Diaspora Dialogs [.com]

This reminds me of a story I read a few days ago.

http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/our-daily-bread/2008/04/19/devotion.aspx

Note that I do not endorse the religious content on this website. What I ask you give your attention to is the story of the young child playing pretend. In my mind, that's all that Second Life is; it's a big game of pretend. In the magical digital world, people can pretend all kinds of things. White people can even pretend to be black, and vice-versa, and if we were living in a futuristic society where all of our needs could be provided for us without us ever leaving the comfort of our own homes, then such users could essentially recreate their ethnic identities. However, we do not live in such a world, and the "fact of blackness" is still unavoidable. At some point, players of Second Life must walk away from their computers and into the real world, where their ethnic backgrounds are as permanent as ever.

Does that mean that there is anything wrong with a player creating a character who is of a different race than that player? Not in itself, no. We all have our own opinions and preferences when in comes to appearance. Some white people may find a black avatar to look cooler than a white one. The only problem is when the distinctions between the virtual world and the real one are blurred. Very much like in the story of the child riding the train, players of Second Life may begin to mix aspects of the physical world with those of the make-belief one, as is the case for the racial stereotypes you mentioned. I think there is no danger if a stereotype is carried into the virtual world from the real one. After all, that is the essence of pretending - to create in the fake world scenarios that are only in your mind in the real world. The problem is when the converse occurs.

In the story of the child, we can laugh when he asks, "Why are there other people in our train?" because it is a comment of naivety and innocence. When in comes to racial stereotypes in games like Second Life, however, the issue is more serious. What if children playing this game begin to take it too seriously? What if they begin to see trends in the fake world and then try to drag those trends back to the real world? It doesn't even have to be a child; even some adults lack the maturity to distinguish between the real world and what they see in movies and TV shows.

I wish I could wave this off as a trivial or unlikely outcome, but unfortunately, this inability to distinguish between real and virtual space is quite common, especially in the younger audiences that Second Life targets. There have been stories of teenagers committing acts of violence or taking their own lives because of things that happened on Facebook or Myspace. Of course, I know that I myself am mature enough to never do something as stupid as that, but digital space is not restricted to the mature alone. It is easily accessible to everyone, including those not wise enough to make educated and efficient use of it.

Unfortunately, I have learned from previous experiences with the internet that it is quite impossible to conquer the seemingly endless immature masses. As individuals, we can say when a certain action is offensive or inappropriate, but that does not eliminate the source of the problem. Digital space is but a medium by which people express their thoughts and opinions, and unless we can change those, we can't do anything about how people choose to play pretend.

I am most intrigued by Professor Archer-Straw's existential dilemna.  Indeed, she can shed the marks of epidermalization temporarily and assume a white avatar, but is this an activity exclusively an invention of the virtual world? The tradition of shedding identities in sanctioned spaces has existed for centuries in the form of carnival, masquerade, and the theater.  These activities allowed individuals to flee themselves and subvert the roles life and society have dealt them.  The ruling class permitted these frolics since they acted as a release valve for social tensions. 

When creating an avatar, if this avatar is human, skin color is a choice you have to make.  On the Classified's page, one of the most frequently advertised items is enhanced skin options.  The website's creators had alternatives to the range of natural skin tones, such as a default skin color (but what would that be?) or a true range of color (by this, I mean a color gradient such as the one you could use in Photoshop - you could be a blue person, if you liked).  If creating one's avatar in Second Life is at all similar to Wii, then each feature is selected separately - there is no given combination.  This, to me, seems to be an interesting physical deconstruction of race.  A more pressing question is whether a physical type invokes a certain set of behaviors.

The virtual world is the terra incognito constructed to fill the void where the real world failed to meet potentials imagined.  The "New World" was not paradise, the American West was tamed, and the moon is not made out cheese.  As the physical world seems to shrink, the virtual world has opened as a space for escape, release and fantasy.  I have never used Second Life or The Sims. I have visited the Second Life website and am uncertain whether the figures Professsor A-S identifies as stereotypes are part of the given social make-up of the site or avatars for other people sharing the virtual space.  I assume the users have no idea about an avatar's veracity in relation to his/her creator.  I have no idea how Second Life's "society" functions, whether there are differences in crime rates or economy in relation to the real world.  What crimes can you commit? Who regulates crime? Can you be virtually incarcerated or shot, or are there no consequences at all? How much do individuals engage in their crimes or live out the fantasy of stereotypes? Wouldn't the player bore of the one-dimensional character of a stereotype if you can do anything in the world? When you enter as your avatar, do you see the world throught your character's "eyes"? or, do you watch your avatar? This, instead, introduces questions of voyeurism rather than something more performative.  I ponder all this because I cannot imagine a world duplicates life and thus could truly engender the confusion of the virtual and real; to what extent is Second Life living?

My underlying question is whether virtual crime and virtual race are actually related. It is one thing to desire a different appearance, but needing that skin to cloak one's behavior is another thing entirely.