Presentation

Because my slides did not appear in their entirety on our projector, I decide to post them here.  Enjoy.

Challenges of a Presenting a Distressing Topic

Constructing a presentation for my second ethnography has proven to be quite a challenge.  Most of all, it has gotten me thinking about how to present issues that are rather emotionally complex and how to analyze sources that may be less than truthful.  My particular focus has been on the online community of Reddit, a social news website where the registered users submit content in the form of either a link or self-written posts.  The way Reddit is structured makes gathering information difficult, but part of my task has been to familiarize myself with Reddit’s strange blackboard structure.  To begin my work, I created a new, and entirely anonymous, user profile.  I then attempted to understand how anonymity of Reddit users creates a certain disinhibition.  To do this, I decided to look into a rather distressing topic, sexual violence.  I conducted research into both rape-counseling sections of Reddit and a Reddit discussion thread in which predators discussed “their side of the story.”  Similar to Boellstorff ideas of Second Life avatars accurately reflecting the feelings and true inner-personas of users, I believe that the anonymous nature of Reddit, and Reddit-like forums, enable users to be honest, even about socially inappropriate topics and actions that are illegal.  Thus, their online existence can be even more revealing about their true natures that their real-world existence.

My research revealed the potential healing nature of such forums.  Groups therapy ahs long been used in cases of sexual trauma or to aid predators in coming to terms or overcoming their violent persuasions.  Such Reddit forums seem to have taken on a two-faced nature, with one side focusing on the healing aspect of telling the truth.  However, the flip side is the existence of harassment.  It is no secret that Reddit has been considered rather female-unfriendly.  Sometimes rape victims do receive support, but instead are harassed.  The dichotomy observed illustrates that the online world can be both good and damaging, just like the real one.

With my presentation, it has been difficult to properly and objectively discuss such a dark topic.  I have thought long and hard about the focus of my ethnography and wether or not it is appropriate to conduct research into such a topic.  I have concluded that ignoring something because it emotionally difficult or unsavory is not something anthropologists should allow.  It is often the most distressing events that give insight into the human condition.  But, the fact remains presenting and researching remains difficult.

Furthermore, other practical difficulties exist.  There is always the question of whether my subjects are truthful.  The anonymous nature of Reddit, which is the very thing that empowers users, makes studying them difficult.  Finally, it has led to questions of the nature of truth.  If a story is not true in the sense that the events described did not actually occur, does that prevent the fact that such thoughts were posted by the user and one the users mind from giving insight into the ability of Reddit to expose users’ true natures?  If something is fantasized about, but not acted upon, does it provide insight into the subject?  These are the questions I have sought to answer.

Google Autocomplete

I have always thought the Google search function that “autocompletes” your search was extremely cool, but until it became relevant in my mini-ethnography, I never really thought too much about it. I am studying pro-anorexia and eating disorder websites, and it was through this tool that the popularity and prominence of these sites was made clear to me. To find what is known as a “pro-ana” website, I simply need to type in “How to be an” and it fills in “anorexic.” While I don’t want to get too far into the implications of this now (I’ll wait for my ethnography to do that) I wanted to explore how Google’s “Autocomplete” works in a little more detail.

            It didn’t take much digging (and I wasn’t surprised) to learn that Google uses your web-history, search history, and your personal Google+ profile to come up with many of these suggestions. Also predominant is the use of frequent queries of users internationally in suggestions. What I find especially interesting is that some of these suggestions can be, and sometimes are, tailored to your nationality or even a more specific demographic into which you fall. Does this mean that as an American, 15 – 25 year old woman, I am quicker to receive the “How to be anorexic” suggestion more easily than my male counterpart? That is in fact, the demographic that has the highest prevalence for eating disorders; because others within my same demographic are more disposed to search for this, does that then slide into this algorithm for autocompletes in Google searches?

