James Spradley suggests beginning the process of identifying cultural themes
with a domain analysis (Spradley, 1980). A "cultural domain" is a category
of cultural meaning that includes other, smaller categories (ibid: 88). A
single domain is comprised of a "cover term" (e.g. "Avatar") and a semantic
relationship (e.g. "is a kind of"). Included terms (e.g. "Humanoid",
"Animal", "Alien") are then noted for each cultural domain. Specific to
this project, these categories include such things as "Types of Avatars",
"Ways to Transgress", or "Ways to Deal with a Transgressor". Domains and
included terms often include many "folk terms" from the culture being
observed, and looking for these terms along with tacitly expressed
descriptions and relationships is useful in identifying them.
For the purposes of this project, I developed a domain analysis worksheet
within my field notebook that laid out the structure of each domain,
including cover term, semantic relationship, and included terms (see
Appendix E for an example of the worksheet).
As I reviewed my notes and
interviews I filled in the worksheets with cultural domains as I identified
them. These domains were then useful in looking for cultural themes that
ran across domains as well as across virtual worlds. From review of my
field notes and interviews, I came up with the following list of cultural
domains:
Kinds of Avatar (e.g. humanoid, animal, alien, fantasy, inanimate
object)
Kinds of Relationship (e.g. "virtual", "real life", authority figure,
peer)
Kinds of Event (e.g. planned activity, community gathering, public,
private, exclusive)
Kinds of Place (e.g. public spaces, personal property, private turf,
town, "official" vs. personal Palace)
Kinds of Transgression (e.g. intentional, unintentional, "newbie"
mistake, hacking, harassment, cultural difference, obscenity)
Kinds of Player (e.g. "newbie", veteran, "SNERT", casual, regular,
hacker)
Places within AlphaWorld (e.g. Ground Zero, Sherwood Forest, town,
private property, public space, underground)
Places within the Dreamscape (e.g. town, private turf)
Places within the Palace (e.g. Palace Main mansion, Welcome Palace,
personal server)
Consequences of Transgressing (e.g. being "reasoned with", being
"killed", being "Put in the Void", being ignored, being "banned")
Reasons for being in a Virtual World (e.g. making friends, finding
lovers, building property, socializing, relieving boredom, sex, freedom of
expression, experimenting with identity)
Reasons for Transgressing (e.g. "acting out", self-expression, not
knowing any better)
Ways to deal with a Transgressor (e.g. explain the rules, moderate,
ignore them, "kill" them, banish them)
Ways to Transgress (e.g. obscenity, vandalism, interfering,
impersonating another avatar, theft, spamming)
Ways to Learn Appropriate Behavior (e.g. read the guidelines, ask other
players, observe other players, trial and error, transfer from "real life",
transfer from text-based medium)
Ways to Acquire an Avatar (e.g. select a pre-made one, design your own,
assemble from pre-made parts)
Ways to Express a Personal Relationship (e.g. virtual marriage,
exchanging heads, wear matching avatars)
Ways to Decide what is Appropriate Behavior (e.g. official rules,
community consensus, authority figures, voting)
Ways to Move Around (e.g. walk, fly, teleport, mouse click)
Steps in Creating a Character (e.g. choose an avatar, choose a name,
create persona)
Steps in Acquiring Property (e.g. build piece by piece, buy, create own
server)
Steps in Dealing with Transgressors (e.g. peer pressure, involve
authority figures)
5.1.2. Dimensions of Contrast
For purposes of ethnographic research, Spradley defines a cultural theme as
"Any principle recurrent in a number of domains, tacit or explicit, and
serving as a relationship among subsystems of cultural meaning". (ibid:
141). One useful step towards identifying cultural themes is to look for
dimensions of contrast within domains, especially those that cut across a
number of different domains (ibid: 141). For instance, when talking about
the different ways to deal with transgressors, my informants often talked
about the degree of formality of the method. One may begin by "reasoning
with" the transgressor, hoping to stop his offensive behavior by peer
pressure. At the other extreme, a contrasting method of behavioral
enforcement would be to involve the "official" authorities and have them
impose some kind of formal punishment on the offender.
In my analysis of cultural domains, the following dimensions of contrast
stood out as important:
Exclusive vs. Inclusive. Across a number of domains, the contrast
between exclusive and inclusive behavior is important.
Events may be held in a public space, allowing anyone to attend and
participate. On the other hand, some events are held in a private space,
allowing in only those avatars that the event's facilitator desires to be
there. Judith in particular talked about exclusiveness and how it translates
between the real and virtual world:
... For instance, all the real world gatherings (of Dreamscape
participants)
that I know of have been held in these very suburban locations, even
the
Bay Area gathering was held in Concord! I'm trying to talk the guy who runs
those into having it at least in Berkeley, but he told me that he didn't
like to go to Berkeley if he wasn't armed! So, that makes me think that
there is a certain amount of racism among the users here - and again, it
reflects what is going on. What I think is going on in the real world, is
this idea that the inner city is this war zone, this horrible, dangerous
place filled with dangerous native with firearms, and the only safe place is
the suburbs, and the only real, clean, and comfortable place to live is in
the suburbs among your own kind. You know, the kind of separatism that's
going on. And here, with the apartments (in the Dreamscape), as soon as
they opened up, nobody goes in the public spaces. Which reflects this same
trend - the only safe place is your own place in the suburbs, where you can
control who comes and goes. The street is not a good place to be. (J.
