In Nakamura's reading she starts her article off with a little quip about the cartoon dog sitting at the computer typing away with the caption reading "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog". I personally think that this is funny of course, but true. On the internet you can be whoever you want to be, or who your not. It is not required that you be yourself, you are able to create a whole new "persona" if you so choose to. Nakamura then goes on to talk about places such as LambdaMOO where it is required to choose a gender before being able to start the game, whereas you have no option to choose race. She bases the rest of the article on this particular premise of how race ties into the internet as well as identity tourism.
In the article Nakamura brings up the topic of identity tourism and she says that adopting a racial identity becomes a form of recreation, almost like you are taking a vacation from your fixed identity and locales. This is because you can be someone entirely different than yourself and identity tourism in cyberplaces like LambdaMOO allows you to adopt this exotic identity while never physically crossing that border or even leaving your chair. Not only can you travel to other places (like we read in her first article), but now you can recreate yourself while traveling to these other exotic locations.
So in the whole scheme of things is it really important to dictate what race you are? Is that really going to change the way the game is played who or plays it? Probably not, therefore I don't think that race needs to be addressed in the beginning. In the end all you want to do is play the game and have fun.
4 comments:
Tanya,
You raise a real interesting philosophical argument in that on the internet you can be whomever you want to be. You can describe yourself the way you would want others to perceive who you are or who you secretly always wanted to be.
You describe Nakamura's point well in that the internet has become a fantasy place of exotic identities and places we all want to be and visit.
I find your question regarding whether or not identifying oneself as a certain race really important in the internet gaming world valid. Why is it important? Do people feel left out if they can not identify with a character in a game because of race? Or is it that race is stereotypically misrepresented in the digital game world that concerns Nakamura, Adam Banks and Gomez?
Thanks for raising some good issues to think about.
Jennifer Wheeler
Hey Tanya,
Good post, I like how you identified how a game is meant to be played for fun. I understand the view that some people have towards stereotyping in video games and how they need to be more diverse. However I agree that sometimes we just need to sit back, relax, and just have fun with the game, instead of analyze it.
I agree that in most games on the internet race doesn't need to be an option to the game because it doesn't really matter when your just playing a fictional character.
Tanya,
I liked the point you made about having a certain "persona" on the internet. i think that it shouldn't matter what race you are when you play these games when, like you said, all you wanna do is just play the game.
Post a Comment