            I could not find any answers to these questions, but in searching, I did discover many of the controversies surrounding privacy on the Internet especially to do with tracking websites visited and topics searched. I well remember when targeted ads on Facebook and Pandora first alarmed people and surprised them with their accuracy at times. (I do however, occasionally get what seem to be incredibly irrelevant ads – on Pandora, I frequently hear ads for newborn care!). Regardless of relevance and perhaps also of the convenience, I think I will next be learning how to turn off these search tracking aps!

Virtual Cultures of Knowledge Production, and Foldit

I'm doing my mini-ethnography 2 on the math competition community the Art of Problem Solving, and have been exploring for comparison/personal benefit both the general purpose math community mathoverflow, and the research level math community mathstackexchange.

I think an interesting topic that combines both our class topics of cultures of science/knowledge production and cultures of technology/virtual worlds is how have virtual communities affected the ways scientists produce knowledge. Considering that academics were among the first users of the internet, this is not a particularly new thing. I think if we look around we will find that cultures of knowledge production have increasingly moved online. Many subjects have rich and active online communities devoted to them. Many scientists comment about their own research, related research, and intersections of science, technology, policy, education, society, and culture in real time on personal blogs. We find things like wikis and databases for all sorts of data such as genomic and cosmological data (also indicative of technology changes that allow us to produce and computationally analyze exponentially increasing amounts of data). Sites like arxiv have in some ways altered norms of publication. In an increasingly inter-disciplinary world, virtual technologies as a tool seems to be greatly facilitating collaborative efforts.

And we have even crowdsourced gamers to solve protein-folding problems. Foldit is a protein-folding puzzle game that has crowdsourced the power of human intuition and problem solving to solve actual research problems in protein-folding.

In 2011, players of Foldit helped to decipher the crystal structure of the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (M-PMV) retroviral protease, an AIDS-causing monkey virus. While the puzzle was available to play for a period of three weeks, players produced an accurate 3D model of the enzyme in just ten days. The problem of how to configure the structure of the enzyme had stumped scientists for 15 years.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foldit

Microsoft Voice Translator

This is about three weeks old, but the video at the end shows off Microsoft's breakthrough in machine translation, where spoken English is converted to English text, to Chinese text, and then finally to computer modulated spoken Chinese. It seems like very promising technology and I hope they make great strides in the next 10 years, and maybe we will have universal translator apps on our phones in the near future.

This is a great example of how technology has been changing the ways we interact in the real and virtual world for quite some time. It also, in light of watching "Gold Farmers (2008)", may be a way in which we finally break down barriers of language and communication that persist in both the real and virtual worlds. I think it is interesting to consider that modes of communication have changed significantly due to technology and will continue to do so.

Lastly, I think the Top Comment on this Youtube video is a great example of Internet culture today:

Language Acquisition with Humans better than Computers

If you scroll to minute 6:30 (of 10) you'll hear her discuss the comparative language acquisition capacity of babies, human to computer.

I had mentioned this a number of weeks ago, and wanted to follow up with a post!
Apparently we still need some human contact to acquire language...

Inside My Mini-Ethnography 2

At the beginning of the Mini-Ethnography 2 process, I was unsure of what online gathering space I would analyze. Like many of my peers at Washington University, I am part of a seemingly endless list of communities on the World Wide Web. Whether it be through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, my blog or any of the websites I write for, it was hard to choose one over all the others. Then after I discussed this assignment with a friend of mine, he brought up the idea of the Bedtime Sports Facebook Group, where my co-host and I have developed a culture of competiveness for the last couple of years.

This suggestion was perfect because a lot of my interests are encapsulated by Bedtime Sports, a weekly radio show that I co-host with a few friends on KWUR, Washington University’s student-run radio station. Sunday, December 2 was my last show of the fall semester, so I thought I would share why Bedtime Sports has made such a tremendous impact on my life since I joined the show in spring 2011 and began co-hosting in fall 2011.

I have always been an avid sports watcher, and I enjoy analyzing the decisions made by the players, coaches and front office personnel. While my voice could be heard online, I never got to discuss my thoughts out loud in a professional format. I was lucky to find Bedtime Sports, and it has been a fantastic experience to share with my friends and family. Every week, I put together an outline of important games and topics to be spoken about on the show. Then on Sundays, I enter the KWUR studio, open up the computer, put on the headphones and start the introduction to the show. What a great feeling it is to be a part of Bedtime Sports.