Rubin, personal interview, March 2, 1997)
This potential for exclusiveness held true across two of the three worlds I
studied (Dreamscape and the Palace). AlphaWorld has no private spaces, as
any avatar is able to go anywhere.
Status within a World. A number of cultural domains refer to the level
of experience or relative status of each participant in a virtual world. A
player can be a "newbie" or a veteran player, a regular participant or an
occasional visitor, an official authority figure or a volunteer.
Having a particular status in a world can be a positive or negative thing,
depending on the circumstances. "Spring Dew" told me how "... the very
first day that I arrived (in AlphaWorld), the extreme helpfulness of the
people just knocked me over. People were so tolerant of me as a newbie, and
showed me everything I needed to know." ("Spring Dew", personal interview,
July 3, 1997). On the other hand, "Dows" told me that some players enjoy
trying to fool newbies by giving them false information ("Dows", personal
interview, July 2, 1997).
Some of "Myotis"s experiences indicate the respect that is generally felt
towards those of high status in the worlds:
... my first time signing on, it was so major cool, being able to chat in
real time, and interact. It was a programmer's dream come true. Then I met
the programmer (of The Palace). That was total ecstasy, to be able to chew
the fat with the man himself! ("Myotis", personal interview, May 19, 1997)
Myotis himself is a wizard in The Palace, and takes his responsibility very
seriously. He told me about a time when he nearly "pulled rank" on another
wizard accidentally:
I was online one night, and there was a member on with the name
"Wiz-Undercover". Impersonating a wizard is a very bad thing to do. I
warned the individual twice, and he did not respond. I was one second away
from disconnecting him, and he came back and said, "Wait wait wait MYO, it
is WINGS. I am undercover. Trust me, IP me!" It turned out he was
another wizard, and I almost disconnected him. But I was acting in what I
thought was the right mindset. (ibid)
I felt that this story showed the importance of integrity regarding one's
status in the world. When I asked Myotis what the consequences would have
been if he HAD actually disconnected the other wizard, he told me there
would not really be any, other than his own embarrassment, and subsequent
apology. "Wings is a personal friend, as are all of my wizard cohorts."
(ibid)
A particular participant may also change status as he or she gains knowledge
and experience in a world, or gains the confidence of those already in
power. This contrast appears across domains related to transgressions and
transgressors, types of players, relationships, reasons for participating,
and defining appropriate behavior.
Official vs. Unofficial means of social control. Again, this contrast
helps to define a number of domains, including means of dealing with
transgressors, types of players, and results of transgressing.
Across all three worlds, control normally begins with unofficial methods,
calling in authorities or other official enforcement methods only if
necessary. What makes something "official" vs. "unofficial" is what the
participants with special power or authority can do to an offending player.
For example, on the Dreamscape an Oracle could put an offending player into
the "Void", similar to putting a criminal into a real life prison. This
would be an "official" means of social control, whereas "unofficial" means
might include ignoring the offensive avatar in an attempt to make them go
away.
"Spring Dew"'s experience illustrates this type of contrast. When one
avatar was "spamming" the screen (repeating the same phrase over and over at
very high speed so that nobody else's conversation is visible, two of the
"officials" were asked to mediate:
This was in the days before the "mute" button, so Roland and Dataman
were called in to assist. First they tried to use persuasion to get him to
cease spamming, but their words scrolled up at a very high speed and were
completely ignored. It took some work to remove the person from the
environment, because of some peculiarities in his connection to the web, but
finally they managed to "boot" him, to cause him to cease to be there.
Nowadays, the "mute" option is a very useful anti-spam tool, and the "boot"
option has been removed from the program. ("Spring Dew", personal
interview, July 3, 1997)
With the "mute" option being made available to players, any player may press
the button and the offending avatar's words will not be displayed on their
screen. This is an example of how special use of technology that was once
an "official" means of enforcement, has now become more "unofficial".
Individual vs. Community. A contrast exists across many domains where
the desires of the individual may conflict with the desires or needs of the
community as a whole.
I found this to be one of the key areas of contrast in domains related to
development of social norms, reasons for participating, means of enforcing
norms, types of transgressions, events, spaces, and acquisition of property.
AlphaWorld's "muting" feature is a good example of how one individual may
exercise his right to freedom of speech without forcing others to hear it
against their will. "Wepwawet" gave another example regarding the building
of personal property:
I was building at one point and had left a rather large open area. A new
person obviously came along and built what would be described as a "shack"
in the real world. I looked at it and fumed. However, it was not
technically vandalism. I asked a number of people building in the area if
they knew who had built it, but no one did. I would have asked the avatar
to remove it, but I never found them.
("Wepwawet", personal interview, July 5, 1997)
This example seems very close to real life situations where one run down
house can be a nuisance to a neighborhood!
Since cultural themes function as general relationships among cultural
domains (ibid: 146), these areas of contrast can help in pointing to
concepts that exist in a number of different domains. By then looking at
similarities as well as contrasts among domains, cultural themes begin to
emerge. Because my research and interview questions were deliberately and
specifically geared toward learning about the construction and enforcement
of social and behavioral norms, there was a great deal of information that
explicitly addressed these questions. As a result, I found it fairly simple
to study related domains that I had identified in relation to the contrasts
that emerged.
