The position of the "body'' in cyberspace is problematic. Haraway's Cyborg
Manifesto paved the way for a discussion of the identity issues at stake in a
technological frame of reference. Distinctions between the human organism and
the machine are breaking down in our information age, and new creatures are
forming that beg new theories rather than recycling of old ones. Virtual reality
technology poses particularly obvious challenges to a politics of identity.
Walser, discussing immersive virtual reality, says, "Whereas film is used to
show a reality to an audience, cyberspace is used to give a virtual body, and a
role, to everyone in the audience. Print and radio tell; stage and film show;
cyberspace embodies'' (403). Hayles theorizes ways in which conceptions of the
physical change given an immersive virtual reality setting: bodies become
patterns of information, "flickering signifiers, characterized by their tendency
toward unexpected metamorphoses, attenuations, and dispersions'' (76).
Stone
discusses the blurring between the body and computer prosthesis that can occur:
the technology we use to communicate with can become an integral part of us, and
the body, when not there physically, is still there as a social construct
("Split Subjects"). Bodies, in a virtual space, can be created with a bit of
programming: "real life'' gender can be switched, skin color can be forgotten
temporarily, age or infirmity can be escaped. In purely text-based virtual
realities, the conceptualization of the physical is perhaps more complex than in
immersive VR, since there is no echo of real physical movement, sound, or shape
involved. Text-based virtual reality seems to offer as many challenges to
notions of identity and definitions of body as immersive virtual reality
does.
For the past 11 months I have been studying conversation in a MUD,
or "multi-user dimension,'' accessible over Internet. I will call my main site
ElseMOO (EM); it is a place where people hang out and discuss networking, MUD
programming, and virtual reality.2In this paper I hope to raise as a topic for further
study the discourse creation of problematic bodies in EM: I present
sociolinguistic data in which identity and the boundaries of "self'' are played
with during MUD interactions. To narrow the focus for this paper, and because
the community at EM does not indulge in it for the most part, I won't be
discussing extended role playing, but impromptu discourse behavior instead.
Because the community at EM is very closely tied to that at LambdaMOO (LM),
which has a slightly different programming culture, I also present some examples
from LambdaMOO in the text that follows. Some speech activities I discuss below
are specific to the particular speech community I am studying, and my
observations should in no way be considered generalizations about the speech
activities of other MUD communities on the net.
First, a brief introduction
to MOO conversation. All interaction on the MOO occurs in text. Each user has a
character with a name and a description that serves as her representative in the
MOO environment. This character can converse in real time with the other
characters on the MOO.
Conversation in most MUDs consists of two types of
utterance: the "say" command and the "emote" (or "pose") command. A say command
(e.g., say hi) produces an utterance issuing from the character which
every character in the same MUD room sees: lynn says, "hi." An emote
(e.g., emote sits down for a rest.) produces an action similarly seen by
everyone in the same room: lynn sits down for a rest. In this way, the
body can be evoked with suggestions of physical actions, even though text is the
sole channel of communication.
Stone reports that phone sex workers, who
are working in another virtual medium, conjure their bodies by hints and
suggestions in the space that the phone connection creates: they report
ironically that after encoding and decoding of sound bytes happens, they all
look white, 5'4'', and have red hair ("Will the Real Body" 105). At least one of
my informants reports that he feels more "embodied'' on the MOO than when
talking on the phone, despite the lack of even the vocal channel. This sense of
embodiment is an entirely constructed feeling, coming largely from the conscious
use of physical "actions'' during conversations, like feedback signals that
might be used in face-to-face conversation (see Cherny, "The Modal
Complexity& quot;): lynn nods, lynn smiles.
In a MOO, which is an object-oriented MUD (so-called because of the
programming language embedded in it), all characters are technically objects,
just like all scenery and all props. This means that they can be programmed and
interacted with in various ways that I will illustrate below. Because the user
has no other representative in the MUD world, the character is identified with
the user, to a high degree. The simultaneous identification and distinction
between the real person and the character object are a complex matter. I will
only be looking at a small corner of this problem, with some examples of speech
acts and events that enforce the differences and the similarities between the
two.
An excellent and compelling example of the complexity of the
relationship that holds between a character and a user is illustrated below.
People greeted Karen when she entered the room, as usual, only to find out to
their surprise that this time she hadn't entered the room under her own
volition:
1 Karen arrives from the eastern end of the patio.
2 lynn waves.
3 Shelley waves.
4 ls [to Karen]: Hi. I just walked you here at your request since you're in the car and nowhere near a computer on the net.
5 Penfold whuggles Karen.
6 Tom eyes Karen warily.
7 lynn eyes Karen and ls warily.
8 Tom says, "WHY"
9 ls says, "she, uh, thought it would be cool to hang out with you guys."
10 lynn laughs
11 Tom says, "BUT SHE ISN'T"
12 ls says, "oh, but she is."
13 lynn says, "hang out in scrollback?"
