Mike Rossmassler

A lot of ground was covered, Myspace, Friendster, Facebook, etc. And her main point seemed to be that people are seeking to project their identity into the digital world, not only to establish it for other people, but to establish it for themselves. We talked about Burning Man, videogames, the rise of the word “teenager,” and i think that a lot of very interesting points were raised.

First of, the point was raised that teenagers' behavior of posting their intimate details on myspace really is not so much of a rebellious action as it is a reaction to the scrutiny they are put under by their parents. Yes, this technology does allow them to respond in a new fashion, but they come from a background where they are watched over closely, and in many cases, (like Sweet Sixteen) given everything they want because their parents don't know any other way to connect with them.

Secondly, online social spaces like videogames function in exactly the same manner as social spaces in real life. For instance (and this will reveal what kind of nerd i am), a Counter-Strike clan i was a part of consisted largely of members of my immediate social circle. Our common bond of this videogame drew us together, and helped to establish a common bond outside the game, that despite our less than stellar record, helped to function better as a team.

Thirdly, we covered child predation in online environments. As Danah pointed out, it's much less of an epidemic than the sensationalist media makes it out to be. I suppose myspace is more high-profile because of the massive user base and the established practice of filling in the profile with extremely personal details, but i am rather surprised by the low numbers of stalkers/predators on these social networking sites. Livejournal is full of people looking for acceptance by anyone, judging by some of the extremely esoteric groups on there.

In my undergraduate days, some good friends of mine worked on a project called Memetic Engine, which (if they ever get off their butts and work on. I know you are reading this Kevin, so get Andy's ass in gear, or let me take the reins) resonates nicely with this project. They took a feed of the most recently posted images, courteously provided by livejournal, tagged and categorized the images, and databased the whole thing. Gigs of pictures in an hour, from all sorts of people. Being addicted to the stream as well, i saw distinct things happening, people in Russia would post late at night, people in Asia would post tons of anime and anime quiz related stuff, and all kinds of crazy stuff would get thrown up their. Enough self-portraits that anyone's internet cache would quickly become illegal under child pornography laws, and interestingly enough, lots of photos of highschoolers inexpertly photoshopped or mspainted in rude, pornographic or cruel manners. And, because the stream isn't (or wasn't, at least, i haven't watched it much lately), images from locked posts would still show up, so i got to see lots of things that people weren't expecting others to see.

Now, the compilation of all of this data was extremely interesting. Some of the most popular images were quiz results, the kind of image that has a picture, a title, and a sentence of description. These quizzes get passed around from journal to journal, and (to me, at least) are simultaneously an attempt at self-discovery and self-expression. This was another good point that Danah made, these online identities are as much about being who you are, as they are about showing that you off to other people.

We started to talk about identities in online game environments, but the class ended too soon (two hours isn't enough * shakes fist furiously*). I wanted to ask about the social environments surrounding the Xbox live gamer tags. I suppose i did get the question partly answered when i asked about audioscrobbler, but being the selfish little bastard that i am, i wanted to ask more. As for audioscrobbler, i totally agree that it is in a large part, all about self-exploration. I am truly fascinated by what i listen to and how often. And yes, it sure is a question of social standing. For scenesters like me, you have to be cool. So i am very curious by who falls into my nearest neighbor, mainly because how many people like to listen to Converge, Okkervil River, Norma Jean and Belle & Sebastien. For those of you who aren't assholes, those are metalcore, folk, christian and indie bands, a disparate mix of groups whose fans probably don't get along. So i am something of an anomaly and am curious to see if there are others who are as tasteless as i am. ON the other hand, i am truly fascinated by what other people listen to, because music has lost its prominence in social interactions, and has been relegated to ipod background music. And, the population of people who give data to last.fm are all of a like mind, people interested in the social aspects of music. So this relegates the data to a small subset of the general population, and probably gives a pretty good overview of what is “cool” now.

As for the gamer tags, i feel that they represent an important step in online identity. More than the arcade machine high score list, the achievement system allows for people to do more than brag about their skill in videogames, it concretely displays events to the general public, and even more importantly, over the long term, will begin to show trends in videogames. For instance, it may show that people who statistically do well in Halo 2 do well in other first person shooters. Or it may show that they play a lot of Marble Blast. I, for one, enjoy games that keep record of stupid statistics. I am still playing Timesplitters, which was the first game that i got for the PS2, simply because i want to shoot as many bullets as possible, and the game keeps meticulous tracks of stats.

Another thing we mentioned was the difficulties that people face over the public nature of their online identity. People get kicked out of school for stuff they post on-line, kids get busted for underage drinking they posted pictures of on facebook, and in one case, a teacher got fired for pictures she took. links here Yes, you are putting your personal life into a system into a system that intrisically has NO privacy, but i think that to a certain extent, people revel in that. Everyone likes to be a rebel, and show off how reckless and carefree they are. People like to break rules to be and seem cool.

