Final Project

After reading this week's articles, I feel like I may change my focus a bit. The article about the Virtual Ethnography was really interesting to me, and I am really intrigued about the response that the community gave when the judge decided to release his verdict online. I was amazed at the number of websites and the way that the release got so much attention - sparking new websites, web chats, petitions, along with the traditional media outlets.

I'm do marketing for Housing and Dining at Columbia, and I am very interested in the marketing aspect of the Internet - such as how the judge's decision caused so many people to follow the trial online. One similar such incident that comes to my mind is the Blair Witch Project, in which the filmmakers created a marketing scheme to convince people that they had footage of a horrible event that occured, caused a huge number of people to go to the movies and see the footage first hand. I love this type of marketing and I'm interested in how this occurs and why people do "fall" for it or believe the hype. Although I think it all stems from the same areas that we were speaking of in class, about identity and community.

So as far as things that I need, I feel like I want to talk to Sarah about my thoughts for the final project, including this marketing aspect, and I would also like to find some more articles, similar to the one about the virtual ethnography. I also want to do a few interviews with some of my friends that are frequent MUD users.

The Reoccuring Theme of Identity

For me, it seems that my reoccuring theme is identity. I am constantly wondering how identity is defined and determined through the internet, and how one's online personality is different from one's real life personality, or if it is indeed different. In my second post, I also talk about isolation and I wonder how one's online personality can affect their real personalities. Does talking online and playing games online affect their RL personalities. Could talking online everyday make a person more confident in RL because of the "friends" and experiences that each person has, and does that mean his or her personality has changed?

I guess one of the questions that I have, which actually arouse in my last blog, was how "I've just started to wonder where the line is between one's online personalities and one's real life personality." Is it true that "you are what you pretend to be"? I am also curious, like I said in my previous blog, if we are just characters, acting out a role in our online games, or do these different personalities actually exist and extend over to our RL's?

Kind of a lot of questions, but hopefully I will find out some answers this semester :)

Identity

I really had no idea about MUD's before I read this article. I knew that one of my co-workers was constantly staying up late playing a virtual game, but I didn't realize what exactly that entailed - that there were interactive characters with personalities involved.

My only experience with the virtual world is when I had to play Sims for this Urban Planning class I was taking during undergraduate at Columbia. We had to build cities throughout the semester, using different techniques and report on what worked and didn't work. I could never get into it though because I just felt like it wasn't real - I didn't care if my city was successful or if it failed. I think that this is one of the more important points about logging into the virtual world - that the world and the characters in it became what you make if it. Just as "Aspects of the Self" quotes, "you are what you pretend to be."

I think the part that I disagree with the most is the notion of the various identities in the article about "Identity in the Age of the Internet." The author claims that "Identity, after all, refers to the sameness between two qualities, in this case between a person and his or her persona. But in MUDs, one can be many."

I guess I've just started to wonder where the line is between one's online personalities and one's real life (or RL, I've now learned) personality. Maybe there are many different types of personalities, such as the virtual one and the multiple self on page 17, but when do these personalities eventually become a part of you? Do these personalities only exist online - but what if you spent the majority of your time online? Does that mean that technically you have embodied these characteristics, and that your online personality has now become your RL personality?

Also, how can you distinguish between you, as the personality, and you, as the creator. Just because you create a character who exhibits certain behaviors does not mean that you are that character. Which also disagrees with my first notion that you are who you pretend to be :). So are we just characters or do these different personalities actually exist?

Personally, I think that everyone is different. Some people go online and can separate themselves from the virtual world, like myself, and some people choose to embody the personoa of certain characters and actually believe that they have these characteristics as well. And maybe they actually do...

As a side bar, I think that blogging is funny because I feel like I just type with such a stream of consciousness and it almost feels random to me. As an English major, I would never turn in a paper with these rambling statements, but somehow in a blog, it seems ok.