14 Penfold shakes Karen.
The user with character ls had been talking to his wife Karen over their
portable phones, and had told her about his conversation with their friends; she
asked him to move her character for her. (A "whuggle,'' as in line 5, is a
virtual version of a hug; see Cherny, "Gender Differences.") ls's statement to
Karen's character in line 4 sums up the confusing split reality shared by user
and character: I walked you (the character) here (the virtual room) at your
(the user's) request since you're (the user) in the car (in real life).
Karen can be in two places at once, using her character, and can "hang out''
even when she isn't at her desk looking at the conversation as it happens. She
can read it later, since it will all be in her "scrollback'' in her MOO window.
The unusual explicitness of the difference between Karen as user hanging out
with friends via her character interface and Karen's character hanging out
without her at the terminal "behind it'' was disturbing to the witnesses of the
event, however. As Stone says, "In virtual systems, an interface is that which
mediates between the human body (or bodies) and an associated 'I' (or 'I's').
This double view of 'where' the 'person' is, and the corresponding trouble it
may cause with thinking about 'who' we are talking about when we discuss such a
problematic 'person,' underlies the structure of most recent virtual
communities'' ("Will the Real Body" 87).
Ordinarily, people refer to
their characters in first person, identified with themselves, but there are
occasional moments when some users make a distinction between user and character
explicit. One person who posts messages on public mailing lists on LambdaMOO
refers to her character as "the character Dawn'' instead of "me'' or "I'';
others occasionally draw the distinction between their physical selves as
typists and their characters, usually to be amusing or to make a point (this
example is from a signature on a message):
bella .... who wasn't, by the way, at that dinner. neither was her typist.
Many people apparently find it annoying when users continually refer to their character in the third person, however (these quotes come from critical messages to one user):
Also, it wouldn't hurt to quit referring to yourself in third person. That is kind of stupid.
***
...when you stop referring to yourself in the third person
I will take the notion of the character as prosthesis (or external "I'')
as a given now and move on to more complex examples of objectification during
interactions on MOOs. The point to be gotten from the above is that it is out of
the ordinary to refer to the character as distinct from the user. It creates a
break in the usual understood state of affairs: that the user is the character,
for purposes of isolating agency. Later I will show some disturbing challenges
to that assumption of agency location.
In the discourse of EM, a speech act called the "null-emote'' plays a large
role in the mutability of the character signifier: the character can become
identified with other objects, locations, people, or even processes or events.
Null emoting also provides an excellent example of the jointly constructed
nature of discourses in the MOOÐ-an audience can metaphorically seize someone's
remark and turn it into the first part of a joke, entirely rewriting the speech
event.
Historically, null emoting evolved out of a group participation
act called a "roll call.'' In a roll call, a character calls a roll call in
capital letters, and the characters present who feel they fit the subject or
attribute in the name of the roll call answer with their names on a line alone,
by "null emoting'' (the virtual equivalent of raising their hands or saying
"here'' in that context).3In the first line here, Pete quotes a character from
another MUD after the vertical bar:
Pete | Blotchy_Guest says, "Don't you oppress me! I have freedom of expression so I can do whatever I want here, you fascist running dog power elitist!''
Pete giggles
Karen eyes Pete warily.
Pete FASCIST RUNNING DOG POWER ELITIST ROLL CALL
Pete
Jubilee
Karen ?
ms [to Jubilee]: You wish.
Null-emotes often occur in non-prompted contexts, as well. (The traditional joke explanation is "Oh, I thought it was a roll call.'') In the most straightforward examples of non-prompted null emoting, a character answers a question with his character name on a line alone, e.g., as Tom did in the first example below, implying that the character is the answer to the question. In other words, Tom is what is weird. In the other examples, Ray is why DSM sucks, Tom is Will Couch, George is where Tanyo should desposit Shelley, and Belian is how fucking long it takes 1.1.45 to compile on a 386/40.
Lenny says, "what's weird?"
Tom
***
Ted explains to Woodkey why DSM sucks.
Ray
***
lynn says, "who's Will Couch?"
Tom
***
Shelley needs to find out where Tanya should deposit her tomorrow night.
George
***
Rob says, "how fucking long does it take 1.1.45 to compile on a 386/40"
Belian
The null-emote is fundamentally a joke; a null-emoter, through her null-emote
response to a question intended to evoke an informative response, subverts the
discourse in a playful manner. The joke often lies in the improbability or
impossibility of the character really being the answer to the question. Clearly,
"Belian'' is not a reasonable answer to a question about how long compilation
takes. However, like all good textual play, the null-emotes that come close to
being possible "true'' responses are often the most humorous. For example, Ray
is a character on the MUD DeepSeas (abbreviated "DSM'' in the second example
above); Ray therefore may be implying that he is in fact one reason DSM
"sucks.'' The speech activity of a null-emote implies jest, but the context he
performs it in renders his response ambiguous and the humor more
subtle.
Null-emotes seem to be appropriate in most question contexts:
who, what, where, why, how.4The null-emote phenomenon, however, is fairly complex
semantically. Null-emotes also occur in the context of an embedded question or
an indefinite or a plural:
lynn wonders what she came here for.
Shelley
***
George pssst, "I think Penfold has something hanging from his nose."