5.2. Cultural Themes Across the Two Frontiers
In this section I will explore how the cultural themes found in my research
data relate to themes found in American frontier history, mythology, and
literature. I will use information and quotes from all sources and will
then show and discuss how they correspond. Again, by making this
comparison, we gain a better understanding of how the notion of "frontier"
is being appropriated and utilized by participants in the new frontier of
electronic medium.
In order to identify themes, I reviewed each of the interviews that I kept
in my field notebook. Here I noted and highlighted the statements I found
that reflected Opler's definition of "cultural theme" as "A postulate or
position, declared or implied, and usually controlling behavior or
stimulating activity, which is tacitly approved or openly promoted in a
society" (Spradley, 1980: 140). I then cross-referenced statements of
theme for all interviews pertaining to each world, as well as themes that
were found to be common in all three. The main cultural themes that were
present, that seemed to be in effect across all three of the virtual worlds
I worked in, were:
5.2.1. Development and Means of Social Control
Although rules may be made by consensus or by an authority group or person,
it is preferable to try informal means of social control before involving
official authorities. Across the board, this theme was stated by my
informants both implicitly and explicitly. Although each world has some
form of authority figure, the communities as a whole prefer to be
self-governing when possible. However, if peer pressure and warnings are
not effective, the authorities will be called upon to deal with offenders.
In the virtual worlds I studied, social control is an ongoing and evolving
process. In each world, the idea was that primarily, the members of the
community should be responsible for defining acceptable behavior. The
Palace, with it's "make of it what you will" philosophy, was the most
lenient. Only WorldsAway's Dreamscape came with official guidelines as part
of its signup process .
Opinions about this varied among my informants. Wendy Sue, as someone who
had been involved in the development of these worlds and in hosting online
events, mentioned, "If you remember from the Digital Communities panel,
Linda Stone from Microsoft was saying ... that we don't want to make rules
in this unknown territory and turn off potential customers". At the same
time, she believes strongly that rules and protocol are critical to the
success of virtual worlds - "WEAVE actually is, for me, a part of
establishing rules. Because if (we don't have rules), women aren't going to
come in... not if they're going to be harassed". (W. Noah, personal
interview, March 3, 1997)
Judith, a former employee of WorldsAway, also said, "For the most part we
want people to run their own world. There's a little bit of guidance from
the helpers, but for the most part they come up with their own social
guidelines, their own ways of dealing with theft, harassment, or whatever."
(J. Rubin, personal interview, March 2, 1997)
This attitude appears to be even stronger among the Oracles in the
Dreamscape. Janet Richardson (1997), one of the Oracles, wrote in her paper
"Doing it in Cyberspace: Cultural Sensitivity in Applied Anthropology":
Some community members, highly incensed about obscenity and other
behavior they consider to be completely socially unacceptable
(thefts,
running scams, etc.), have tried zealously to institute a government
and a constitution with a clear body of in-world law. This has been
unsuccessful, however, because of the range of social interpretation
represented in-world. It was difficult for a committee of avatars
to convince
a majority of the community to embrace a narrowed definition of
socially
acceptable behavior, and the Oracles were not willing to back such
narrowed
definitions with their authority.
On the other hand, Tina, who is a Goddess (owner and manager) of two Palace
servers, feels that, "Any time decisions are left to a group, you have
differing degrees of tolerance and that creates a problem that's quickly
untenable. A decision should be made concerning them by the God of the
Palace ... guidelines should be clear cut and not left to personal
determination ... and then strictly upheld." (Tina, personal interview, May
19, 1997) Although each of these people differed in their preferred
approach to the development of rules, all agreed that some degree of
protocol was very important.
Equally important is the means by which these rules are enforced. In each
world, rules may be enforced informally by regular citizens, or more
formally by those in authority.
This authority is given and recognized differently in different worlds. In
the Dreamscape, the Oracles can be recognized through the special robes worn
by their avatars. Oracles and Acolytes also put the words "Oracle" or
"Acolyte" at the start of their names, so that other members will know who
they are. Similarly, wizards in The Palace use "wiz-" at the start of their
avatar's name. In AlphaWorld, it seemed that citizens with special powers
were only identified by their avatars' names, and other citizens would just
have to know who they were in order to identify them. In all cases, these
more "official" participants have the power to mute (cause to not be heard),
banish or kill (remove from the world), or "void" another player (put him in
the virtual equivalent of jail).
In each of these worlds, among my informants, informal social control by
peers was the preferred method. In cyberspace, this consists for the most
part of "reasoning with" the offender in an attempt to convince them to stop
their offensive behavior, with official means being used only as a last
resort. Wendy Sue told about one such incident that occurred during a
social event that she was hosting in AlphaWorld:
... and there was one avatar who came in and decided to make a
ruckus. He came in swearing, talking about "tits", just was being
totally
obnoxious. And in the real world, because I've hosted real events
too,
I could say, "Hey, look here, stop making a ruckus or I'm kicking
you
out." You can do that in the real world. But in the virtual world,
I said,
"We have many guests, can you please go elsewhere?" I was trying at
first to be very considerate. But this person, who was a woman
avatar,
but who knows whether it was a man or a woman, they would not stop,
they wouldn't quit, they were just going on and on. Well, this is
very
unusual, but, the man who created AlphaWorld, who programmed it,
..., he joined us for this matchmaking event, because we'd never
really done anything like that, inviting MATCH.COM members. So it
was bringing to the masses what we can do in virtual space.
