Digital Cultures

As I embark on attempting to describe what the term digital cultures means to me, I first want to reflect on a few things from the articles we were supposed to read for this week. In the first article by Elizabeth Reid, "Virtual Worlds: Culture and Imagination", it was interesting for me to read the descriptions and analysis of the MUD universe. Though I guess MUDs are an outdated concept, their essence lives on in more ellaborate games today, those famous MMORPGs. There were many things that I recognized and had encountered myself during roleplaying and gaming experiences, especially the mentioned gender issue. Even though in "World of Warcraft" almost all of my characters have been female, I have very often been referred to as a male in social encounters, quests and party chat. I even remember one time when I was playing my female night elf rogue and someone said to me "It's nice to meet a female night elf rogue that's actually female". I was taken aback by this comment at first, but then I thought about it and considered the appearance of the night elf females, which are undoubtedly appealing to the male gaze and are often used in promotional posters to attract teenage boys to the game. No wonder they end up playing them! I even once saw a video where they had removed the character's clothes and made them dance. Can that be called digital discrimination in any way? Doesn't seem so to me, since the conceptual appearance of the character has been created by Blizzard, and they are very well aware of the things a player can do with it. They probably even encourage it.

The second article, "Teaching An Old Genre New Tricks: The Diary on the Internet" seemed more argumentative to me and so I suddenly found myself arguing with the article, making little notes and comments here and there on the sheets of paper. I guess what struck me as surpising was the author's notion that most blogs were used as full disclosures of the writer's thoughts and feelings. Though this might be true in some cases, I don't really think that the majority of people do that kind of thing, at least not for a long time. My usage of blogging has changed over the years as well. I remember setting up my first online diary and one of the comments I received about it. It was a guy who started avidly reading my journal and complementing me for my honesty and exposure. He said he rarely encountered blogs that held as much emotion and truthfulness as mine. That made me think about the way I write and to whom. One of the arguments in the article was that authors of online journals write for a specific audience and want to invite people to read their entries, encouraging growth in the reciprocal exchange of thoughts and ideas. But I think that a large part of bloggers don't really spend much time thinking about it. We're aware of the fact that there are thousands, millions, billions of blogs out there, and there are so many people writing so many entries at the same time. The massive amount of text diminishes the possibility of a large audience. Many of the blogs are just like regular people, lost in the crowd of multitude. And so when I write, I'm aware of this, and my expectations of audience are low and the audience itself is controlled, often reduced to the people I want to read my blog. So perhaps the narcissism factor of online diaries might not be as big as one might think. The vast space of internet gives the user a sense of privacy, even though his thoughts are theoretically available for anyone to read. Just like the vast space of Earth, or even the Universe, can makes us feel alone even in a densely populated area.

So what do digital cultures mean to me? A new state of consciousness and connectivity, on one hand. An expression of loneliness on the other hand. The ability to freely expess myself and send my thoughts out into the void for anybody to see, hear and feel.. whatever they wish. And if the void talks back to me and echoes the thoughts of someone else instead of my own, then it is still my choice to respond to it or not, to let it affect me or not. But the OFF button isn't always as affective as one might think. Emotions expressed on the internet can be just as powerful and haunting as the ones experienced in real life. 'Real life'. I think this term is becoming outdated. If people meet, build relationships and express themselves on the internet and these experiences affect their lives and their personality, why shouldn't they be able to call them real? In the future, I envision no distinctions between digital and real cultures. A merge of the two, where both are equal partners in the life-long process of developing characters and stories. Where one cannot exist without the other.

Hmm. Did I say 'in the future'? I meant.. Now. Today.

- Eve.