On This Date in NBA and College Football History

Currently, I am writing for four websites, Celtic-Nation.com, CardsBlog.com, KingJamesGospel.com and Cover2Recruiting.com. I compose regular pieces for each of the websites, including a pre-game analysis of important statistics before each Boston Celtics game for Celtic-Nation as well as pertinent statistical information about the daily St. Louis Cardinals lineups during the baseball season for Cards Blog. In addition, I publish daily ‘On This Date’ posts about basketball and college football.

I originally brought up the idea of doing ‘On This Date’ pieces to the appropriate editors in June 2012, and they really liked the idea. I now do ‘On This Date’ posts about basketball history for King James Gospel (http://kingjamesgospel.com/category/on-this-date/) and college football history ones for Cover 2 Recruiting (http://www.cover2recruiting.com/search/label/On%20This%20Date). It is a fun experience to research through several webpages to find the most interesting historical sports events that occurred on each day. For example, I enjoy writing about players’ birthdays and their important accomplishments on a given day in history.

A recent feat that drew my attention was Isiah Thomas becoming the Detroit Pistons’ all-time leading scorer on December 1, 1991 (http://kingjamesgospel.com/2012/12/01/on-this-date-in-nba-history-december-1-isiah-thomas-became-the-detroit-pistons-all-time-leading-scorer/). This is because Thomas was not only a great basketball player to lead a franchise in scoring, but also was very loyal to stay on the same team. Being one of 30 NBA players to have scored the most points for a current franchise is an achievement that should be celebrated.

Another ‘On This Date’ post that I took pleasure in writing was “On This Date in College Football History: November 23, Harvard “Beats” Yale, 29-29” (http://www.cover2recruiting.com/2012/11/on-this-date-in-college-football_23.html). The reason that this is a favorite piece of mine is that it is one of the most important games in college football history, and I am proud to commemorate it and share it with other people.

Interesting videos on online games

I found some videos related to e-sports. 

1) 2011 Blizzcon Starcraft II Grand Final - immvp vs nestea Game 4 Last
This is 2011 Starcraft II Grand Final game. It's quite interesting to see people rooting for their favorite gamers. It is just like any other sports.

2) Korean Gamers: APM Demonstration
This is about how fast professional gamers can move their hands while playing games.....

3) What is e-sports?
It is a short video (about 3 minutes) on e-sports.

The Importance of Language

       That a lot of people are surprised to know that playing online games has been a culture in other countries, predominantly in Asia countries, is quite surprising to me, to be honest. Maybe this is because I haven’t really thought about online games before, or maybe I took it for granted that online games are now a kind of culture in my home country, so I just became used to hearing things about online game tournaments, professional gamers and all that.
       Come to think of it, however, it has not been so long since online games became something that people now consider as e-sports or as a career field where you can actually become professional. Although I can only remember vaguely, becoming an online gamer was to a great deal looked down upon by most people in South Korea. I don’t want to generalize, but it seemed to me that most people thought that those who pursued career in the field of online games just tried to justify their inability to get better-paying jobs. It seemed that many parents whose kids were trying to become gamers did not like the idea of doing online games 24/7 in the first place. At that time, people never called online game e-sports. People didn’t expect to use the word “professional” when it comes to describing online gamers.
       But now, online games did become a kind of sports in Korea. There are numerous “professional” gamers who do games as their jobs and even some gamers earn 6-figure salary. There are TV channels that only feature online game tournaments, championships, and world leagues. Now people are more accepting and permissive of the idea that playing games actually can be a way of earning money and can be a job for someone.
       I think language has contributed a lot to making this happen. The way people define and call something tremendously affects people’s perception of it even if they are referring to the same thing. Calling online games “e-sports” and calling people who are extremely good at playing games “professional” make a whole difference in terms of people’s perception and attitudes toward the games. It just gives online games much more respect and better name.
       Only few now hesitate to call it e-sports and to use the word “professional.” Parents are now proud of their kids when they win Starcraft and WoW, because they are not just the kids playing online games, but they are now “professional” in their fields.