However,
[he] was really upset with this intruder as well, so, this has not
been
done before, but he actually killed him! He actually shot him out.
He
said, 'if you don't stop, I have the controls right here in my hand.
And
he zapped him right out. And that's never happened before and I
don't
think it has since. (W. Noah, personal interview, March 3, 1997)
Virtual "killing" of an avatar consists of forcibly shutting down the
player's session and removing him from the virtual world, and must be done
by someone with an advanced level of technical knowledge and access.
Although this is generally considered an extreme measure, it does happen
fairly frequently. Not, however, until after a good amount of informal,
"reasoning with" has taken place.
Another method of informal social control often used in virtual worlds is
ignoring the offending party. This is often done after trying to talk to an
avatar, who enjoys the attention and acts up further. "Spring Dew" told me:
Usually peer pressure is enough to cause a change in a person's
behavior, but even so, sometimes an offensive person gets a kick
out of all the attention and steps up the obnoxious behavior, at
which
point the people who are offended often decide just to "mute" the
person,
or better yet, to SAY that they have muted him/her and simply ignore
the
offender, who usually gets bored and goes elsewhere.
("Spring Dew", personal interview, July 3, 1997)
"Muting" is a technical action that will cause a particular avatar's words
to not be seen by others. This passage shows that most participants are
familiar with this action, and that even pretending to have taken it
achieves the desired results.
In the American West, as in Cyberspace, social control tended to be
primarily informal, by means of peer pressure and even vigilantism rather
than through official means. The major difference I have seen is that in
the nineteenth century West, this was as much due to necessity as to
preference. However, in a letter to his parents from Minnesota in the
1850s, immigrant Theodore Bost relates some thoughts about dealing with a
man who had robbed him of some lumber:
.... The law?? There's only one policeman in the whole city, and
where can I find him if I see this man around town? The only thing
I can
think of is to put on a very bold front, speak in a harsh, firm
tone, and,
if that doesn't work, I suppose I'll have to resort to force.
"You'd be
doing the wrong thing" say you, but wouldn't I be doing a still
worse
thing to let a thief rob everyone without ever being punished?
As the Americans see it, everyone should look out for himself and
punish those who do him an injury, just as the law would punish
them if it could. And as a matter of fact, why should I get a man
sent to prison for a number of years when I can produce better
results so far as the individual is concerned by giving him a good
thrashing?
(Bowen, 1981: 62)
To me, this is a particularly interesting passage because it points out not
only the necessity for Theodore Bost to take matters into his own hands, but
also the fact that he saw and understood the value in doing so. I felt that
this echoes the ideas of many of my informants from the virtual worlds, who
seemed to prefer informal means of control, turning to official means only
when necessary. So to a great extent, it seems that a kind of social
Darwinism is in effect in both frontiers. In most cases, informal methods
of peer pressure and "majority rules" are generally effective, and only in
extreme cases must official rule enforcers be called upon.
5.2.2. Transferring social norms
The majority of my informants believed that they could, and had,
successfully transferred their social skills and expectations to the virtual
worlds from their "real life" experiences. Among these were "Wepwawet", who
said, "The social norms of (AlphaWorld) are exactly the ones that are active
in the Real World", Tina, who told me that she had
learned appropriate behavior on The Palace "by observing and understanding
that people are much the same online in regards to personal space and
conversation as they are anywhere else" (Tina, personal interview, May 19,
1997), and "FO", who felt that "Socially acceptable behavior is no different
(on The Palace) than offline". ("FO",
personal interview, June 8, 1997) However, the need to observe others for
a time in order to get a clearer idea of expected behavior was also
mentioned by a few people.
"Spring Dew" told me that, "Observing people's actions and reactions in
AlphaWorld gave me a useful yardstick as to what is allowable". ("Spring
Dew", personal interview, July 3, 1997) "Wizzard" compared learning social
norms in virtual worlds with his experiences in traveling to foreign
countries: "I traveled to foreign countries a lot when younger, so perhaps
that experience is helpful here. Everywhere there are different customs; if
one just watches and listens, they will pick up on them." ("Wizzard",
personal interview, May 22, 1997) Peter, my only informant from outside the
United States, told me about a misunderstanding that he had been involved in
due to cultural differences:
This happened directly after an event known as "24 hours in
the Palace". This event was a roaring success, so as usual American
participants immediately started congratulating one another (I never
understood why, but this seems to be an American peculiarity;
well, at least it is a nice one!). But in all congratulations one
of the most important contributors was forgotten because he happened
to be elsewhere at the time. So I wrote a note that, if they had to
start congratulating one another, they should not forget this person
in the first place. Immediately hell broke loose! Later I was told
by
one of my US friends that I should have waited one or two days
until the first violent 'congrats' waves were over and then have
sent my "correction". But that is not what we are used to do in
Holland. So this was a major "culture clash"! And I didn't even
know! (Peter, personal interview, June 9, 1997)
Both of these concepts were also present in the American Frontier. Because
the people on the frontier were both Easterners migrating West, and people
from other countries coming to America and moving into the Western frontier,
there was often the need for adjustment of behavior and expectations.
Individual communities may have sprung up around immigrants from a given
country, but generally they were still influenced by
"Americans". Before Theodore Bost came to America from France, he was told
by his pastor that, "... he should not expect to find Europe in America. Let
him save his comparisons for a time when he will know more about the New
World. The things that are valued over there, even in farming, are of
little use here. A man would soon ruin himself completely by sticking to
European ways" (Bowen, 1981: 7).