So some photography teacher took a bunch of pictures of herself nekkid, and put them in her flickr. Those got linked through her myspace, and some of her students found them. “The difference between art and pornography is lighting.” Well, apparently the human body isn't art, because this poor woman got fired. This is one of the inherent dangers of the internet. It's public, and by and large, permanent. This woman did something in real life, and got punished for her digital association with it in real life. A person is a social construct, and what may be okay in one world (artistic) may not be so okay in another (pedagogic). It's probably hypocritical for me to have a problem with this, but i feel thusly: what you do with your free time shouldn't be a problem if it doesn't harm anyone else. The same thing goes for that poor woman who's son was taken away from her because of her association with that mock church that some judge thought was satanic. It's very much a question of knowledge, and there's the rub. How is a non-expert able to an assessment of a field they have no idea about (Ted Stevens i am looking at you)? I don't have an easy answer to this, and i certainly will protest for a trial by peers if i or anyone i know is ever involved in any legal matter surrounding digital rights.

However, online identity has a very distinct difference from real-life identity. For one, it is fairly easy for people to change parts, or even the whole of their real-life identity. It's much more difficult to do that online. Change your character's name, or start a new character, and it can be difficult to pick up or reincorporate portions of your old life. People take rather specific roles in online identities, and it seems that they quickly become relegated to a specific spot within an online environment. Tanks can't really run around healing people, there is no mechanism to change that portion of your character. Then again, that is a very specific design decision. Who you are online is not who you are offline. As stated in Waking Life, (which plays beside me as i type this, along with Sleep's “Dopesmoker” on my stereo, a fitting combination that i really need to mention), “who you are is mostly a matter of the choices you make.” David Sosa, Associate Professor of Philosphy University of Texas (Austin) says this, when questioning free will. His point is that the question of free will is also a question of identity. I agree, but i am troubled by the point that Douglas Hofstadter makes: free will could be a moot point, because when viewed from a high enough level, complex actions can seem to be of free will, even though they are still following simple rules. Sosa counters this with quantum physics, and the unpredictable nature of quantum particles.

So, off of my random sidetrack. Pardon me when i indulge myself, but this is my blog, and i like to ramble. I get excited, alright? But identity is a matter of personal action. People can only know so much about you as you let them, and the internet simply allows for a more rapid dissemination of information. But i think that identity and social networks can also be very interesting in multiplayer online experiences. The massive games conference that i went to at UC Irvine (CalIT2 connections rock) was put on by a grad student whose name i have unfortunately forgotten, who researched social spaces in online games. It's very curious to explore the choicest that people make in their avatars in online games, especially considering the rapidity that people make judgments with (something like .042 seconds for a website, if i remember correctly). So, why do guys play female characters. Is it the free stuff, having something attractive to look for the hundreds of hours you are playing a game? And how about games like City of Heroes/City of Villains? What goes into costume design? Not being a MMO gamer myself, i can't really knowledgeably answer that, but i can conjecture. I think that it is a result of the environment.

Let's jump for a second to music, and its connections to my life. I tend to say that i like heavy metal and punk rock. That's really a bit of a lie, or more accurately, a drastic oversimplification. It allows for an encapsulation of facts that can sum up who i am, allow me to communicate my identity to everyone, and then expand it for those people who are more connected to me. I think that it is largely the same in online and MMO environments, people need a way to communicate their identity extremely rapidly, and at the same time, use that to establish their position in the social heirarchy. So, this projection of identity can take shape as a female character for a male gamer, if it suits their playstyle more appropriately. Gender studies probably can describe this more accurately, and certainly more correctly, but i think that gender in an online environment has eroded lately. I certainly won't say it's disappeared, (Frag Dolls, you are not helping, Clan PMS, you are, and the next 14 year old who i hear asking “omg ur a grl. Pix plz” i will reach through the interweb and castrate), but people are now becoming accustomed to male characters playing female avatars. I don't know about the opposite though. Let me save myself from the depths of chauvanism: are sexuality and gender so important to people that they have to interrupt a videogame? Can't we all just get a bong?

I have now rambled myself into the depths of scensterism and chauvanism, which means it's time to shut the fuck up, before the entire internet disowns me. But let's listen to Ted Stevens for a moment. It's all a series of tubes. You put something into it, and you can never really tell what people are going to take from it. Identity is really other people's reactions to the persona you put forth. And in that respect, the internet really hasn't changed much, aside form embiggening the spectrum of people who can see who you are. This digital culture we are a part of has done this for identity: you can still say you are whoever you want to be, it just is now easier to call people on it. And it's all a game of balancing who you are with who you want to be seen as, and who you want to be seen with.