars and their synthetic world of choice. The virtual world can easliy become an important part of ones life (when this becomes and addition is called toxic immersion). People can take these games so seriously that they will kill someone for stealing their sword or refuse to leave their world for 80 hours and die of exaustion. Iwas interested in a portion of Robert's blog where he talked about how a tramatic event in a synthetic world like rape or theft could effect a persons RL interactions and relationships.

I think that the "membrane" metophor was a very good description of the sparation of virtual and real worlds (Robert's chosen quotes on this were insightful and useful in understanding this idea). There is a sparation between virtual and real worlds but there is a constant exchange or information and items between them. You can have a profession soely based on the synthetic world that you are part of. People build up charecters and collect gold that they will sell to people. People will pay up to $500 for a higher level charecter (pg 149). This is a clear blending of the virtal items, money and eBay which are in RL. This is not suprising because some people take the game so seriously.

Another way that I have seen this blending of RL and virtual worlds is in advertisment. In Neopets there are real advertisments every where. There are ads for McDonalds, Limited Too, and childrens TV programs. Also, Neopets has just added a feature where you can buy Neocash (which you pay real money for) to buy real and virtual items through the game. It is a constant reminder that there is a real world out there and it is bleeding into the game.

Explore:
http://www.neopets.com/

Bodies in 2L

Participation Assignment

In 2L this week my group went to a strange playground, a skin mall, a gay oriented night club, and another outlet store containing what seemed to be stereotypes.  These place were body oriented.

I think to have a body means that you have almost complete control over a vessel where you are able to control most of what happens to and around it (this example does not hold true in all situations).  

An identity is what you are showing about yourself.  I think that ones identity can be fluid or fixed.  In real life identities can more easily become fixed.  You most likely could not reinvent yourself one day and completely change your identity.  In the virtual world it would be much easier to have a fluid identity that you can change at you will.  You could decide that you want to be a man and go do it.  You could see this especially in the mall that was selling skins.  This is because there is an element of anonymity in virtual spaces.  Bering is a virtual environment makes you much more aware of yourself.  When you avatar does something it may be because you want to do it.  And the more you work with you avatar the more you think about yourself.  

Your interface in real life is your body and the interface in 2L is your avatar.  I think that using an avatar in a virtual space is an extension of your will.  You can project you wants and needs onto your avatar and then make the avatar do the things that you want.  If you wanted sex in real life, but are too shy you can easily do it in 2L.  But you can also use your avatar for a joke and make it do anything that you want.  I think the level of extension stops here.  The avatar will never quite look like you and it can do man things that are physically impossible for you to do, like  fly.  I am not very attached to the events in second life. 

I think that thinking about bodies is 2L does not really have an affect on real life.  This is because I don't have much of an attachment to the game.  I also do not see much of a connection between 2L and real life.  If I did then the game would have more of an affect on me.   The one thing I think I would get out of this game is you think about what it means to have a body and how you use it.  

Race and Gender in Second Life

Participation Assignment

I recently changed my race and gender in 2L.  When I created an account in 2L I automatically chose to be a women.  I don't know why I did this.  I also chose to make it look some what like myself (I was limited because I don't know how to use the appearance function on 2L).  I had never even thought about my automatic choice until I was asked to change it.  I thought about how I could have been anything I wanted to and I tried to replicate myself.

I did not notice much of a difference in the way that I was treated. Other people mostly ignored me (a fury did hit on me though).  I would follow people and put out a general message and no one said anything to me.  I tried going to crowed and popular places (a mall, a dance party, and a free sex place) but this did not make much of a difference.  When my avatar was a women I think that I was more approachable.  People would come up to me and say hi or ask me questions.  

At first, I did not notice that changing into a male was a matter of pressing a button in the appearance box.  I had originally tried to change my original avatar to a man manually (I looked transsexual and a little scary.  This may be part of the reason I was ignored at first.  I finally found the button and made a more normal looking man).  As a man I made myself very muscular (the preset body was to skinny and weak looking).  I made the tone of my skin much darker than it had been before.  My other features were preset and stored in my library.

After this experience, I will definitely make my avatar a women again (and try to make it resemble myself).  I feel more comfortable as a women.  I think that it is more fun as a women because it is more fun dressing them and trying to make it resemble yourself.