Shelley
***
Tom says, "i was trying to think of behaviors you could disallow programmatically without just removing programmer bits from everybody"
Ray
***
Honda | There is an open ballot on which you have not yet voted:
Penfold
***
Ralph says, "gameboy??"
Largo
Again, in these examples above, the null-emoter is not intending her
character name to be a serious response to the embedded question or open
proposition. Penfold implies he is an open ballot to be voted on, but he is not
necessarily associated with any real ballot; Ray implies he is a behavior that
can be disallowed programmatically, and Largo implies he is a gameboy, but they
are not trying to be sensible or accurate.
In semantic terms, the
null-emote seems to function as an assignment of a value to an available
argument position, i.e., an individual that could satisfy the predicate denoted
by the indefinite or plural ("satisfy'' in a playful, nonrealistic sense,
clearly). This analysis is supported by a rarer form of null emoting, in which
it seems as if a character is intended to control either an empty subject
position or an adjective's argument position.
Will tries to do that thing with @describe here as "This is a nice place. [couch] Blah blah blah etc." Oitis HARD.
Will says, "Or at least, comes out really ugly."
Border
***
lynn . o O ( making love in the afternoon )
Tom
The adjective and the participial phrase semantically represent one-place
predicates of individuals, thus allowing a similar binding of their argument
position (loosely speaking, they are missing something, and the character name
provides it). Tom is making love in the afternoon, Border is
ugly.
Interestingly, textual adjacency is needed for a null-emote to feel
"successful.'' The "presentation'' of the speech act apparently matters a lot.
Line 2 prevented a good null-emote opportunity below:
1 Kit [to Henry]: so what do you operate?
2 Jon says, "It was all that rain talk"
3 Largo hehs.
4 Largo [to Jon]: You spoiled the most purest of null-emote opportunities for that. I hope you're satisifed.
Other cases are group participation events, where either multiple responses seem to be appropriate, or a null-emote is actually expected. Tom pokes Penfold in the second example below because he expected a null-emote and didn't receive it immediately. The vertical bar, or pipe, in lines 1, 4, and 1 indicate that Tom is quoting text from another text source, like e-mail. The representation in line 4 of the second example indicates a comics-style thought bubble.
1 Tom | Two members of your company are invited to attend at no cost.
2 Ray
3 Patrick
4 Tom | If you would like additional members of your company to participate, the cost will be $200 per person. Non-Forum members may attend for $500 per person.
5 lynn
***
1 Tom | 1. Good interactive stories emerge from:
2 Tom pokes Penfold.
3 Penfold
4 Tom . o O ( whew )
5 lynn says, "Blatant NULL-EMOTE prompts"
The null-emote speech event is one clear way in which the audience
participates in defining and changing the speech context, and it illustrates how
characters can briefly alter their own character's signification, to fit them
into the conversation under different temporary identities (cf. the discussion
of text and audience in Brenneis).
Interestingly, the habits of cyber
discourse can become real life discourse habits as well. And more intriguingly,
they can undergo physical translations: the null-emote survives among some
MOOers in real life, translated as a physical gesture (like a slight hand-raise)
during conversations or while listening to talks or television. Notably it
survives for them as a physical, bodily involvement in a discourse, suggesting
the body is involved in identity for them. However, among a few other MOOers,
null emoting in real life consists of the mention of a name. (EM community
members tell stories about almost or actually null emoting "in real life''
during conversations with non-MUDders, who of course have no idea what this
behavior means.)
A variation on the null-emote speech event is what is known as "Xythian-completion,'' named after a character on LambdaMOO.
Ray says, "I think it's in question whether DAWN knows what the ballot says"
Bonny giggles.
Ray says, "xythian-complete at will"
Possible Xythian-completions (from my character) for this context might be:
in question whether LYNN knows what the ballot says
or
in question whether DAWN knows what lynn says
In Xythian-completion, aka "x-completion,'' the character name replaces a
noun or sometimes another part of speech in a sentence or phrase. Again, like
the null-emote speech activity, Xythian-completion is not intended sensibly, and
the fact that grammaticality is lost (for instance, when a character name
replaces a part of speech other than nominal) is another indication that this
form of play is not meant to be understood as reasonable speech behavior. In the
example above, Dawn and lynn do not need to have any connection in real life or
on any MUD; the Xythian-completion is solely a text game involving
identifications "on the fly'' in the course of interactions among the EM
community.
Since many of the EM community also frequent LambdaMOO, I have
occasional examples from LambdaMOO as well. The first example below shows an
automatic message on a locked room on LambdaMOO that is triggered when an
uninvited guest tries to enter the room. Ray parodies it with
Xythian-completion, asking the readers to imagine him as a stretching wall.
The wall twists and groans as it tries to force itself into the shape of Khaki_Guest. With a crack it snaps back into shape.
Ray snaps back into shape.
