Objectifying the Body in the Discourse of an Object Oriented MUD
To appear in: Stivale, C. (Ed.), _Cyberspaces: Pedagogy and Performance
on the Electronic Frontier_, special issue of _Works and Days,_
number 26, Fall 1995.
"OBJECTIFYING" THE BODY IN THE DISCOURSE OF AN OBJECT-ORIENTED MUD
Lynn Cherny
Stanford University[1]
The position of the ``body'' in cyberspace is problematic. Haraway's
Cyborg Manifesto paved the way for a discussion of the identity issues
at stake in a technological frame of reference. ``Clean distinctions
between the organism and the machine'' are breaking down in our
information age, and new creatures are forming that beg new theories
rather than recycling of old ones (Haraway 1989). Virtual reality
technology poses particularly obvious challenges to a politics of
identity. Walser (1990), discussing immersive virtual reality, says,
``Whereas film is used to show a reality to an audience, cyberspace is
used to give a virtual body, and a role, to everyone in the audience.
Print and radio tell; stage and film show; cyberspace embodies.''
Hayles (1993) theorizes ways in which conception of the physical
changes given an immersive virtual reality setting: bodies becomes
patterns of information, ``flickering signifiers, characterized by
their tendency toward unexpected metamorphoses, attenuations, and
dispersions'' (Hayles 1993, p. 76).
Stone (1993) discusses the blurring between the body and computer
prosthesis that can occur: the technology we use to communicate with
can become an integral part of us, and the body, when not there
physically, is still there as a social construct. Bodies, in a virtual
space, can be created with a bit of programming: ``real life'' gender
can be switched, skin color can be forgotten temporarily, age or
infirmity can be escaped. In purely text-based virtual realities, the
conceptualization of the physical is perhaps more complex than in
immersive VR, since there is no echo of real physical movement, sound,
or shape involved. Yet, text-based virtual reality seems to offer as
many challenges to notions of identity and definitions of body as
immersive virtual reality does.
For the past 11 months I have been analyzing conversation in a MUD, or
``multi-user dimension,'' accessible over Internet. I will call my
main site ElseMOO (EM); it is a place where people hang out and
discuss networking, MUD programming, and virtual reality.[2] In this
paper I hope to raise as a topic for further study the discourse
creation of problematic bodies in EM: I present sociolinguistic data
in which identity and the boundaries of ``self'' are played with
during MUD interactions. To narrow the focus for this paper, and because
the community at EM does not indulge in it for the most part, I
won't be discussing extended role playing, but impromptu discourse
behavior instead. Because the community at EM is very closely
tied to that at LambdaMOO (LM), which has a slightly different
programming culture, I also present some examples from LambdaMOO in
the text that follows. Some speech activities I discuss below are
specific to the particular speech community I am studying, and my
observations should in no way be considered generalizations about the
speech activities of other MUDder communities on the net.
First, a brief introduction to MOO conversation. All interaction on
the MOO occurs in text. Each user has a character with a name and a
description that serves as her representative in the MOO environment.
This character can converse in real time with the other characters on
the MOO.
Conversation in most MUDs consists of two types of utterance: the say
command and the emote (or pose) command. A say command (e.g., say hi)
produces an utterance issuing from the character which every character
in the same MUD room sees: lynn says, "hi." An emote (e.g., emote sits
down for a rest.) produces an action similarly seen by everyone in
the same room: lynn sits down for a rest. In this way, the body can be
evoked with suggestions of physical actions, even though text is the
sole channel of communication.
A. R. Stone reports that phone sex workers, who are working in another
virtual medium, conjure their bodies by hints and suggestions in the
space that the phone connection create: they report ironically that
after encoding and decoding of sound bytes happens, they all look
white, 5'4'', and have red hair (Stone 1991, p. 105). At least one of
my informants reports that he feels more ``embodied'' on the MOO than
when talking on the phone, despite the lack of even the vocal channel.
This sense of embodiment is an entirely constructed feeling, coming
largely from the conscious use of physical ``actions'' during
conversations, like feedback signals that might be used in
face-to-face conversation (see Cherny 1995): lynn nods, lynn smiles.