My Strange Online Community

In light of our current ethnographies researching virtual communities, I found a list on cracked.com compiled by Ross Wolinsky of the 8 strangest communities on the web. Disclaimer: this site contains language and content that some may find offensive.

Interestingly enough, the online community with which we have all become so acquainted through Boellstorff’s ethnography made the list. Cracked.com paints a slightly less romantic picture of Second Life than Boellstorff:

Linden Labs, the company that makes Second Life, likes to brag about its membership numbers. In reality, the actual number of active players is always much, much lower than the sum total of all registered users. That means that people create an account, build a house for their in-game avatar to masturbate in, and then they stop playing and never come back. What does that mean for you, the curious, newbie player? It means that walking around Second Life is like walking around in some weird, virtual post-apocalyptic zombie movie, only instead of encountering zombies, you occasionally stumble across some dude dressed up like a mechanical teddy bear having sex with a giant cat.

Between stumbling in on intimate encounters and being banned from houses to encountering almost no other players, I feel that many of us, as newbies, had experiences in Second Life that more closely mirrored Wolinsky’s than Boellstorff’s. I found Second Life to be a community that was particularly difficult to get acclimated to. Perhaps Second Life’s virtual frontier has become too large (in terms of virtual geographic land area) and players are not condensed enough for newbies to easily find many other players who are actually willing to converse with them. Nevertheless, Second Life remains appealing for some and maybe it is related to the concepts of embodiment and identity that we discussed in class. After all, Second Life can allow any given user to be whatever they like, even if they means they are cat by day and vampire by night.

First World Gold Farming

Sooo I recently came across an article which noted that an individual paid ~$20,000 US for a virtual item in Diablo 3.  http://bit.ly/Uxmeas

I was extremely surprised and stumbled upon an article about "botting" in the same game.  Apparently this individual, presumably American/British, is a student trying to pay tuition and makes ~$90-100 a day by running a computer 24/7 with four games running simultaneously.  Each bot automatically loads, logs in, kills monsters, collects gold, and resets.

http://bit.ly/TyntmW


Seems quite profitable compared to gold farming rates in China....

Class Notes 11/28/2012

Belstroff

·      Idea of personhood

·      Embodiment online

o   Mind-body dualism – cognition is grounded in our bodily experiences

§  Virtual worlds challenge this idea

·      Political economy – money labour and property and modes of government

o   Creationalist capitalism à goldfarming

Cybersociality when interacting on Second Life

·      Does this have to do with labour and ownership, sense of self, or placemaking

Personhood (Chapter 5)

·      Avatars – people invest time, money, emotional energy

o   Somewhat embodied physically

o   Visual and tactile stimulatory aspect allows people to get emotionally involved in their avatars

·      “Griefing”

o   abuse another avatar or their home space

o   people respond intensely to this

o   shows how avatars are emotional embodiments of people online

·      People with physical disabilities using avatars to escape from their own bodies

o   Versus people who have minor physical disabilities such as a broken arm that keeps them from moving their avatars online

o   How virtual and physical world affect one another

·      Have more than one avatar – different avatars for different occasions

o   Emotional or utilitarian reasons

o   Can switch between personas online

·      Not what you say but how you look is what represents you online

o   Gives people a more accurate view of themselves and others because it is a more real view of their emotions, “what they are on the inside”

o   Challenge notion of self – virtual body is what really reflects who you are

·      To what degree is there a gap between virtual and actual

o   People are making conscious choices about how they want to represent themselves

§  Does this mean people are being fake because it is not what they actually look like?

§  Or is this the more “real” version of people because they can be what they want to be

·      Discussion on why it is okay for avatars on second life to be not who they truly are in real life, but it is not as okay for people to misrepresent themselves online in other forums

o   Ie spinal cord patients

·      Ethnography – you live in the place that you study

o   How does this work with virtual worlds? To what degree do you have to be involved in the community?