***
1 Conner nods. i know. was wondering what this license thing entailed, then.
2 Patrick
3 Border says, "not necessarily v.32, etc"
4 Conner says, "hm."
5 v.Patrick
In the second example above, Patrick Xythian-completes into "v.32'' and the readers imagine a "version dot Patrick.'' This type of Xythian-completion is an example of a subsort that occurs frequently, consisting of the embedding of a character name in punctuation, especially odd punctuation. According to one informant, this was the probable origin of Xythian-completion; it was intended to draw attention to odd typographic entities, and has since become generalized to include name substitutions elsewhere (there is some disagreement among the population about the historical evolution, however). Here Tom Xythian-completes into "Ðcore=."
1 Phred [to Vermont]: how would I invoke it? 'gdb core'?
2 Vermont [to Phred]: gdb ../../bin/driver Ðcore=mudlib/core
3 Henry says, "Ðcore= is optional there"
4 Ðtom=
Finally, a rarer form of completion results when some character responds to something unspoken in the context and substitutes her name into it, as in line 6 below. The number for film listings is 777-FILM, which is what foliage is Xythian-completing into.
1 foliage [to Brett]: hey. yr alive. what time would you want to go?
2 Brett [to foliage]: late
3 foliage [to Brett]: i.e., do you have a paper, can you tell times?
4 Brett [to foliage]: no, but i can call the theatre, hang
5 Brett says, "oit is buusy"
6 777-FOLIAGE
sExternal texts are borrowed from to provide context for x-completion as well. This example shows Jay reciting quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, substituting himself and Joe for the characters in the book in lines 6 and 10. In line 6, Jay means "didn't you hear I come in six-packs" but uses "etc" instead of completing the line, common in EM when predictable utterances are being made.
1 Joe . o O ( *three* jay? )
2 Jay is confused
3 Joe too!
4 lynn says, "'jay' is a mass noun? there are three of it?"
5 Joe nods solemnly.
6 Jay says, "'The' Jay? No, just 'A' Jay, didn't you hear I come in six-petc"
7 Joe says, "what's that from?"
8 Jay says, "Zaphod"
9 lynn says, "oh yeah."
10 Jay gets stranger things than Joe free in his breakfast cereal.
Ken-Completion
Against this backdrop of multiple-participant discourse construction and metamorphosis of identity, a greeting ritual evolved between the characters Ken (who is also the character Xythian) and Karen on EM. When Ken enters a room, Karen says the first part of a word ending in the letters "ken'' and then Ken null-emotes to complete it, creating in this case the word "forsaken'' if read correctly:
Karen says, "forsa"
ken
An amusing ruckus occurred one day when it was discovered that Ken had automated his completions of "ken"-words. Reactions to this varied from startlement to disbelief to amusement:
1 Tom says, "woah, you cheat?"
2 lynn says, "I am so disappointed."
3 Tom [to Ken]: do you ever feel like you're on puppet strings?
4 Karen says, "nonono, he couldn't have"
[...]
5 Ken hides his head in shame.
6 Karen [to Ken]: SO. you can't greet me on your OWn, you have to AUTOMATE it, EH?
7 Ken [to Karen]: Wait! Blame EM! Isn't intin the EM charter to automate useless things?
8 Karen says, "WHAT!?"
9 Ken held out for AS LONG AS HE COULD!
10 Karen says, "greeting ME is USELESS???"
11 Ken says, "NO!"
12 Karen sniffs
13 Karen is giggling irl
Of course people were amused at his audacity. In line 13 above, Karen says she is giggling in real life ("irl"), creating a distinction between her pretense of outrage in the MOO and her reaction of amusement in real life. To mitigate their reactions, Ken explains his worries about automating the action, having to do with mistrusting his own code's accuracy and coverage:5
1 Ken says, "I worked long and hard to get that completer right."
2 Shelley actually found that verb some time ago, but don't tell ken
3 lynn [to Ken]: no, it's ok, you just didn't suffer as long as I thought.
4 Ken says, "I did!"
5 Ken says, "I had to watch for days to make sure I had all the completes!"
6 Ken says, "And then be paranoid!"
7 Karen [to Ken]: you don't have them allHAHAHAHA
8 Karen says, "why paranoid?"
9 Ken says, "Can you IMAGINE the STRESS of NOT BEING SURE if I had a complete."
10 Tom
11 Ken says, "Someone makes one, I am unsure. I complete and then IT completes and I look silly!"
12 Karen giggles.
13 lynn [to Ken]: ok, that makes me feel better.
14 Karen has seen a couple of doubles and really wondered
15 Ken says, "or WORSE, I MISS THE COMPLETE and FALL DOWN on my MORAL OBLIGATION as a KEN to complete."
Finally, Ken responded to my surprise, drawing the line between human and
character object explicitly; he focuses on the character itself as a location
for agency, in a surprising attempt at comfort:
16 Ken [to lynn]: You could look at it this way: It was the ken character that did completions. That never changed. The ken CHARACTER still completes.
Other automation appears in the MOOs, although usually not as confusingly
as the custom Ken-completion code. The character r'm has code that automatically
moves him out of crowded rooms once they get too "loud;'' he also has code that
automatically null-emotes for him if he hears certain question words. Other
sorts of minor automation on LambdaMOO include "idle twitches,'' which look
initially as if uttered by a person, but are actually just triggered by mentions
of the character's name in its vicinity while it is idle. Line 2 below is Jay's
idle twitch (note that "you'' in line 1 refers to the user, not the character,
which is sitting there in the room with my character):
1 lynn [to Jay]: so when you come back, I have a question...