Problematic Pronouns
In a MOO, which is an object-oriented MUD, all characters are
technically objects, just like all scenery and all props. This means
that they can be programmed and interacted with in various automated
ways that I will illustrate later. Yet, because the user has no
other representative in the MUD world, the character is identified with
the user, to a high degree. The simultaneous identification
and distinction between the real person and the character object
are a complex matter. I will only be looking at a small corner of
this problem, with some examples of speech acts and events that
enforce the differences and the similarities between the two.
An excellent and compelling example of the complexity of the
relationship that holds between a character and a user is illustrated
below. People greeted Karen when she entered the room, as usual, only
to find out to their surprise that this time she hadn't entered the
room under her own volition:
1 Karen arrives from the eastern end of the patio.
2 lynn waves.
3 Shelley waves.
4 ls [to Karen]: Hi. I just walked you here at your request since
you're in the car and nowhere near a computer on the net.
5 Penfold whuggles Karen.
6 Tom eyes Karen warily.
7 lynn eyes Karen and ls warily.
8 Tom says, "WHY"
9 ls says, "she, uh, thought it would be cool to hang out with you
guys."
10 lynn laughs
11 Tom says, "BUT SHE ISN'T"
12 ls says, "oh, but she is."
13 lynn says, "hang out in scrollback?"
14 Penfold shakes Karen.
ls had been talking to his wife Karen over their portable phones, and
had told her about his conversation with their friends; she asked him
to move her character for her. (A ``whuggle,'' as in line 5, is a
virtual version of a hug; see Cherny 1994.) ls's statement to Karen's
character in line 4 sums up the confusing split reality shared by user
and character: I walked you (the character) here (the virtual room) at
your (the user's) request since you're (the user) in the car (in real
life). Karen can be in two places at once, using her character, and
can ``hang out'' even when she isn't at her desk looking at the
conversation as it happens. She can read it later, since it will all
be in her ``scrollback'' in her MOO window. The unusual explicitness
of the difference between Karen as user hanging out with friends via
her character interface and Karen's character hanging out without her
at the terminal ``behind it'' was disturbing to the witnesses of the
event, however. As Stone (1991) says, ``In virtual systems, an
interface is that which mediates between the human body (or bodies)
and an associated `I' (or `I's'). This double view of `where' the
`person' is, and the corresponding trouble it may cause with thinking
about `who' we are talking about when we discuss such a problematic
`person,' underlies the structure of most recent virtual communities''
(Stone 1991:87).
Ordinarily, people refer to their characters in first person,
identified with themselves, but there are occasional moments when some
users make a distinction between user and character explicit. One
person who posts messages on public lists on LambdaMOO refers to her
character Dawn as ``the character Dawn'' instead of ``me'' or ``I'';
others occasionally draw the distinction between themselves as typist
and their character, usually to be amusing or to make a point (this
example is from a signature on a message):
bella .... who wasn't, by the way, at that dinner. neither was
her typist.
Many people apparently find it annoying when users continually refer
to their character in the third person, however (these quotes come
from critical messages to one user):
Also, it wouldn't hurt to quit referring to yourself in third
person. That is kind of stupid.
-----
...when you stop referring to yourself in the third person
I will take the notion of the character as prosthesis (or external
``I'') as a given now and move on to more complex examples of
objectification during interactions on MOOs. The point to be gotten
from the above is that it is out of the ordinary to refer to the
character as distinct from the user. It creates a break in the usual
understood state of affairs: that the user is the character, for
purposes of isolating agency. Later I will show some disturbing
challenges to that assumption of agency location.
Null Emotes
In the discourse of EM, a speech act called the ``null emote'' plays a
large role in the mutability of the character signifier: the character
can become identified with other objects, locations, people, or even
processes or events. Null emoting also provides an excellent example
of the jointly constructed nature of discourses in the MOO---an
audience can metaphorically seize someone's remark and turn it into
the first part of a joke, entirely rewriting the speech event.
Historically, null emoting evolved out of a group participation act
called a ``roll call.'' In a roll call, a character calls a roll call
in capital letters, and the characters present who feel they fit the
subject or attribute in the name of the roll call answer with their
names on a line alone, by ``null emoting'' (the virtual equivalent
of raising their hands or saying ``here'' in that context)[3]. In the
first line here, Pete quotes a character from another MUD after the
vertical bar:
Pete | Blotchy_Guest says, ``Don't you oppress me! I have freedom
of expression so I can do whatever I want here, you fascist running
dog power elitist!''
