The Turkle reading about Internet Relay Chatting and MUDs interested me in many ways because I can either kind of relate to what she was saying or I know people who do what she was describing. If you haven’t got the hint yet, I use to be an online computer gamer in the good ol early high school days, but back in those days you bought the game, installed it, and you were good to go. Now games like World of Warcraft you have to pay monthly fees and that’s asking to much for me…either way in a lot of RPG games you get the choice of being a specific breed of character and also decide whether or not you want to be good or bad, or you could create an account and make multiple characters like the one of Turkle’s interviewees about IRC, “One persona is against war, the other like Melrose, and the third is a sex addict.” So they’re really no limits to a person with an account... you can test everything and find what you like or at least a happy median.
What I thought was funny was they keep saying it’s online chatting or it's just the internet I can do/be what I want to…but on Dateline How to Catch a Pederass they use that same excuse of how it was an internet chat room and they weren’t being serious…there’s always people you go that extra, creepy step. Going back to MUDs, she says it’s hard for individuals to participate just a little and this is true with the present day World of Warcraft you pay a monthly fee and if you don’t keep playing you’re wasting money or never going to be able to compete with other online players…I know quite a few WOW players and it’s all one big competition to see who can reach the highest level and it often creates an addictiveness. And in the game mode you use verbiage that is game based only but in the outside chat rooms people talk...well like people.
I agree to the aspects of video games can be addictive based on one’s personality and one might make chat room characters to be someone they’re not (don’t see why you would but it happens), but the comment about, “games are laboratories for construction of identity…” I don’t know about that, if you don’t know yourself yet why are you playing video games and chatting with phony individuals? I think a person has to realize hey I’m a non social person and get shy when walking down a hall so I should start an alias online, or I’m a nice individual with multiple friends and enjoy video games to pass the time…you’re not finding yourself in either of these IRC or MUDs, you know what type of person you are because people (family, friends, co-workers, etc.) have told you or given off vibes towards you. I think no one goes and buys a video game to help them find out who they are…that is insane and quite frankly gay…there I said it…
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