2 Jay lies, "I'm awake, I'm awake!''
An amusing example of code that functions even when a player is not
connected is illustrated below, sent to me by one of the participants. The
character Joe has a bit of code that removes people from his MOO room when the
user is not connected, by first trying to move them through the door, and if
it's locked, ejecting them. In the example below, Jay was ejected to his home,
where his idle twitch then went off. Jay's user saw this exchange in his
scrollback later. (From the point where "Joe stirs'' in line 6, all activity was
automated.)
1 Joe says, "filfre to hang out here until my parents get home''
2 Penfold says, "should we sneak out?''
3 Joe has disconnected.
disconnected: Joe. Total: 156 >
4 Penfold leaves too!
5 Penfold goes home.
disconnected: Penfold. Total: 156 >
6 Joe stirs, opens his eyes, and notices there are people in his room while he's trying to sleep. He quickly ushers you outside.
7 The door seems to be stuck. You get a little claustrophobic.
8 Joe frowns. "You're still here? Well, if asking politely doesn't work...''
9 Jay's Home
10 Jay's home is a biology lab taken over by scores of slightly obsolete computers: Apple IIs, first generation PC clones and an Amiga 1000.
[shortened]
12 Jay (#3920) arrives.
13 Jay lies, "I'm awake! I'm awake!''
The word "filfre'' in line 1 is an abbreviation for "feel free.'' Line 9, the
announcement that Jay's character is now in a new location, indicates that he
has been ejected from Joe's room. Line 12, the actual arrival message, triggers
his idle twitch in line 13, because idle twitches respond to mention of the
character name.
Some users have special "verbs,'' or MOO code, on their
characters that allow other people to "do'' things to them, producing amusing
output; some of them call this "human toy'' code, although the character is the
locus of the interaction, not the human body. Joe, for instance, has a "throw''
verb on himself which allows people to throw him around, and generates a random
exclamation from Joe. (The > below is the MOO prompt, and the text after it
is what I typed to call his verb. The character's code produces the "ooch,'' not
the human typist.)
>throw joe at bed
You throw Joe at an old-fashioned bed. Joe is now slumped over an old-fashioned bed.
Joe says, "Ooch!"
The character Dave on EM produces nonsense utterances when "poked'' or "kicked''; some of those utterances actually orginated on LambdaMOO, recorded by an object in the living room (a Cockatoo bird, which babbles things it has heard LM characters saying in the past). Dave simulates bird-behavior in response to being poked (line 2 below), and then spouts messages recorded by the object on LM, shipped to EM by network link (lines 3 and 6). This example was collected while Dave was idle (i.e., his character had been sitting there inactive due to the user being busy in real life).
1 >poke dave
2 Dave shifts about on his perch and bobs his head.
3 Dave squawks, "BRB - gotta help out somewhere else''
4 >kick dave
5 lynn kicks Dave.
6 Dave babbles, "long time Listen, Purple, Dharma is away from his keypad right now, I guess. you hold tight and work on that beer; I be right back!''
In a rather extreme example of cyborg metamorphosis, the character Tari turned herself into a human appliance while she was programming a washing machine object for EM. In line 3 below, Berke activates her, and she continues to converse normally while meanwhile her code generates output messages appropriate to a washer working. (At least one user complained about her being able to function simultaneously as a talking character and as a washing machine, however.)
1 Berke says, "Hey, are you a washing machine?''
2 Tari says, "no...i was messing with the washing machine and copied the verbs that worked to myself so i wouldn't have to start over if i screwed up.''
[later]
3 Berke hands Tari four quarters and a pile of dirty clothes, and presses the button on Tari's left shoulder.
4 You hear Tari fill with water.
5 Berke hee
6 Karen hehs.
7 Tari giggles.
8 Tari makes a clunking sound.
9 Tari begins to jump around the room, agitating the clothes.
10 Berke lol
11 Tari will take it off soon.
12 Tari stops and you hear water draining.
13 You notice that Tari is beginning the rinse cycle.
14 Berke [to Tari]: So add an 'unplug tari' verb which will shut the washing machine off.
15 Tari goes silent for a moment, then suddenly begins to spin round and round, water spraying everywhere.
16 Tari [to Berke]: yeah...i'm just waiting to have someone jump me about turning myself into a toy.
17 *PING*
18 Tari drops a pile of clean, wet clothes. You have a feeling she's kept at least one sock, though.
(In line 10, "lol'' means "laughs out loud.'') Note that she has some
uncertainty about whether she has crossed into a territory that isn't acceptable
for the regulars on EM. She was eventually asked to make herself incapable of
talking during washing machine behavior, because the mix of characteristics
(human and appliance) was disturbing on aesthetic grounds.