Pete giggles
Karen eyes Pete warily.
Pete FASCIST RUNNING DOG POWER ELITIST ROLL CALL
Pete
Jubilee
Karen ?
ms [to Jubilee]: You wish.
Null emotes often occur in non-prompted contexts, as well. (The
traditional joke explanation is ``Oh, I thought it was a roll call.'')
In the most straightforward examples of non-prompted null emoting,
a character answers a question with his character name on a line alone,
e.g., as Tom did in the first example below, implying that the
character is the answer to the question. In other words, Tom is what
is weird. In the other examples, Ray is why DSM sucks, Tom is Will
Couch, George is where Tanyo should desposit Shelley, and Xythian is
how fucking long it takes 1.1.45 to compile on a 386/40.
Lenny says, "what's weird?"
Tom
Ted explains to Woodkey why DSM sucks.
Ray
lynn says, "who's Will Couch?"
Tom
Shelley needs to find out where Tanya should deposit her
tomorrow night.
George
Rob says, "how fuckung long does it take 1.1.45 ro compile on a 386/40"
Xythian
The null emote is fundamentally a joke; a null emoter, through her
response to a question intended to evoke an informative response,
subverts the discourse in a playful manner. The joke often lies in the
improbability or impossibility of the character really being the
answer to the question. Clearly, ``Xythian'' is not a reasonable
answer to a question about how long compilation takes. However, like
all good textual play, the null emotes that come close to being
possible ``true'' responses are often the most humorous. For example,
Ray is a character on the MUD DeepSeas (abbreviated ``DSM'' in the
second example above); Ray therefore may be implying that he is in
fact one reason DSM ``sucks.'' The speech activity of a null emote
implies jest, but the context he performs it in renders his response
ambiguous and the humor more subtle.
Null emotes seem to be appropriate in most question contexts: who,
what, where, why, how.[4] The null emote phenomenon, however, is
fairly complex semantically. Null emotes also occur in the context of
an embedded question or an indefinite or a plural:
lynn wonders what she came here for.
Shelley
George pssst, "I think Penfold has something hanging from his nose."
Shelley
Tom says, "i was trying to think of behaviors you could disallow
programmatically without just removing programmer bits from everybody"
Ray
Honda | There is an open ballot on which you have not yet voted:
Penfold
Ralph says, "gameboy??"
Largo
Again, in these examples above, the null emoter is not intending her
character name to be a serious response to the embedded question or
open proposition. Penfold implies he is an open ballot to be voted on,
but he is not necessarily associated with any real ballot; Ray implies
he is a behavior that can be disallowed programmatically, and Largo
implies he is a gameboy, but they are not trying to be sensible or
accurate.
In semantic terms, the null emote seems to function as an assignment
of a value to an available argument position, i.e., an individual that
could satisfy the predicate denoted by the indefinite or plural
(``satisfy'' in a playful, nonrealistic sense, clearly). This analysis
is supported by a rarer form of null emoting, in which it seems as if
a character is intended to control either an empty subject position or
an adjective's argument position.
Will tries to do that thing with @describe here as "This is a nice
place. [couch] Blah blah blah etc." Oitis HARD.
Will says, "Or at least, comes out really ugly."
Border
lynn . o O ( making love in the afternoon )
Tom
The adjective and the participial phrase semantically represent
one-place predicates of individuals, thus allowing a similar binding
of their argument position (loosely speaking, they are missing
something, and the character name provides it). Tom is making love
in the afternoon, Border is ugly.
Interestingly, textual adjacency is needed for a null emote to feel
``successful.'' The ``presentation'' of the speech act apparently
matters a lot. Line 2 prevented a good null emote opportunity below:
1 Kit [to Henry]: so what do you operate?
2 Jon says, "It was all that rain talk"
3 Largo hehs.
4 Largo [to Jon]: You spoiled the most purest of null emote
opportunities for that. I hope you're satisifed.
Other cases are group participation events, where either multiple
responses seem to be appropriate, or a null emote is actually
expected. Tom pokes Penfold in the second example below because he
expected a null emote and didn't receive it immediately. The vertical
bar, or pipe, in lines 1, 4, and 1 indicate that Tom is quoting text
from another text source, like email. The representation in line 4 of
the second example indicates a thought bubble.
