MUDs

Howard Rheingold’s article “Multi-User Dungeons and Alternate Identities” gives the pros and cons of the world of MUDs. Prior to reading this article, I had heard of a couple MUDs but really had no understanding to what they were about. An increasingly active example of a MUD is Second Life which I first heard mentioned on my favorite television show, The Office. Another example that I had heard of is World of Warcraft (WOW) which is more like a video game where monsters need to be killed, etc. I had a couple of guy friends that were pretty into WOW but I myself never played it. No I was never into virtual communities such as the ones I mentioned above. But I thought, why don’t I give it a try just to see what it’s like? I picked LambdaMOO, the text-based virtual community Rheingold mentioned in the article. After having a little trouble getting started, I found myself in the Coat Closet. My experience was pretty fun. I didn’t talk to too many people and I found myself a little overwhelmed with all the commands. But it was still a nice break from reality.

However, as I was on LambdaMOO, I didn’t realize how much time I was spending there. I had been on for half an hour when it seemed like I had been on for five minutes. I remembered reading in the article about how addictive MUDs can be and I completely agree. Some people even go on for 70 hours a week! That’s unimaginable to me. Rheingold says “When you are putting in seventy or eighty hours a week on your fantasy character, you don’t have much time left for a healthy social life” (156). I completely agree with him. MUDs are definitely addictive and I think that is a huge point he is making in the article. It is destructive to your social life to be spending so much time on MUDs but I believe it is also destructive to other areas of your life such as school and work. Rheingold says the largest category of MUDers is college age students meaning that a lot of them are probably slacking on their school work to play these games. I completely understand how addictive it can be but I also think that it’s a little ridiculous to spend so much time on something that is not even real. Personally, I prefer real life a whole lot more than a virtual one!

The Virtual Community

Howard Rheingold’s “Introduction: The Virtual Community” proved to be a very easy read for me. Basically, he was just saying how awesome virtual communities are and how you can become a part of something real through the virtual communities. He says “People in virtual communities use words on screens to exchange pleasantries and argue, engage in intellectual discourse, conduct commerce, exchange knowledge, share emotional support, make plans, brainstorm, gossip, feud, fall in love, find friends and lose them, play games, flirt, create a little high art and a lot of idle talk” (96). That is a lot to do in a virtual community! He gave the example of WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link) and how involved he is with that. Well I’m not involved in anything of that extent (that you have to pay for I mean!) but I do have a Facebook account. All the things that Rheingold mentioned you can do in the WELL, you can do on Facebook. Facebook allows you to talk and share pictures with friends all over the world. It is a great tool to help stay in touch when at college, or at least that is what I have found.

Within the WELL, there are many different groups or conferences which you can be a part of based on your interests. I find that very similar to Facebook’s groups. My nine close friends and I have a Facebook group that is just for us and we post pictures in it and write little comments about what is going on in our college life. It is a great way to be able to talk to them without having to play “phone tag” since we all have such busy schedules.

As much as I enjoy talking to my friends on Facebook, I don’t think that it is the most effective way to meet new people. I prefer to get to know someone in person first before I friend them on Facebook, not the other way around. With Rheingold’s WELL example, he said that he went to parties where he didn’t recognize anyone because he had met them all online. That is where my guard comes up. Personally, I don’t think I would go to a party unless I didn’t know someone who was going to be there and had already met them in person. I think he’s brave to do that because there are a lot of deceitful people out there who could be trying to mislead about their real selves.

I do think that Facebook and other virtual communities like it have great qualities however they should be used responsibly and safely because no one really knows all that is out there. And I think Rheingold would agree with me.

The Noble Amateur

When I first watched the video that was posted on the wiki about Andrew Keen, I thought that he needed to loosen up a little bit. However, after reading an excerpt from his book “The Cult of the Amateur”, I realized that he made some very valid points. For example, one thing he said was “On today’s Internet, however, amateurism, rather than expertise, is celebrated, even revered” (37). I find this to be 100% true. Just think of all the websites that allow regular people to share with the world whatever they want! Keen uses the example of Wikipedia. He says it has 200 thousand editors at least who are all unpaid citizens that make this website happen. Anyone with access to a computer can edit Wikipedia and a lot of people do. Keen strongly dislikes Wikipedia because he believes that these amateurs who edit entries are disrespecting the knowledge of all the experts out there. But who is to say that only the experts should tell us what is true and what is not?

Well if Keen does not like Wikipedia then he sure wouldn’t like Urban Dictionary. Urban Dictionary is a website that allows you to give definitions similar to Wikipedia. However, Urban Dictionary has a lot more slang and is definitely crasser. Other users can then rate posts with either a thumbs up or thumbs down. Just an example of an entry; when I looked up Indiana University, I found “A school where students spend more time drinking than going to class” but I also found “It has top ten programs in business, journalism and psychology”. It is unusual to have such different viewpoints under the same entry but that is what happens when amateurs are allowed to edit their own content. If an expert was writing about Indiana University, say on the school’s official website, his/her language would be a great deal more eloquent than what was found on Urban Dictionary. However, people still believe Urban Dictionary just as much as they believe other websites. If a prospective student looked on Urban Dictionary at Indiana University and read what was on there, they might not want to attend here. And they don’t even know all the great stuff about IU! I agree with Keen that amateurism is definitely celebrated and is what they say is believed a lot more today than a few years ago.

Transmedia Storytelling 101

I found the “Transmedia Storytelling 101” by Henry Jenkins to be fascinating. As I was reading it, I was reminded of various stories that are told over different sources of media. Sure there are series like Batman and Spiderman. And then there is the success of the more recent transmedia story, Cloverfield. However, I am not familiar with any of those in particular. I guess one that I am most familiar with would be The Simpsons.

The Simpsons started out as a cartoon television series but it has expanded into so much more. There are now comic books, video games, and even a full length movie on the Simpsons. It is not one continual story but it is many stories that lead to developing the characters and eventually you see all of them in the movie. I would have to agree most with Jenkins’ statement that said “Transmedia storytelling practices many expand the potential market for a property by creating different points of entry for different audience segments”. This means that there is something for everyone or a way for anyone to get hooked on the show. In the example of the Simpsons, there are comic books for those who like to read, video games for those who like to play them, and a movie for those who enjoy going to a theater. On a personal level, I got hooked onto the Simpsons by the television show, their main source of fan attraction. By watching the episodes on television made me want to go see the movie and find out what the story was about. There were a lot of things in the movie that related to the TV series such as similar characters and their funny traits or sayings that were popular from the series. By having so many different ways to see the stories or play games to learn the characters is really beneficial and is a great marketing tool. To get people interested on a variety of levels is good for the business of the Simpsons. So while it is not an action show like Superman or Batman, it definitely is advertised and directed toward many different groups of people through many different types of media.