[MD] virtuality/reality

[Arlo Bensinger]

Krimel,

You've probably seen this, but I'll send you the link in the 
off-chance you have not. It is an account of a "virtual rape", and 
the blurred lines between one's real and virtual identities, indeed 
to the pact where many would say "real" violence had been done.

http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html

Summary: A hacker using the pseudonym "Mr. Bungle" enters a chat 
(text only) room in a MOO. He takes advantage of the "emote" command 
to "make" other people in the room "do" violent and sexual things. 
Other users only see the emote [WARNING: this is graphic but 
demonstrates the power of words used] "Moondreamer shoves a knife 
into her vagina". Of course, the flesh-and-bones counterpart to 
Moondreamer typed no such thing. But to others in the room unfamiliar 
with the hacker's powers, it appears that Moondreamer is behaving 
exactly as her flesh-and-blood alter-ego wanted.

Effect: "Months later, the woman in Seattle would confide to me that 
as she wrote those words posttraumatic tears were streaming down her 
face -- a real-life fact that should suffice to prove that the words' 
emotional content was no mere fiction."

A while back in KoDT magazine, a comic that draws on "real-life" 
gaming stories to show the humor and bonds of role-players, Bob 
declares he can no longer run his favorite character. It seems the 
previous week a particularly nasty GM ran Bob's character through an 
adventure based on the movie Deliverance. The group's regular GM 
offers to erase it as if it never happened, "you can't erase 
something like that from a character sheet", Bob laments, "now if 
you'll excuse me, I think it will be a while before I can play again".

Whether or not others here recognize in Bob something to which they 
can relate, the bottom line is we not only "become invested" in our 
avatars, our personae, our alter-egos, and our characters. We "become 
them". Or maybe, they become us. Or we become each other. Where do we 
draw the line between our "virtual" identity and our "real" identity? 
Indeed, what is our "real" identity? Where do our virtual-simulacra 
avatar-characters end, and a "real" us begin? Are you taking to "the 
real Arlo", or a virtuality? What's the difference?

Arlo