1 Tom | Two members of your company are invited to attend at no cost.
2 Ray
3 Patrick
4 Tom | If you would like additional members of your company to
participate, the cost will be $200 per person. Non-Forum members
may attend for $500 per person.
5 lynn
1 Tom | 1. Good interactive stories emerge from:
2 Tom pokes Penfold.
3 Penfold
4 Tom . o O ( whew )
5 lynn says, "Blatant NULL-EMOTE prompts"
The null emote speech event is one clear way in which the audience
participates in defining and changing the speech context, and it
illustrates how characters can briefly alter their own character's
signification, to fit them into the conversation under different
temporary identities (cf. the discussion of text and audience in
Brenneis 1986).
Interestingly, the habits of cyber discourse can become real life
discourse habits as well. And more intriguingly, they can undergo
physical translations: the null emote survives among some MOOers in
real life, translated as a physical gesture (like a slight hand-raise)
during conversations or while listening to talks or television.
Notably it survives for them as a physical, bodily involvement in a
discourse, suggesting the body is involved in identity for them. Among
a few other MOOers, null emoting in real life consists of the mention
of a name, however. (EM community members tell stories about almost or
actually null emoting ``in real life'' during conversations with
non-MUDders, who of course have no idea what this behavior means.)
Xythian-Completion
A variation on the null emote speech event is what is known as
``Xythian-completion,'' after a character on LambdaMOO.
Ray says, "I think it's in question whether DAWN knows what the
ballot says"
Bonny giggles.
Ray says, "xythian-complete at will"
Possible Xythian-completions for this context might be:
in question whether LYNN knows what the ballot says
or
in question whether DAWN knows what lynn says
In Xythian-completion, aka ``x-completion,'' the character name
replaces a noun or sometimes another part of speech in a sentence or
phrase. Again, like the null emote speech activity, Xythian-completion
is not intended sensibly, and the fact that grammaticality is lost
(for instance, when a character name replaces a part of speech other
than nominal) is another indication that this form of play is not
meant to be understood as reasonable speech behavior. In the example
above, Dawn and lynn do not need to have any connection in real life
or on any MUD; the Xythian-completion is solely a text game involving
identifications ``on the fly'' in the course of interactions among the
EM community.
Since many of the EM community also frequent LambdaMOO, I have
occasional examples from LambdaMOO as well. The first example below
shows an automatic message on a locked room on LambdaMOO that is
triggered when an uninvited guest tries to enter the room. Ray
parodies it with Xythian-completion, asking the readers to imagine him
as a stretching wall.
The wall twists and groans as it tries to force itself into the
shape of Khaki_Guest. With a crack it snaps back into shape.
Ray snaps back into shape.
-------
1 Conner nods. i know. was wondering what this license thing
entailed, then.
2 Patrick
3 Border says, "not necessarily v.32, etc"
4 Conner says, "hm."
5 v.Patrick
In the second example above, Patrick Xythian-completes into ``v.32''
and the readers imagine a ``version dot Patrick.'' This type of
Xythian-completion is an example of a subsort that occurs frequently,
consisting of the embedding of a character name in punctuation,
especially odd punctuation. According to one informant, this was the
probable origin of Xythian-completion; it was intended to draw
attention to odd typographic entities, and has since become
generalized to include name subsitutions elsewhere (there is some
disagreement among the population about the historical evolution,
however).
1 Phred [to Vermont]: how would I invoke it? 'gdb core'?
2 Vermont [to Phred]: gdb ../../bin/driver --core=mudlib/core
3 Henry says, "--core= is optional there"
4 --tom=
Finally, a rarer form of completion results when some character
responds to something unspoken in the context and substitutes her name
into it, as in line 6 below. The number for film listings is 777-FILM,
which is what fungus is Xythian-completing into.
1 fungus [to Brett]: hey. yr alive. what time would you want to go?
2 Brett [to fungus]: late
3 fungus [to Brett]: i.e., do you have a paper, can you tell times?