·      Issue with avatar being your “true self”

o   Takes out the aspect that people have imaginations – your imagination is not a representation of you.

·      What does it mean to have a community – does this even makes sense in a virtual world when anyone can join? What is the mark of a true member?

Place and time (Chapter 4)

·      Place, time, and presence à best illustrated when broken

·      Sense of being in a place although it is virtual

·      Place is central to vision – landscape

o   The way in which people understand their relationships to these places

o   Conflicts that arise that show this

§  Other players get upset by some people building ugly buildings for example. They don’t like the disrupt in the landscape

·      What is “mine”

·      Ownership as social standing

·      “lag”

o   dissonance between the way difference players experience time

§  decreases sense of immersion

o   differences in the amount of lag for each individual

o   breaks sense of immersion into virtual world

o   also the idea that people in different time zones will experience the interaction differently

·      “afk”

o   “away from keyboard”

o   online but not with online selves

o   avatar is still in space and “present” but the person is not actually present

·      Immersion

o   Social vs sensory

o   Sensory is not so important in the virtual world

o   Actual world senses are muted and this completes the virtual world sensation by comparison

§  Related to controversy of adding Voicechat – this is so “read world” that people didn’t like it

ú  Dichotomy between social and sensory interaction

ú  Voice adds real world sensory input that breaks this separation

Political economy (Chapter 8)

·      Creationist capitalism

o   New market for capitalism – people in community can create own forms by opening up business etc

o   This is a very real thing within the community and can translate into real money in real life

o   Economy built around making things**

·      Online market – Who makes things?

o   What property rights do people have over the things that they make?

o   What is property in an online world?

·      Companies and selling isn’t as popular as owners might like because the whole idea of Second Life is creating your own things (avatars, clothing)

·      Rules/Social norms about what you cannot do

o   No real regulation system but Second Life as a company can regulate it arbitrarily

o   Social control mechanism

·      How much control Linden labs has over game and what happens in it

o   Quite difficult because it is so large

o   More self-regulated amongst members

o   No real way of penalizing people other than social embarrassment

o   Ie: gambling is something that occurs because it is so easy to create, but it is so hard to regulate because it is difficult to track

·      How is this different from creativity or from capitalism?

o   Ownership of what you make is more closely tied in online community – in real life you have to go to distributers, buyers, etc to reach wider audience, so your ownership is diminished. Second Life allows you to be the creator and the distributor all at once

o   ***Human desire and nature to remake themselves and the world through craft

§  This not a totally new idea!

What happens to the property and ownership if the site were to disappear?

·      If a site goes down, does everyone’s stuff just get lost?

·      Is there an obligation for the company to replace what is lost?

·      People who have sued Second Life because they have been kicked out of the program and claimed that as members, they had rights there.

Chinese Goldfarming

·      Video

·      From the Goldfarmer’s perspective it is not bad

·      It is unfair that people are angry at them because it is just a job for them

·      They do not have much control over it – the money they make is very minimal compared to the profit the company is turning

·      Is this exploitation of these workers?

o   They enjoy their work, but the condition (form the film) seems to be worse. They work long days and do not look very healthy. Companies manipulate these people who are not qualified enough for better jobs.

·      Description of themselves as “professional gamers”

o   Not the same as what we may think of as people who get sponsorships and make a lot of money and have celebrity status. This is not same kind of “Professional gamer”

·      Method of making money in online games involves collecting items. You have to get all the way to the highest level before you can get things that are worth money.

·      Transnational dimensions of this?

o   Racialized dimensions? “gamers” are white men, “goldfarmers” are Chinese

o   It is not an equal playing field

o   There are national stereotypes for gamers

§  Gamers bring own cultural values and norms into the game but because they are not the same as others, this causes stereotypes to arise

o   How does language and different readerships – different groups with different norms – come together in this online space.

Ethnography

·      Quoting/citing – cite specific actual page if it is archived and publically accessible

·      Screenshots