Gro Svendsen from Norway, in a letter to her family, said, "Everything is so
totally different from what it was in our beloved Norway. You never will
imagine what it's like, although you no doubt try to imagine what it might
be. Your pictures would be all wrong, just as mine were". (Svendsen, 1950:
39) Accounts like these help to illustrate that many people coming to the
American West expected things to be similar to what they knew back home.
Usually, these expectations were not met.
This is one area where I find that the mythologized and imagined West comes
into play. Henry Nash Smith (1970) talks about the perceptions that both
Europeans and Easterners had about the American West. Their attitudes
toward different aspects of the frontier varied greatly. "The agricultural
West was tedious; its inhabitants belonged to a despised social class. The
Wild West was, by contrast, an exhilarating region of adventure and
comradeship in the open air ... a young gentleman of leisure could afford
better than anyone else to indulge himself in the slightly decadent cult of
wildness and savagery which the early nineteenth century took over from
Byron. Historians call the mood 'primitivism'." (Smith, 1970: 52).
Is there not an element of primitivism in virtual worlds today? My
informants' accounts are filled with examples of this. For example, "Spring
Dew" talked about a person who showed up at a grand opening part on
AlphaWorld:
Once a person showed up at a grand opening party and used
homophobic epithets and accusations of sexual depravity on the
part of the guests. When asked to cease, he began yelling
the same sentiments in all caps and then resorted to
"spamming". This means that he used the copy/paste feature to
replicate the same words over and over at high speed, hitting
"enter" after every line in rapid succession, so that no one
could get a word in edgewise. ("Spring Dew", personal
interview, July 3, 1997)
This experience indicates that some people come to these worlds, indeed
transferring their social norms from "real life", but with the specific
intention of transgressing them, and of acting out their most basic and
primitive instincts.
Mary related another incident that occurred in the WorldsAway Dreamscape:
We had this guy called "Nadman", and he'd just basically go into an
event, like they have auctions for special goods, or for rare items
in
the World that have ceased to be available in the Vendos.
And Nadman would go in and go "BLAM! BLAM BLAM BLAM!
BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM!" And he'd just keep going, wouldn't
stop, he'd unghost at the wrong time, because you had to have people
come down at certain times in the auction to show the item around,
and
maybe you'd want to put it down, but you can't put it down because
"Nadman" is there, going "BLAM BLAM BLAM!" So, everyone
figured he was less than twelve years old, but you never know!
(M. Madaras, personal interview, April 24, 1997)
Was "Nadman" in fact a twelve-year-old seeking attention? Or was he perhaps
a forty-five year old accountant who needed an outlet for the primitive
urges that he felt but could not express in his day to day life? An
experience that Wendy Sue related shows that this kind of thing does in fact
occur:
Bruce Damer was being interviewed in Mind's Palace about a month ago. So an
avatar popped up and started just saying this, that, just throwing out a
bunch of stuff. And this was during an interview! So Bruce said, "hey,
we're having an interview here, there are other avatars who are interested
in what we're talking about. What's your problem?" So this avatar came
forward and said, "OK, I'll tell you the truth. What's going on is that I'm
such a nice guy in the real world. All the women who meet me say 'oh,
you're such a nice guy'. At work, everybody just "knows" that I'm such a
nice guy, and I'm sick of it!" (W. Noah, personal interview, March 3, 1997)
Again, this story shows how transference of norms happens, along with the
deliberate transgressing of them. Another way that social norms were
transferred into the American frontier, and are today in virtual worlds, is
through status and social class. Many talk about the egalitarianism of
cyberspace - how anyone can enter and be an equal participant regardless of
race, gender, religion, or anything else that might be a barrier in the
physical world. As Wendy Sue said,
As the new frontier of the Internet and virtual worlds extends,
what is so great to me about this new frontier, this new
environment,
is that it doesn't matter what color you are, it doesn't matter what
social status you are, it doesn't matter what kind of car you drive,
what matters is what you have to say, what you have to share, what
you have to give! (W. Noah, personal interview, March 3, 1997)
However, another part of this reality is that simply the fact that someone
is able to participate in a virtual world at all is a partial indicator of
his or her social status. "Wizzard" said it well:
... the ability to even *be* online requires membership within a
certain social/economic order, particularly outside of the
U.S. Members
of this "order" may have more in common among themselves due to
education levels and technical access than they have with other
members of their respective "native" cultures. Until third world
societies are able to provide online access to a majority of their
peoples (which many would oppose BTW) this polarization between
those with access to information technology and those without
will,
I fear, continue, and perhaps become a major world problem in
the
next century. ("Wizzard", personal interview, May 27, 1997)
Likewise, on the American frontier, it was felt by some that it could be a
classless society, that anyone could arrive, stake their claim or make a
name for themselves, and be successful. And in fact, many immigrants who
came for the free land found themselves in improved circumstances. But
literature of the day shows very clearly that there was still a strict class
structure in place. James Fennimore Cooper's character "Leatherstocking"
is a good example of this. In the West, he is revered for his skills with
the rifle, his talent as a strategist, and his ability to track. (Smith,
1970: 64). However, Leatherstocking was originally a servant, who was
illiterate and spoke in a dialect. In Cooper's books, reflecting the
sentiments of the times, he would therefore always be of
inferior status to most of the people around him. His character was never
allowed to have a love interest, for example, because that would presume his
worthiness of a lady. (ibid: 65) Examples like this show that, at least in
the popular mentality of the time, a strict social class structure was still
very much at work, even on the frontier.
