Rolling around in the MUD.

The article, “Mutli-User Dungeons and Alternate Identities”, by Howard Rheingold, discusses MUDs and how they have affected our society. Rheingold talks about how they are worlds in which users compete for prestige and power, gain wisdom, seek revenge; indulge greed and lust and violent impulses. MUDs are imaginary worlds in computer databases where people use words and programming languages to create a world in which they interact in.

A quote that jumped out at me when reading the article is, “Similar to the way previous media dissolved social boundaries related to time and space, the latest computer-mediated communications media seem to dissolve boundaries of identity as well.” This quote summarizes the discussions that we have had in class, and was represented well in class when we logged onto a MUD and Burcu represented herself as a transsexual. A MUD allows a user to misrepresent themselves however they please, allowing them to create whatever identity that they see fit.

I agree with the quote completely. Many people do this when using MUDs and even when using the internet at all. Although I agree that this is a use of the internet, but I am not necessarily in favor of users manipulating the internet in order to create another identity for themselves. I feel like the internet and other technological mediums are detrimental to true social interaction. While it is true that people interact in MUDs, people often might be misrepresenting themselves as someone they are not.

I was curious about MUDs and I did some research. It was mentioned for a second in class, but I stumped upon it, and I have linked it below, “A Rape in Cyberspace.”

Check it out:

http://www.ludd.luth.se/mud/aber/articles/village_voice.html