On page 46 Lasn writes “if you spend enough time in cyberspace, emote commands start taking the place of emotions”. This is what he calls an “emoticons”. In my eyes he is comparing people to acting like robots who have no emotions or feelings for themselves. I thought it was very interesting when Lasn was describing the young man on page 44 talking about how he had made many different characters on the Multiple-User Domains however none actually represented himself. But each of these characters has become as real to him as himself. This shows the power that such MUD’s have on people, making an imaginary world be as real as their own life. This video I found is about a teenager’s mom cancelling his World of Warcraft account and the kid freaking out. This video is ridiculous; I don’t get how someone could get so angry over a cyber game. I guess it just goes to show you how real these games are to the players and how it impacts their lives.
In class we watched the movie Second skin which was about the lives of people who were cyber gamers. The people featured in this movie took these Virtual Worlds of gaming and made them their real world. This means that they spent more time in these virtual worlds that they actually felt like they lived in these and the real world seemed like a made up world. I completely disagree with them I feel like virtual worlds can never become a real world to a person. First of all it is just a video game, you cannot have complete control over the actions and what happens in the game and you can always start or stop playing whenever you want to. I also think its outrageous that real life relationships start from these cyber games. You may have a connection to another player in the game but a relationship outside game is way different. You have to be able to communicate, take care of and get along in the real world. Most of these players turned the Virtual world into their real worlds because they were uncomforted couldn’t handle the real world. This just does not make any sense to me how a virtual World relationship could possible work in the real world.
I like how you said that they turned to the virtual world because they could not handle the real world. Life is not meant to be easy so if you are escaping the real world that is a sign of weakness and a lack of motivation. I also think the video you posted is so funny because the kid is outrageous and if it isn't fake he really needs to grow up and experience the real world.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is hard to imagine that people spend 76 + hours or more in a row playing video games. It seems completely weird that people feel that they can connect with someone without any real face to face conversations. But is it that strange? For instants we don’t look at the 34 year old male, who flips through all the sports shows on his 56” hi-def tv every weekend spending the exact same amount of time watching sports as the games do playing their games? How come we don’t question his actions?
ReplyDeletecyberspace does effect emotions to a certain level! peoples seem to adapt emotions while playing games. Does the communation though online have as an effective emotional outcome rather then talking face to face? People may have different characters virtual as in reality so i completely agree with you.
ReplyDeleteThat video has to be staged.....
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