Exrta Blog 3

I know that we have written many blogs on virtual worlds and that we have discussed it extensively in class, however, I still have some things that I want to vent about. Okay, I have two virtual worlds that I have issues with: Second Life and LambdaMOO. First, I’ll start with LambdaMOO. I don’t really understand how someone can enjoy spending all day long talking on the computer. Sure I have instant messenger but I do not spend all day talking on it. In fact, I haven’t gone on in a while. But back to LambdaMOO. I just don’t see how reading a bunch of text on a screen is enjoyable. I would much rather go out and meet people or talk on the phone. I like real life interaction so I guess virtual worlds aren’t for me. But how are they for anyone? I know the answer to this question but I don’t want to believe it. Because I still think it is a little ridiculous. Reading text descriptions of rooms and characters isn’t the same as seeing them and experiencing interactions in real life. This brings me to Second Life. I would say that Second Life is a little better than LambdaMOO. You can see graphics and have a character that you can actually see their features. But still, why would sitting for hours in front of a computer screen be entertaining? It is a strain for your eyes and these virtual worlds hardly correlate to real life. I don’t think that typing for hours on a keyboard can make you any more social in real life. I know that people use virtual worlds because they are too shy to socialize in real life. However, I feel like they are wasting their time. I know that I have brought up a lot of things that we have already talked about but I am just reiterating my point.

Extra Blog 2

This blog might be a little short but I want to tell a story of how I participated in a grass- roots campaign just two weeks ago. A girl who is a recent alumnus of my sorority has a younger brother who has Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML), a fast-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow. They needed $500,000 by April 3^rd for a bone marrow transplant and weren’t sure how they were going to get it because the boy, Michael, hit his lifetime insurance amount. His parents sent out an email saying that there was a website that people could donate money to in order to help save his life. I received it and sent it on to 20 people. That was the goal. For each person to send it on to some people they know. That way, the information would be disseminated throughout as many people as possible. Also, they needed the money rapidly so email is the fastest way to do it. Fortunately, they received all the money they needed in order for Michael to get the transplant. I’m not entirely sure on how he is doing now but if I find out I will update this blog. I thought it was really interesting to be part of this. In class we were asked if any of us had participated in a grass-roots campaign and at the time I hadn’t. Now I guess my answer changes. I thought that Michael’s parents picked a very effective way of trying to get money to help their son. I would probably do the same if people I knew needed money for surgery or something like it. So here is a real life example of a grass-roots campaign!!

Extra Blog 1

Okay so this blog isn’t about media so much as it is about technology. Which aren’t the same things. My future career plan is to become a forensic psychologist. I have wanted to follow this career path for many years (not just because I watch CSI). Anyways, I am taking an anthropology class and we go into a little bit of forensic anthropology. This is really cool. We are learning how to tell the age and gender of deceased people by their skeletons! They have amazing ways of preserving skeletons now a day. I just think it’s really cool how far we have come with technology. According to an article I found called “Forensic Anthropology is used in…” written by Carl Walker, recent advances in technology have made forensic anthropology a very popular field of study. The use of new microscopic technology has made it incredibly easy to get the tiniest details at any crime scene. I was really impressed by the things I learned in my anthropology class and I strongly recommend that if anyone is interested in forensics (like I am) then take a forensic anthropology class!

danah boyd- MySpace

The danah boyd article called “Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace” was definitely something I could relate to. After all, at one time, I did have a MySpace account. MySpace started as a social networking site for new bands and young people who needed a place to “hang out”. I was pretty young when I got a MySpace. I want to say I was a freshman in high school. I have long since deactivated my account and for one reason: my parents. Actually that’s not true, there was a multitude of reasons but none of them actually drew me away from the site until my parents stepped in. boyd’s article talks a lot about how MySpace (and other social networks like it) become this place where people define themselves and she mentions a lot of good things. However, she does mention how it is hard for parents to relinquish control of their children’s internet lives and that “this dynamic most often destroys the most important value in the child/parents relationship: trust” (6). I totally agree with that statement and a living example of it.

My parents were always pretty trustworthy of me until my Jr. year of high school when someone let them see my MySpace. Now being the oldest, I usually got it pretty hard and since my sister’s didn’t have MySpace accounts, there was no way for them to understand what MySpace was really about. They found some things they didn’t like and made me not go on my account anymore. But I did. And they found out. And finally they made me shut it down. They didn’t trust that I would make good choices over the internet about what I posted and who I became friends with. They didn’t like the type of person I was online or the type of person that I was becoming due to MySpace. Up until last summer, I wasn’t involved in any type of social network. I know it sounds weird but I felt like I was missing out on something. Soon a lot of my friends had Facebook’s and were sharing photos and I couldn’t do that. I eventually convinced my parents to let me get one in order to stay in touch with high school friends when I went to college. I am older now and understand the dangers of the Internet and am very careful what I say and post. Also, I really look at who I friend and who can see my profile. I really hope I never violate my parents trust again. I do believe that they need to let go because I am an adult and can make decisions by myself. I also understand their concern however. I don’t like MySpace because I say that it “ruined my life” for a short period of time (to be dramatic). However, I think it was actually myself and not the site that was the source of issue. At one time MySpace was a great thing but there are dangers to it. So be careful what you put on there.