Anthropomorphic Objects and More Toys
Humor often depends on objectifying characters or, indeed, on anthropomorphizing other objects on the MOO. One day's play revolved around attacking the trees in the park, in response to a "spoof'' from me in line 5. A spoof is a message that does not appear as a normal utterance from a character with the character as subject of the sentence; on EM, the author of a spoof is named after a dash at the end.6
1 Jon stands up from the tree stump.
2 Jon [to the trees]: Come to Perkins!
3 Jon [to a tree]: Come to Perkins!
4 Jon giggles
5 The trees groan and pull their roots out of the ground; they advance on Jon threateningly... Ðlynn
6 lynn eyes herself warily.
7 Ray giggles
8 Ray nails a tree down.
9 Jon detonates a low yield nuclear device over a tree.
10 lynn shakes the trees.
11 Ray spraypaints "WAKE UP'' on a tree in dayglo orange.
12 Ray giggles
13 Jon takes off and nukes a tree from orbit. "It's the only way to be sure.''
14 Ray [to a tree]: I will not support what I see as a flagrant runaway, illegal and rogue decision here.
In line 6, I "eye'' myself "warily'' because I just did the strange spoof
in the line above; impossible physical actions like eyeing oneself warily play a
regular communicative role in MOO conversation.
Objects are often at
ontological risk as much as bodies are; abstractions like plans or projects can
become "real'' objects which can be carried or dropped like other objects. For
instance, on EM, plans for MOO development are embodied as MOO objects, making
it possible for Tom to drop the Appliances Project in a room.7 Dropping an object in front of people is an action
that has some communicative force, usually meaning "take a look at this'' or
"use this.''
Part of the acculturation process on MUDs is learning to identify which
text originates from a human typist, and which is automated. The problem of
agency identification is particularly acute in cases of spoofing; although
spoofs originate from human typists, on many MUDs the author of a spoof is hard
to track down. Spoofs, which are frequently used to attribute actions or
utterances to other characters on LambdaMOO, may be unpleasant or vicious. A
spoof can effectively render another character a plaything. To newcomers on LM,
many spoofs probably appear to be authored by the character they are intended to
make fun of.8 The spoofed entrance message below in line 1 is
confusing to the audience because it attributes actions to the Guest which were
not performed by her.
1 Ochre_Guest frantically scurries over to the nearest door, opens it and announces, "Ladies and Gentlemen of The Kitchen, please welcome.... SIDEWALK!!!! Sidewalk walks boldly into the room and hands Ochre_Guest a $2 tip. Ochre_Guest seems overwhelmed with glee by this gesture.
2 Shiggy waves to Fread.
3 Ochre_Guest leaves the kitchen for the dining room.
This spoofed scenario below (lines 3, 6, 8, 11-13, 15) is representative of a particularly obnoxious class in that it is not only noisy ("spammy'') but also hostile in content, and results in the movement of the target (the Guest) against her will, somewhere around line 15:
1 Sark falls down laughing.
2 Guest kicks sark while he lies on the ground
3 You hear a deep rumbling noise.
4 Gennifer hugs CountryGirl warmly.
5 Fread [to Arch]: brisbane, australia
6 The rumbling gets louder. It's shaking the whole MOO!
7 Sark stands up and waits expectantly.
8 Cripes! It's a diesel locomotive, and it's headed at Guest!!
9 Sark smiles at Guest.
10 Roth says, "It's the Big One!!!!''
11 ====================
12 *******SPLAT!*******
13 ====================
14 Prof comes in from the living room.
15 Yuck! Bits of Guest's brain and flesh are everywhere!!
16 Sark . o O ( Some guests don't have brains... )
The initiator of the spoofs was Sark; he moved the Guest somewhere called
"the Dungeon of Purgatory,'' a room which has a description stating that it is
used to "hold the scum of the real world.''
The spoof above is doubly
problematic in terms of location of agency, since the entire interaction was
written and programmed by a user other than Sark, who just invoked it with a
single MOO command. It is a scripted interaction that can be aimed at anyone.
Similarly and more disturbingly, the sex scenario below that was "aimed'' at me
by a user was written by a third party and made available to the community.
1 You slowly blink and realize that The_Monkees has come into the room with you, slipping their arms around you.
2 They says, "I want to take you on a journey, but I want to make sure you want to go, just type REJECT The_Monkees WITH #6919 in the next 15 seconds and I'll leave. You can REJECT me anytime on our journey. I just wanted to warn you that this is very. . . explicit."
3 The_Monkees says, "I thought we could take a bike ride to the waterfall and go skinny-dipping under the moon's pale light."
4 The Underground Waterfall
5 Although you are quite sure that this room is underground, it is nearly impossible to tell. The chamber is absolutely enormous. The walls are invisible in the hazy distance, and the ceiling, if truly a ceiling exists, is obscured in a soft, white mist which floats like a lazy cloud in the air high above.
[edited out 15 more lines of description]
11 The_Monkees is here.
12 The_Monkees undresses you, kissing your mouth and neck as they takes off your shirt and bra., pulling down your jeans and running their hands over your breasts.
13 You respond to their kisses and start to peel their shirt from off them, dragging your nails down their back until you reach their waist, then tugging at the fly of their jeans to release their already hard prick.
