Virtually Cheating

Last Thursday in class, Professor Perry presented an interesting hypothetical question. If you were to walk in on your significant other and he or she was having virtual relations with another avatar on his or her computer through an MMORPG (Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game), would you consider it cheating? When first presented the question, I thought that while I would have found the action extremely weird, I would not consider it an act of unfaithfulness. But after reading Kristin Kalning’s article “Is a Virtual Affair Real World Infidelity?,” I soon changed my mind. In her article, Kalning presents several people who had participated in virtual world relationships. With several examples, she explained how many people pursue very intense relationships through virtual world programs, and that these relationships were often stronger than any real world relationships that these people had. One married father would think up an excuse to sneak away to a computer to communicate with his virtual-world girlfriend any chance he got. He regularly spent more time with his virtual companion than his family on any given day. While this man may not have been physically cheating on his wife and family, I believe it definitely constitutes as an act of infidelity. This man was fulfilling his emotional, intimate, and companionship needs from another real life person outside of his family. It is hard to argue that this is not cheating.

Another interesting example in Kalning’s article was a 40 year old housewife who had a very deep relationship with another man on the MMORPG Second Life. She spent numerous hours a day interacting with him on Second Life and refused to ever discuss the relationship with her husband. The husband later found out that his wife was virtually married to this man on the online platform, and that the two had been having webcam chats often outside of the game. When the husband asked her to stop the relationship, the wife refused and it led immediately to their divorce. These examples show how a virtual relationship, while not physically cheating, can easily lead to the same result, and that a virtual relationship can often be more important to a person than a relationship in the real world.

Larping

Before taking this class, I drove by the park past the interstate on West End on Sundays and saw what I found to be an amusing spectacle. A group of ten to twenty adults adorned in odd medieval outfits would run around the park with play swords, javelins, and maces hitting each other and falling down. While I was not quite sure what these people were doing, I could definitely tell that all of those partaking were having fun. Over the last week, I have found out that what I saw these people doing was called larping (Live Action Role Playing) and was actually quite common. In live action role playing, participants play a game of war while portraying fictional characters in a fantasy world. After listening to the NPR interview with documentarian Andrew Neel in class Tuesday, I gained a new prospective on larping. Apparently, many people find that through larping they can be someone they normally aren’t in the real world. In the documentary Darkon, Danny MacCarthur, a self proclaimed nerd, enjoys larping because he feels that he has much more power and control in the fictional world than in his real life. To me, this seems very similar to why many people chose to play MMORPGs. They are not fully satisfied with their real world life, and they use these virtual worlds to fill some of the gaps. Another interesting person portrayed in the documentary is Kenyon Wells, a business manager who used larping to develop real world skills that have drastically improved his life. Through larping, Kenyon developed great social and leadership skills that he believed led to his promotion to a management position in a successful business. According to Kenyon, “Long before I was ready to negotiate a multimillion-dollar business contract, I was negotiating a treaty between our country and other countries in Darkon.” Although larping is a virtual game, it can be very beneficial to people’s real world lives.

The Permanent State of the Internet

During a piece on NPR’s On the Media, host Brooke Gladstone interviewed one of the show’s producers about the permanency of people’s online actions. Producer Nazanin Rafsanjani discussed his futile attempts to remove something he had posted on the internet over five years ago. Rafsanjani had written a passionate email to iranian.com discussing America’s response to 9/11. Several years later out of embarrassment and a desire for privacy, he tried to get the letter removed from the website. The editor of the website refused because the site’s policy was that every post was permanent. No matter how badly Rafsanjani wanted the letter removed; there was nothing he could do. This is a great example of how permanent one’s actions on the internet can be. While many people think their online actions are transitory and have no consequences, there is a lack of privacy in the internet which allows almost anyone to see these actions forever. For this reason, people should be very careful with what they post and allow others to post of them on the internet. A great example of this can be seen with the social networking site facebook. While I was in high school, two kids got suspended because of questionable photos they had posted of themselves on facebook. I have also heard on multiple occasions that employers and even school admissions committees examine a potential employer/student’s facebook or MySpace page to gain a better perspective on the applicant. There have also been scandals where politician’s children were singled out because of incriminating images posted of them on social networking sites. All of these examples show that people need to be very careful with their online actions, for even this blog post could be seen by anyone around the world.

