April 9: Identity and Online

GamingCOM 327

Schedule1.Quiz!

2.Keeping of the House

3.Group Presentation

4.Mini-lecture: Identity A to Z

Quiz1. Gray begins her article with a story of the harassment she experienced on Xbox live. According to her, what are the two things that are intersecting in this story?

a) Her experience as a woman and as an African-Americanb) 12 year old boys and the Internetc) Black and white (hence her name, "Gray")d) Military and gaming

Quiz2. “Anonymity on the internet _______ people, compelling some to say and do things that they would not otherwise do.”  Gray goes on to say that this is expressed in two ways: “benign” as when people show “unusual acts of kindness and generosity”, and “toxic”, as when people harass or berate others in ways they wouldn’t normally do offline.

a) commodifiesb) framesc) punishes d) disinhbits

Quiz3. Blizzard asked a guild to remove what proclamation about their group, arguing that it was inappropriate because it might "incite certain responses in other players that will allow for discussion that we feel has no place in our game"? a) The guild kills other playersb) The guild is GLBT friendlyc) The guild is human-onlyd) The guild is anti-Blizzard

Quiz4. According to Cory Doctorow, quoted in the WoW article, what is one huge advantage real life has over gamelife? a) In real life you can see what people look likeb) In real life you can discriminate on the basis of sexual orientationc) In real life you can eat real foodd) In real life you can appeal a nonsensical interpretation of the law

Housekeeping• Next class (April 11): Dr. TL Taylor in

Caldwell Lounge:–Watch me Play: Live-streaming,

Computer Games, and the Future of Spectatorship

• April 16 (next Tuesday): no readings... but quiz will be on TL Taylor’s lecture & Chapter 5 of her book.

• April 16 = Final Project Work Day. –Bring in materials, questions, etc.

• April 16: Feedback on midterms too.

Group Presentation!

Who here has been harassed or talked down to by someone they don’t know online?

“GOLDEN DIPWAD”

Mini-lectureTheA to Z of Online Identity

vatar

uckerberg

Early days of “cyberspace” (late 80s – late 90s)

LambdaMOO: “Space” was a metaphor. It was all text.

Real life identities were hidden

Promises & perils of “leaving your body behind”

“The physical world… is a place where identity and position of the people you communicate with are well known, fixed, and highly visual. In cyberspace, everybody is in the dark” (Kitchin, “The World in Wires”, 1998)

Why would this be a good thing? For whom?

Why would this be a dangerous thing? For whom?

Stories from early cyberspace

“cross-dressing psychiatrist”(Stone, “In Novel Conditions: The Cross-Dressing Psychiatrist”, 1995)

“virtual rape” in LambaMOO(Dibbell, “A Rape in Cyberspace”, 1993)

Representation in GRAPHIC media

Habitat, by LucasArts (RIP), 1987

“avatar”“an incarnation, embodiment, or manifestation of a person or idea”

In online games the expectation is that it’s not “you” – but who you want

to play as / with.

Some facts/theories about avatars…

• The more realistic the virtual world, the more people will make avatars that look like them

• The more novice players are, the more they’ll make avatars that look like them

GingerJesus: Guess what he looked like in real life

The more time people spend in online games, the less they express themselves through the LOOK of their avatar and the more they express themselves through their actions

Avatars become an expression of identity vs a reflection of identity e.g. the “Militant Misses” Xbox

live clan in Kishonna Gray’s article

Online worlds expose a rift in our notions of identity

What we are vs what we do

This is not a new tension…

GOFFMAN?

Identity as what you ARE(ie. female, 47 years old, left-handed, 5’9”, etc)

Identity as what you DO(i.e. university student, poker player, gamer, dancer)

• Where does sexuality fit in?

• Where does gender fit in?

• Where does ethnicity fit in?

Goffman: We perform different roles – we are different people – based on the given social situation

Enter the ZuckerbergHAVING TWO

IDENTITIES FOR YOURSELF IS AN EXAMPLE OF A

LACK OF INTEGRITY

The “integrity” of Facebook in action:

“like farming”

Identity as what you are vs what you do

What matters more in....• Facebook• Online role-playing games• Xbox Live• School

What role does each play:Design & ‘rules’ of the service Other users