5.2.3. Individual vs. Community Rights
There is an inherent conflict between what an individual may want to do in a
virtual world, and what the greater community expects. The major sources of
dispute among members of each virtual world involved issues of individual
vs. community rights: anonymity vs. accountability for one's actions,
whether or not a participant had the right to use an avatar that may be
offensive to other players, etc.
Cyberspace, like the American frontier before it, has been seen as a place
of individual freedom, a place where anything goes, and where people can for
the most part act as they choose. But when a given individual's desires and
action are at odds with those of the greater community, this is called into
question. Judith, a participant in the Dreamscape, offers her view on this:
It's interesting, because this is the "Internet Community" - these
are people who are bound by no laws of mankind, supposedly.
The Internet style is so open and free, and anything goes, beyond
democracy, or anarchy, or whatever. But when they get into a
community like this they get very protective and they start calling
for a police state. Sometimes when something goes wrong, instead
of saying, 'how do we deal with this creatively?', it's 'well, this
acolyte
there put this person in the Void'. (J. Rubin, personal interview,
March
2, 1997)
"Spring Dew" told me about one of the issues on AlphaWorld that people are
divided on:
Sometimes a person will build an object on or near another person's
property, even utilizing minute cracks in construction, and will
often mark
the object with some offensive comment or direction to go visit
such-and-
such site. Most people hate this behavior, but the public is
divided on what
to do about it. Some think that (Circle of Fire) should remove all instances
of vandalism. Others acknowledge the impossibility of such an endeavor, and
press for the education of the populace in proper ground coverage measures.
Some people vehemently advocate ultimate freedom of speech and say that
these
behaviors should not be discouraged... ("Spring Dew", personal
interview,
July 3, 1997)
When issues like these arise in the virtual worlds I looked at, the disputes
about how they should be handled generally move to community forums and to
newsgroups dedicated to the worlds in question. Many continue to be argued,
not having found solutions that are acceptable to all concerned.
In these cases, it is often left up to "official" authorities on each world
to decide what is appropriate on a case-by-case basis. "Myotis", a wizard
on The Palace, told me a little about this situation:
... there are very clear and definitive rules that one must abide
by upon logging onto one of their servers. Basically it is seen as
you
must behave in a manner that you would in a neighborhood bar; not
too rowdy, not too risquÚ, not too lewd, but that leaves a lot of
leeway,
and has been a thorn in the heel of the wizards from day one.
Early on they (we) were very strict, and then we became more
lenient,
and since became strict once again. The issue of G-rated sites came
up and (The Palace) obliged, the unruliness at times seems to go in
tides,
and waves. But statistically the most unruly users tend to be 13-16
year
old genius kids that have rich parents who give them a computer as
a
babysitter. This is truly sad. I try my best to work with all of
them,
even the most notorious! They are lonely and need guidance, even basic
friendship - anything I can offer I do, and by and far, I have won all
but one over. But they promise and then do the same thing. It is a
challenge, but I was thirteen once too, and rebellious. I can relate to
them.
("Myotis", personal interview, May 19, 1997)
Apparently this emphasis on individual choice, while it brings increased
freedom to act as one chooses, also brings greater responsibility to each
person, as well as to the community, to decide what is really appropriate.
This dilemma was also carried out on the frontier, as this passage
illustrates:
Niles was not wrong when he wrote that society was everywhere
unhinged, but neither he nor other contemporary commentators,
although they tried, were able to dissect out fundamental causes.
What was there in a new land of abundance, of political equality,
and
of individualism which resulted in excessive pillaging, in more
murders per annum than any European nation, in endemic riots, in
such
widespread counterfeiting that daily business transactions were
jeopardized? (Jordan, 1986: 32)
Thus there seems to be a common theme between the American and cyberspace
frontiers of increased freedom, increased choice, and as a result, more
crime, "acting out", and general anti-social behavior. When the rights of
the individual conflict with the rights of the community as a whole, the
community and those in authority are then forced to step in, and to make
decisions that are seen to benefit the greater numbers.
5.2.4. Social Experimentation
Social experimentation in Cyberspace is a prevalent theme across all of the
worlds I looked at. Nearly all of my informants expressed this concept -
that in Cyberspace you can be whoever you want to be, or even a number of
different characters at once! This was considered one of the major
attractions of a virtual world. In fact, one of my first experiences in a
virtual realm (WorldsChat), was when I decided to enter the world as a male
avatar, simply to see what it was like, as a man, to "hit on" a female! It
was an interesting experience, I had some fun conversations, learned
something from a new angle about the dynamics of human interaction, and then
went back to being "female". On the other hand, the "women" I chose to
interact with could very easily have been men who were experimenting with
being women. I will never know that, nor will it make any difference!
Many of my informants related their own stories about experimenting with
identities, either their own or others. Judith had some interesting things
to say about this:
One thing it is, is sort of a social laboratory, where you can
refine your social skills, and get more than one chance to do it.