14 The_Monkees whispers softly in your ear, "Remember, lynn, you can REJECT The_Monkees WITH #6919 anytime and I'll stop.
15 You start to stroke The_Monkees's sac softly and carefully,moving your hand up and down their swollen shaft.
16 The_Monkees eases their fingers inside your tight, wet opening.
17 You gasp in surprise as they strokes your clit, tonguing your mouth more deeply than before and pushing their hips closer to yours.
18 >reject the_monkees with #6919
19 You both break from your embrace and walk into the cool water of the plunge pool. The_Monkees pulls you close, kissing your sweet lips once more, forcing their tongue into your mouth.
20 The_Monkees start to feel all around your crotch, rubbing their fingers through your pubic hair and making circles over your hole lips. The_Monkees whispers softly in your ear, "lynn, you can REJECT The_Monkees WITH #6919 anytime and I'll stop, I won't mention it again . . .
21 The_Monkees sulks, but leaves, blowing you a kiss!
The entire text above, except line 18, was produced by the automated script,
which was started by The_Monkees character. The reason my "reject'' command
didn't appear till large amounts of text had appeared on my screen was that I
was not looking at my MOO window at the time, and the lag time between typing a
command and seeing the response on LM is often significant. In line 21, you see
the effect of the "reject'' command which turned off the script interaction
(#6919 is the object number the command lives on).
Marcus discusses the
linguistic discourse around rape, and although her discussion is not about
assaults online, it may come as little surprise that many of her points hold for
nonconsensual incidents like the above (and Dibbell). In fact, the term
"netrape'' is in use among some MUDders. Marcus discusses rape as a scripted
action which also scripts women's bodies into being seen as "vulnerable,
violable, penetrable, and wounded'' (398). Marcus suggests that the notion of a
script, a social scenario, allows rebellion and rewriting from the actress,
"perhaps by refusing to take it seriously and treating it as a farce, perhaps by
resisting the physical passivity which it directs us to adopt''
(392).
Although I did not view the event as farce at the time, it now
appears humorous in a twisted way. In the programmed script above (which of
course is not Marcus' notion of a social script), note the ridiculous mismatch
between the plural name of the character who invoked it, The_Monkees, and the
singular verbs. Note the grotesque mismatch between what "they'' are doing and
sayingÐ"You can REJECT anytime.'' Note finally that fifteen seconds is
ridiculously short for a courtship before consummation: I had never met
The_Monkees before this incident.
Resisting passivity, my response was to
call a dispute against the character using LambdaMOO's baroque legal system
(after my immediate response of "FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE,'' to which "they'' responded
"HA HA HA HA HA!''). The_Monkees claimed ignorance of what the script actually
did (although they were willing to experiment with it on a complete stranger),
and in light of the third party authorship and the newness of their character, I
became confused about the location for responsibility, blame, and agency, and I
dropped the dispute after minimal concessions.
The author of the script
agreed to make changes requiring consent before it begins running, but it is
clear to me that the situation remains problematic: a script cannot be truly
approved in advance of seeing its contents. Someone may approve the initiation
of the script, but may end up very disapproving of some act it ascribes to her.
Should acceptance of the script constitute agreement with any contents it may
have? If line 15 constructs the target as performing an act ("You start to
stroke The_Monkees's sac softly and carefully, moving your hand up and down
their swollen shaft'') can the target successfully claim "I didn't really do
that'' after the fact of the text appearing on the screen? These are open
questions.
In this interactive forum, it seems to be difficult to undo
events after they have appeared on the screen. Normally, emoted events are felt
to occur as soon as they are uttered. In one instance on EM, a Guest character
emoted that she hugged Karen, who attempted to retract the entire event in line
2:
1 Guest hugs Karen.
2 Karen is NOT hugged by Guest!
Afterwards another character referred to "the Guest who hugged [her],''
suggesting that he did not see the event as having been "denied'' successfully
(Cherny, "The Modal Complexity").
Scripted actions like the sex scenario
may constitute a different category of event, but the problematic portrayal of
them on every "overhearer's'' screen as undifferentiated from emotes remains.
Finally, it seems significant that these scripts are indeed mimicking
interaction between people, rather than just spamming someone's screen with
impersonal pornographic text; there is a specific "you'' and a specific
instigator involved, playing very particular roles in the scenario. The "you''
above is constructed as a female body, initially the passive undressed body,
then "responding to their kisses'' and undressing in return, stroking their
swollen shaft. The "you'' has a "clit" and breasts and a mouth that tongues can
be forced into. The script mimics interaction but denies any real possibility of
it, making the scenario necessarily something "done to'' someone, and more
eerily, "done with'' someone who is objectified and removed of any agency during
the act. It seems probable to me that a reasonable overhearer of the sex
scenario may indeed claim that it was an event that happened to a specific
"you,'' even if he doesn't believe "you'' did any typing during it, and even if
he believes "you'' didn't want it to happen. As MacKinnon says, citing Lewis
Froman, "subordination is 'doing someone else's language''' (25). Although not a
physical action, in a MacKinnonesque world in which speech acts about sex
constitute sexual actions, the imposition of erotic material on someone (who is
supposed to enjoy it, like all victims of sexual abuse) has characteristics of
an assault (MacKinnon 108).