An escape from reality

These virtual worlds provide somewhat of a safe haven for people who wish to escape from the lives they currently live. People seem to have normal lives, going to work and doing everyday tasks. However this is not enough for some people and they feel as to get away from these pressures of reality. Some people may not even be able to say or do certain things due to their social status. Thus, they run away to their virtual world. Here people are free to do whatever they very well please while still having the ability to conceal their identity. They are free to express themselves however they please, even if it means that they want to change their gender in the avatar. In the book Alter Ego, there are many cases of people escaping from reality to the freedom of the virtual worlds and freely being able to express themselves. For instance, there is a person names Harisu in the novel. She is a very famous model, actress, and singer in her country of origin. However, she has strong feelings of transgendered relationships that may be looked down upon in public. However, she is able to freely express her opinions in the virtual world. Also, there is another example of a mother named Charmaine. Charmaine uses the virtual world in order to have a social life while still staying at home and taking responsibility. However, she created a very revealing avatar that ended up in an erotic avatar magazine, with some nude pictures of the avatar as well. This mother would be looked down upon if she herself was to do this, but it was her avatar. She was able to free express her erotic art through this world. Thus, virtual world provide an escape from reality and all people to freely express themselves.

Monitoring aka profiling

Monitoring the population these days has lead to measures similar to the patriot act. However, these measures are a huge breach of privacy and seem more like tools of racial profiling. This is one more place where I can be “randomly” picked to be monitored or questioned. I have been to the airport plenty of times and been the one chosen “randomly” to go through the machine that detects if you are carrying any explosive materials. The patriot act is basically to protect American citizen from terrorist by monitoring phone lines and other forms of communication in order to prevent a terrorist attack. This basically means to me that anyone that doesn’t have an American sounding name will be monitored. No one with the name of James Smith or Thomas Brown will likely be monitored. However, people with names more like Mohammed or Salim or Khan will be chosen to be monitored. This seems very unfair to many people who are US citizens to have to give up their right to privacy for this act. There are many innocent immigrants who have come here to escape the very thing that we are putting them through. It is just unnerving to think someone may be listening to me while I am on a private phone call. I can’t even joke around about something without thinking twice about the consequences. This breach of privacy somewhat puts pressure on the right to freedom of expression. If someone is miserable here and speaks ill of the country they will be monitored. Thus, they will think twice about expressing their feelings in fear of someone hearing to what they say. Thus, this form of “monitoring” just seems like another way to control the population and profile minority races.

A new kind of social networking

Avatars are creations of the technology era that let people escape from reality into a world where they can do practically anything they want. Different types of personalities are custom created to whatever the user would like. Many people use this technology as a form of communication somewhat of a social networking tool. People are able to connect with other people around the world in this avatar form without really knowing who is behind the green –skinned muscular monster. This form of communication has really brought confidence in some people to help become more social than they are in reality. There may be some social barriers that deter these avatar users from being able to speak to people in person. For instance, if someone is really shy or feel awkward due to their appearance may be hesitant to speak to people in the public. However, these barriers do not seem to exist in this virtual world. There is no way of telling how the avatar user looks when communicating. It is one way of removing the physical attraction and going straight to understanding the individual. From the video seen in class, people have actually met through these avatar portals and formed a relationship. The people who only spoke through their avatars soon meet and possibly even fall in love. Thus, this is a very powerful tool to build relationships with other people around the world.

Virtual worlds – are they really the future?

In Second Life: The Official Guide, the authors suggest that Second Life, a game in which players create Sims-esque versions of themselves to live in a virtual world, represents "The Next Generation of Internet." They point to the fact that real life corporations, especially online retailers like Amazon.com, have begun using the game to sell things to real-life customers almost entirely within the game world. Also, the game has enjoyed a steady growth in its user base since its creation, boasting over 38,000 logged-in users at any given time (on average).

But does this game really represent the next stage of evolution for the internet? Will traditional web-pages eventually be replaced by in-game representations of the entities they represent? I think not.

The current trend in the progression of technology and the internet, is not the tendency of humans to live large portions of their lives within a specific virtual (but realistic) environment, but rather the tendency of technology and its accompanying interconnectivities to embed themselves into normal human life. Most people of the future will not need a virtual avatar to walk around in virtual rooms representing websites when those websites are readily available via wireless networks and are conveniently integrated into peoples' "real" lives. This trend is already fairly evident thanks to inventions like PDA's and iPhones; even normal cell phones are now considered hopelessly outdated if they do not provide the user with instant access to the internet anywhere and anytime. I suppose one could argue that our real lives are, through constant connection to the internet and data networks, become more like virtual ones. However, this is far from proving that games like Second Life will be taking over the internet; why get an avatar to do things you can do yourself?