Like, if you blow it in seventh grade, it's going to take you
through
the rest of school as a "geek" or whatever. Until college,
or the next
change of location. But in the world, there are people who have
done
something socially really stupid, and have apologized publicly
online,
and said, "I'm becoming a new person now", and they've been
accepted,
or they've dumped an old identity and come back as someone else, and
probably tried again that way. (J. Rubin, personal interview, March
2, 1997)
Wendy Sue felt that "... you learn a lot through what people choose as
avatars. (The avatar is) their graphical representation of themselves, which
they must identify with! It's not like, what's your religion, what color is
your hair, what kind of car do you drive, it's beyond that, it's creative!"
(W. Noah, personal interview, March 3, 1997) "Xavarella" believes that
"(the biggest difference between text-based and graphical worlds) is the
identification of self and others with avatars." ("Xavarella", personal
interview, July 13, 1997) Mary also had some good examples of the ways that
people change or expand their identities in virtual worlds:
Now, another person, that I met at the gathering in Concord, her
name
was Cosmo Cat. And for a long time everybody thought that Cosmo Cat
was male. Because for one thing, he was very technically adept,
like a hacker, and he would always tell us about things we didn't
know
about - like a hole in the security wall, or he'd somehow get an
object
that no one else could get. The oracles would say, "How did this
happen?"
Cosmo Cat did it, kids! The hacker! You know, he'd write these long essays
about what we should do, and how we should be doing things, and hey, have
we checked this yet, very up on top of our technology. And then I
went
to the gathering, and there's this very quiet young lady sitting
there. And
everybody said, "Do you know who that is?" And I said "No", I
didn't
know, I was just there for the first time! That was Cosmo Cat!
And
everybody was like "What?" And you know, she turned red, she was
"Yep, it's me!" She had this very angelic little face.
......
And there were a lot of people like that. One woman got up, and she
was
a very large, heavyset woman. And she goes, stood up and said,
"Look at
me. I would never make it," You know, she had gap teeth, not very
attractive, OK, but she said, "Look at me. No one, like men, would
talk
to me in the real world. Nobody would come up to me and have a
conversation in a bar, just because they think I'm too big! And this
society doesn't accept people who are obesely large, because it's
not
their model of how people should be!" She goes, "But I go in the
Dreamscape, and I have this slim little body, and this beautiful
hair,
and I can go and talk to people, and talk to some guy who has no
idea
what I look like, and I can have a very sexy conversation, just like
anyone
else can do in this world. " And I just thought, wow, that's
something I
caught onto, as something that really freed her to be what she
wanted to be.
So, there was a lot of that, that weekend. People who had
revelations about
being online and revealing something about themselves. Or
discovering
something about themselves that they couldn't have done without this
type
of interaction online. And being accepted for who they were! (M.
Madaras,
personal interview, April 24, 1997)
Some social experimentation with identities also happened on the Western
Frontier. A good example is Frank Canton. In the introduction to his
autobiography, Frontier Trails: The Autobiography of Frank Canton (1930:
xii), it states,
... it seems well to state that the author's real name was not Frank
Canton.
In his youth he became involved in a difficulty that caused him to
leave
his Texas home and disappear into the farther depths of the American
wilderness. Here he took the name of Frank M. Canton, and made it
honored and respected throughout the length and breadth of a vast
region.
In fact, Frank Canton became a well respected lawman, serving society for
over fifty years as a Texas Ranger, United States Deputy Marshal, livestock
inspector, sheriff, and secret-service man. His troubled past was not an
impediment, though it very well may have been had his real identify been
known to those around him.
This is another area where the mythological and imagined aspects of the
frontier come into play. Even George Armstrong Custer "affected the long
hair and buckskin clothing of a scout; in effect, he had imitated an icon on
his way to becoming one." (White, 1994: 39) Here, Richard White also talks
about the role that Western fiction of the day helped to reinvent the women
of the frontier in the minds of Americans:
In various fictions, for example, women inhabited roles and
representations once occupied by white native-born males.
This colonization - a kind of
cultural cross-dressing - had appeared with Annie Oakley in Buffalo
Bill's
Wild West, but it was also apparent in popular fiction even as
Russell
lamented the death of the West. " (ibid: 53)
Even actual historical figures of the American West were often reinvented in
fictional accounts. Kit Carson, the famous Mountain Man, was fictionalized
in novels written during his own lifetime! Henry Nash Smith describes how:
The future belonged to a different Kit Carson ... the Indian
fighter, the daredevil horseman, the slayer of grizzly
bears, the ancestor of the
hundreds of two-gun men who came in later decades to people the
Beadle novels. The rip-roaring Kit Carson made a brief appearance
in Emerson Bennett's The Prairie Flower in 1949, and came fully into
his own in a thriller called Kit Carson, The Prince of the Gold
Hunters,
by one Charles Averill. This is probably the book dealing with his
exploits that Kit found in October of that year amid the plunder
taken by
Apaches from a wagon train they had stampeded. He was decently
embarrassed by it. (Smith, 1970: 86)
Cyberspace seems to continue this imaginative fictionalization of itself by
creating icons and stereotypes (the Hacker), then revealing the true
characters behind them (Cosmo Cat is a shy and mild mannered woman?) In
some ways this might appear to contradict the notion that a person is the
same in virtual reality as they are in real life. However, I would contend
that there is no contradiction. Although the norms of behavior may be
similar or even identical, the place that a particular individual occupies
in the community can change without violating norms on either end. They are
simply playing a different part in the play. In this way, both frontiers
seemed to have offered its citizens the opportunity to create a "tabula
rasa" for themselves, and a means of starting fresh.