Griefers

I think the concept of griefers is insane! I definitely agree with Prokofy Neva who believes that “no amount of humor or creativity can excuse what she sees as terrorism”. I feel like griefing is very similar to terrorism. What people are doing is pushing someone so far that they can’t take it anymore. Terrorism is the same way. Someone does something and continues to do it until someone else reacts to it. I find that very annoying. It’s like your little brother or sister poking you until you get upset and yell at them. In the article by Julian Dibbell called “Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World”, he mentions many different ways that griefers push people to the edge. One example was when a group of Second Life Goons recreated the scene of the burning Twin Towers. That was an act of terrorism and I think that it still should be considered an act of terrorism in Second Life. Causing people to relive an experience that was horrible and scarring is a terrible thing to do. I think that these people are sick in the head. In the case, of Prokofy Neva, she lost hundreds of real US dollars because of the griefers. I agree that she has every right to be upset.

I am not very involved in online communities so I wasn’t entirely sure on what a griefing episode looked like until I read the articles that were included in our syllabus. The one that really stood out for me was “Alien Invasion” from the Something Awful website. It showed all these pictures of aliens coming to the Second Life world and abducting people to use for “experimentation”. It turns out that the experiments where just torture. That was disturbing for me to see. I didn’t like thinking about how there are real people behind those characters that are getting tortured, or raped (such as in the case of Dibbell’s article “A Rape in Cyberspace”). I feel like they are real terrorists because they get enjoyment from watching other people suffer. I realize that some are just trying to be funny or obnoxious like a little brother or sister, but there is also those who push it too far. Griefing is terrorism.

Here is the alien invasion article: http://www.somethingawful.com/d/second-life-safari/alien-invasion.php

A Rape In Cyberspace

When I first heard about the concept of virtual rape, I thought that was impossible and ridiculous. I still don’t really see why it is such a big deal (because it isn’t real), but I understand it a little better. This particular virtual rape that happened in Julian Dibbell’s article “A Rape in Cyberspace” occurred in the virtual world of LambdaMOO. Lambda Moo is completely text based. So that alone made me wonder how this could have happened. Why couldn’t the person just have logged off? You can’t control what other people say but you can certainly control if you listen to them or not. But apparently, people were outraged. Legba, the woman who was virtually raped, says this in response to how she felt after the crime was committed. “I also think that Mr. Bungle was being a being a vicious, vile fuckhead, and I…want his sorry ass scattered from #17 to the Cinder Pile. I’m not calling for policies, trials, or better jails. I’m not sure what I’m calling for. Virtual castration, if I could manage it. Mostly, [this type of thing] doesn’t happen here. Mostly, perhaps I though it wouldn’t happen to me. Mostly, I trust people to conduct themselves with some veneer of civility. Mostly, I want his ass” (380). As you can tell from this quote, there is a lot of bitterness and hostility here. I guess I understand that being raped makes you feel violated, but I don’t understand why legba couldn’t have just logged off.

I don’t even know what I can compare this too. I have never had an experience like that before because I’m not very involved in virtual worlds. However, I did find an article confirming that there are a lot more cases of virtual rape out there than I realized. The Wired article entitled “Virtual Rape is Traumatic, but is it a Crime?” talked about an investigation of a rape in Second Life. I don’t really understand how that is possible either. Yes, Second Life is not text base and has graphics but still, how can you force a virtual avatar to engage in sexual activities? I don’t understand why these people won’t just log off!! The article talked about how much of a mental trauma rape is whether online or offline. That part I agree with. I believe that rape is very emotionally destructive. But I also still believe that to avoid anything similar to virtual rape or sexual harassment, just log off!

Here is the article link: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/sexdrive/2007/05/sexdrive_0504

Tinysex and Gender Troubles

I thought Sherry Turkle’s article “Tinysex and Gender Trouble” was fairly interesting and very easy to read. She made a lot of valid points and helped open my eyes to the ups and downs of virtual worlds. I found to be most fascinated when she started talking about online imposters because I realize that I myself have come in contact with a few.

No matter where you go on the Internet, if you are interacting with people, you are bound to meet a few who pretend to be something that they are not. That was the case in this article with the story about Joan who turned out to really be Alex. Turkle describes the people’s reactions when they found out that their woman friend was really a man. She says, “The discovery of Alex’s deception led to shock and outrage. In some versions of the story, the anger erupts because of the initial deception-that a man had posed as a woman, that a man had won confidences as a woman” (229). I can imagine this outrage! No one likes to be deceived especially by someone they thought was their friend. From my own online experience, I have found to be deceived quite a few times in chat rooms and on instant messenger. I remember on one occasion how I was on instant messenger and though I normally don’t talk to people I don’t know, someone IMed me saying they knew me from a friend so I decided to stick around and talk. The conversation was going fine until they started talking to me about my ex-boyfriend who I was not on good terms with. I really don’t like talking about my ex, especially to people who I don’t really know too well. It turns out that I wasn’t just talking to a friend of my ex, but that I was talking to my ex. He had gone under a screen name that I didn’t know and pretended to be someone else in order to see if I would say anything bad about him. I thought that was a really low blow and it was really strange and creepy. I definitely feel for all those affected by Alex’s deceit. It is strange to share personal information with people who turn out to be someone else. I am definitely a lot more open with girls then I am with guys and to find out that I had shared a lot of my personal life with a strange guy instead of a girl would leave me feeling violated. I am glad that Sherry Turkle addressed the issue of online imposters in her article because it is a very prevalent issue today.