In this paper I discussed the ways in which the simulation of the body
has become semi-"real" in virtual reality or even "hyperreal" (cf. Baudrillard),
and the status the virtual body has as an element in a multi-party constructed
discourse. The body is intimately involved in the discourse of the MOOs I
discussed. It has become what Hayles called a "flickering signifier'' of
identity, changing its terms for comprehension and circumscription regularly.
Some ways in which this happens in ElseMOO and LambdaMOO include discourse
activities like null-emotes and Xythian-completion, automated "human toy" code,
play with objects and discourse "bodies" in physically impossible ways, and
scripted interactions which may not involve human typists.
Immersive virtual
reality has been claimed to be a radical new technology for viewing the body and
playing in cyberspace, shifting perceptions and altering mental models (Walser).
After a demonstration of an immersive virtual reality system in summer of 1994,
several MUDders discussed the rhetoric around the idea of "putting on bodies''
in immersive virtual reality. The experience of the physical and experience of
identity clearly change in an immersive virtual reality setting, but the MUDders
agreed that they did not find this so different from a day in the MOO; they
thought of null-emotes and Xythian-completion immediately:9
Ray once said something like "xythian-completion is about exploring alternate lifestyles''
Identity-shift, even to nonhuman or abstract discourse entities, is
commonplace in the course of playful conversation in a MUD. Even in nonplayful
conversation, the user is subjected to the split identity of being physical and
corporeal at a terminal, and being an entity of code which can be manipulated by
herself or other characters. Some manipulations are amusing, part of
collaborative fun; others are more sinister, and raise profound questions about
the ethics surrounding construction and use of bodies and the identification of
the location for agency in interactive spaces. The self is constantly in
question and open to redefinition in such an environment, even through the
narrow bandwidth of text, and this experience may be exhilarating or
terrifying.
Although the experience of rewriting one's own identity in
playful discourse contexts may be liberating and entertaining, identities forced
on a user by another user with spoofs or scripts disrupt the usual casual
identification of a character and her typist. A scripted sex scenario that
embodies a character in a way that her typist objects to makes the prosthetic
code "body'' undesirable baggage. As the identification between code and typist
decreases, so does the sense of responsibility and accountability that one
assigns to others in the virtual environment, making the establishment of
community norms of behavior less likely. Although play with identity will always
be an important part of a virtual system, opaque agency allows other users to
manipulate other characters as if they were puppets, an undesirable aspect of a
multi-user virtual reality.
1This is a slightly expanded version of a paper I gave
at the Midwest Popular Culture Association, Pittsburgh, October 1994. I owe big
debts to the creative community at EM for making this paper possible, especially
to Ken, Jay, Dave, Joe, and Tari. Special thanks to Erik Ostrom and Doug Orleans
for reading the draft carefully and giving detailed comments, as well as Jeff
Blaine, Jander, and Vernon Lee. Errors I have introduced since their reading are
my own fault.
2A MOO is an object-oriented MUD, named after the
programming language available in it. Character and location names have been
changed in this paper to protect the community's privacy.
3According to lew, a friend who has been mudding since
1990, the first roll call routine originated as a way to identify who was logged
on and active on a MUD in which disconnected characters were listed in a room's
contents along with connected characters. "Back on Islandia, which ran under one
of the TinyMUD versions, when you did a 'look' in a room, it listed everyone
there, regardless of their logged-in status. In the Islandia treehouse or town
square, this list could get huge, making it almost impossible to tell who was
'really there.' The first roll call occurred in the Islandia treehouse, when it
suddenly occurred to me I had no idea who was there so I didn't know what to
start talking about. So I just emoted 'ROLL CALL' and then null-emoted (probably
the first intentional null-emote) and most of the awake people immediately
realized the 'rules' and followed suit.''
4I don't have many examples of "how'' null-emotes, but
one character's automation of his null-emote responses is triggered by "how''
and "wonders how'' said in the environment around him (indicating that he
considered it a fine context for a null-emote).
5A "verb,'' mentioned in line 2, is a MOO
program.
6Almost all of the interaction with the trees was
produced with the set of "antisocial commands'' on EM that produce stock text
phrases; the commands constitute a record of many community in-jokes (Cherny,
"Conversational Modes").
7I wanted to describe this as "dropping the Appliances
Project at someone's feet'' or "dropping the Appliances Project on the floor!"
Rooms exist programmatically, but floors and feet do not.
8Special commands will show the author of a line of
text, but the new user often doesn't find out about these or understand how to
read the output trace until she is more experienced. Spoofs on EM have the
author's name appended, so they are rarely used in the manner or frequency with
which they appear on LM.
9Ray's next comment was: Ray also said this about the
joys of '@chparent me to $exit' though. He intended it ironically: on a MOO,
properties of objects are inherited from their parent objects; changing a
character's parent to an exit object would be somewhat crippling, since the
character would lose its ability to communicate and move around. The ironic
comment shows that he is aware of the fact that "alternative lifestyles'' are
not all pleasant or intentional.
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