5.2.5. Claiming Territory
It is advantageous for an individual to claim and develop his own territory
in a virtual world, just as it is in the "real" world. Many of my
informants specifically named the ability to have personal "space" in a
virtual world as an important factor in becoming involved in a virtual
world.
All three of the virtual worlds I studied accommodated some form of personal
territory. On AlphaWorld, any participant can choose to claim property by
building on it, and can then utilize that area as s/he sees fit. In the
Dreamscape, individual apartments (known as "turfs") can be purchased once
an avatar has spent enough time in the world to accumulate the required
payment. And with The Palace, any participant may create his
own Palace server on his own computer, creating an entirely new virtual
space that other avatars can then visit.
This seemed to be an important point in drawing many people to virtual
worlds in the first place. "Dows" told me about how he was first drawn to
AlphaWorld by seeing an ad saying "Want 3D freedom? Build all you want!
Come see AlphaWorld!" ("Dows", personal interview, July 2, 1997) This
reminded me a little of Horace Greeley's famous slogan from 1837 - "Go West,
young man!". "Wepwawet" also said that the main thing that attracted him
to AlphaWorld was "the ease with which it is possible to build virtual 3
dimensional structures and have them be seen in real time by groups of
people who could be anywhere in the world." ("Wepwawet, personal interview,
July 5, 1997)
In The Palace, many people have developed their own Palaces on home
computers and have made them publicly accessible to the whole Palace
community. This seems to provide motivation for many there, as they strive
to create their Palace and promote it so that it draws a large portion of
visitors regularly. "Myotis" told me that, "Everyone wants
their Palace to be the premier site, to have the most followers".
("Myotis", personal interview, May 19, 1997) On personal Palace servers,
the creators are also free to set their own rules and standards of behavior,
some of them are far more lenient than the Corporate Palace. In general,
though, it depends on who the target audience is.
In WorldsAway's Dreamscape, although players cannot exactly build their own
property, they may purchase a private apartment ("turf"), and decorate it as
they please. This was not an original feature of the Dreamscape, and when
it was added there was a bit of controversy over how having private
territory might affect social relations. Judith felt that, with the
apartments, as soon as they opened up, nobody went to the public spaces.
... and now, a lot of the events that used to be held in public
areas are
held on private turfs now, because you can throw out anybody. So,
rather than
deal with social problems you can just reject anyone that you think
might
cause a social problem. Technically, it cuts down on that
possibility.
(J. Rubin, personal interview, March 2, 1997)
On the other hand, Mary told me that in order to visit a turf, one must know
the name of it, and that "to get new people, and make it fun, to come to
their events, they had to publicize the name of the turf!" (M. Madaras,
personal interview, April 24, 1997) So she didn't really feel that this kind
of exclusivity was happening to a great degree.
Another issue surrounding private territory on AlphaWorld is vandalism: what
defines it, how should it be dealt with? This is not an issue on the other
worlds I looked at (though theft may be!), but nearly every AlphaWorld
citizen I interviewed had something to say on this subject. "Xavarella"
remarked that "the biggest social issue seems to revolve around people's
very natural territorial instincts. Vandalism of property, deletion of
objects by those with eminent domain are two issues that come to mind".
("Xavarella", personal interview, July 13, 1997) "Spring Dew" brought up
the struggle around vandalism as an issue that the community is divided on:
I think the most pressing (social issue) is the subject of
vandalism.
Sometimes a person will build an object on or near another person's
property, even utilizing minute cracks in construction, and will
often
mark the object with some offensive comment or direction to go visit
such-and-such site. Most people hate this behavior, but the public
is
divided on what to do about it. Some think that COF should remove
all instances of vandalism. Others acknowledge the impossibility of
such an endeavor, and press for the education of the populace in
proper ground coverage measures. Some people vehemently advocate
ultimate freedom of speech and say that these behaviors should not be
discouraged. These issues are discussed in various worlds, are addressed
in the newspapers and in newsgroups, and are discussed in other programs
such as Powwow or ICQ. So far the people in the second camp I
mentioned seem dominant, and efforts to educate the citizens are
being
redoubled. Also, people are coming up with all kinds of suggestions
for
technical answers to vandalism, such as large ground-covering
objects, a
prompt to remind you to cover your land, and the establishment of
ownership
zones, in which the owner of a certain coordinate square could have
eminent domain over that square and could delete anything he/she
deems necessary. Some people, however, are forming vigilante groups
to hunt down and antagonize known vandals. ("Spring Dew", personal
interview, July 3, 1997)
The attraction of open land, and the opportunity to claim and develop
personal territory was also one of the things that drew people to the
frontier in the nineteenth century. The myth of "free land" and the
settlement of it were, in the opinion of many historians, what actually
determined the future of American society:
With each surge of westward movement, a new community came
into being. These communities devoted themselves not to marching
onward but to cultivating the earth. (Smith, 1980: 123)
Indeed it was this sense of settlement, of cultivation, that formed real
community on the frontier. As in virtual worlds, having ownership of
personal property gave the individual a far greater stake in the welfare of
the community as a whole.
The Homestead Act of 1860, although it was partially intended to allow
landless immigrants to cultivate their own farmlands, also resulted in vast
areas of land being given to corporations and railroads. (ibid: 190)
Loopholes, like the "minute cracks" in AlphaWorld's construction, meant that
far fewer people actually took possession of farmland than might have, had
the Homestead Act worked the way it was originally intended.
