| MrLegoman (2011). [Image]. Retrieved from: http://minecraft.wikia.com/wiki/File:Terminator_Skin.png | . |
It is impossible for us to stop creating our own identity, after all, that is who we are. So when we go online it is certain that what we do reflects who we are, as these are ultimately acts of post-human identity creation(McNeil.2012 ,pp66-70) as the internet monitors and maps us.
On the internet network that I am studying, Mineplex there are two ways in which people reflect their identity, through appearance and through actions. The game that the Mineplex uses is Minecraft, it is easy to personalize one's character as the graphics of the game seem to have been created in windows Paint, and can be modified easily using this program, there is also a range of internet programs which simplify the process of customization. Also when you create a new profile you must make up a username, which is generally the first thing you can think of, so this says a lot about the player. The last way the player creates and displays their identity in this online place is through their actions and game preferences whether in game or in the lobby. This is arguably an integration of one's identity with technology and phrased so conjures the image of the cyborg(Luyn.2015), like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1984 Sci-fi 'The Terminator'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator
Luyn.A.(2015)BA1002: Our space: networks narratives and the making of space. [lecture] retrieved fffffffrom:https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au
McNeill.L.(2012). "There Is No "I" in Network: Social Networking Sites and Posthuman ffffffAuto/Biography." Biography 35.1 : 65-82. Project MUSE. Web. 4 Sep. 2015. fffffff<https://muse.jhu.edu/>.
the fffffffff was me trying to make an indent, worked excellent before it was posted.
ReplyDeleteI agree that not only does appearance create character, but so do actions as well, and most of the time, both in tandem. It eerily echoes real life that both how we look and how we act can show who we really are. I wonder if players in Mineplex bring prejudices to certain colour schemes used by characters and predict actions from them, perhaps having had a relationship to something similar in the past. Perhaps inversely, players bring their prejudices of certain types of people from Mineplex or similar into the real world. Being able to act and interpret actions through a medium of technology seems like a perfect example of the cyborg, culture and technology intertwining. Donna Haraway once said “The cyborg is a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, a world-changing fiction.”
ReplyDelete