Reading Response: Ethics, Values, and Virtual Economies

Daniel Miller’s How the World Changed Social Media discussed the interaction between social media and work, whether that was how workers interacted in their work environment, how businesses advertised or conducted their hiring process, or how the general consumer culture has evolved with the rise of the internet. Although there are many dimensions of this we can discuss, one aspect that particularly interests me is the privacy issue. I’m sure everyone has experienced browsing online stores (for clothes, gadgets, food, etc.) and the next day when you’re on a different website, an advertisement for the exact product you were looking at shows up on the side bar. I know this is an advertising ploy to remind customers of what they didn’t buy and get them to reconsider the product, but this makes me feel uncomfortable knowing that internet sites are tracking my personal browsing and using that as target advertisements. This personally makes me want to not buy the product anymore. (Ironically enough, I just took a short Instagram break while writing this reading response and an ad for some skincare products I was looking at a couple days ago just showed up)

Jin Ge’s “Chinese Gold Farmers in the Game World” explored the world of gaming factories in China in which people played games as a living in order to eventually sell off their accounts after reaching a certain level or sought-after prizes within the game. This reminded me of last summer when the cellphone app game Pokemon Go became really popular and some people went on ebay to buy/sell accounts that were at a high level. I even remember reading some news articles about how some people quit their day jobs because they could make more money playing Pokemon Go all day and selling their accounts. Now that the hype behind this game has died down, I wonder what these people are doing now.

What I found most interesting about this article though was the socioeconomic/racial feature of this whole set up. While it can be argued that the gaming workers are enjoying their jobs and feel empowered through gaming, their providing services to a group of people who are wealthier and who are generally white foreigners creates an invisible yet strong barrier that they cannot cross over. Although I knew industries like these existed, I never thought of the conflicts that existed within the industry. So although the Chinese gamers may be experts at the game and feel proud of their achievements, their position in society only allows them to sell off these accounts to wealthier patrons.

The other two readings we had focused on ethics while conducting internet-based research and ethnographies. Like all forms of research, ethics is hugely important throughout the whole process. However, making the virtual world the ethnography field site brings in different features and complications that need to be considered. I will be sure to keep these in mind as I conduct research for my virtual ethnography.