4 Brett [to fungus]: no, but i can call the theatre, hang
5 Brett says, "oit is buusy"
6 777-FUNGUS
External texts are borrowed from to provide context for x-completion
as well. This example shows Jay reciting quotes from The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy, substituting himself and Joe for the characters
in the book in lines 6 and 10. (Line 1 illustrates an ASCII thought
bubble.)
1 Joe . o O ( *three* jay? )
2 Jay is confused
3 Joe too!
4 lynn says, "`jay' is a mass noun? there are three of it?"
5 Joe nods solemnly.
6 Jay says, "`The' Jay? No, just `A' Jay, didn't you hear
I come in six-petc"
7 Joe says, "what's that from?"
8 Jay says, "Zaphod"
9 lynn says, "oh yeah."
10 Jay gets stranger things than Joe free in his breakfast cereal.
Ken-Completion
Against this backdrop of multiple-participant discourse construction
and metamorphosis of identity, a greeting ritual evolved between the
characters Ken (who is also the character Xythian) and Karen on EM.
When Ken enters a room, Karen says the first part of a word ending in
the letters ``ken'' and then Ken null emotes to complete it, creating
in this case the word ``forsaken'' if read correctly:
Karen says, "forsa"
ken
An amusing ruckus occured one day when it was discovered that Ken had
automated his completions of ken-words. Reactions to this varied from
startlement to disbelief to amusement:
Tom says, "woah, you cheat?"
lynn says, "I am so disappointed."
Tom [to Ken]: do you ever feel like you're on puppet strings?
Karen says, "nonono, he couldn't have"
1 Ken hides his head in shame.
2 Karen [to Ken]: SO. you can't greet me on your OWn, you have
to AUTOMATE it, EH?
3 Ken [to Karen]: Wait! Blame EM! Isn't in in the EM
charter to automate useless things?
4 Karen says, "WHAT!?"
5 Ken held out for AS LONG AS HE COULD!
6 Karen says, "greeting ME is USELESS???"
7 Ken says, "NO!"
8 Karen sniffs
9 Karen is giggling irl
Of course people were amused at his audacity. In line 9 above, Karen
says she is giggling in real life, creating a distinction between her
pretense of outrage in the MOO and her reaction of amusement in real
life. To mitigate their reactions, Ken explains his worries about
automating the action, having to do with mistrusting his own code's
accuracy and coverage:[5]
1 Ken says, "I worked long and hard to get that completer right."
2 Shelley actually found that verb some time ago, but don't tell ken
3 lynn [to Ken]: no, it's ok, you just didn't suffer as long
as I thought.
4 Ken says, "I ddi!"
5 Ken says, "I had to watch for days to make sure I had all the
completes!"
6 Ken says, "And then be paranoid!"
7 Karen [to Ken]: you don't have them allHAHAHAHA
8 Karen says, "why paranoid?"
9 Ken says, "Can you IMAGINE the STRESS of NOT BEING SURE if I had
a complete."
10 Tom
11 Ken says, "Someone makes one, I am unsure. I complete and then IT
completes and I look silly!"
12 Karen giggles.
13 lynn [to Ken]: ok, that makes me feel better.
14 Karen has seen a couple of doubles and really wondered
15 Ken says, "or WORSE, I MISS THE COMPLETE and FALL DOWN on my MORAL
OBLIGATION as a KEN to complete."
Finally, Ken responsed to my surprise, drawing the line between human
and character object explicitly; he focuses on the character itself as
a location for agency, in a surprising attempt at comfort:
16 Ken [to lynn]: You could look at it this way: It was the ken
character that did compeltions. That never changed. The ken
CHARACTER still completes.
Human Toys
Other automation appears in the MOOs, although usually not as
confusingly as the custom Ken-completion code. The character r'm has
code that automatically moves him out of crowded rooms once they get
too ``loud''; he also has code that automatically null emotes for him
if he hears certain question words.
Other sorts of minor automation on LambdaMOO include ``idle
twitches,'' which look initially as if said by a person, but are
actually just triggered by mentions of the character's name in its
vicinity while it is idle. Line 2 below is Jay's idle twitch (note
that ``you'' in line 1 refers to the user, not the character, which is
sitting there in the room with my character):
1 lynn [to Jay]: so when you come back, I have a question...
2 Jay lies, ``I'm awake, I'm awake!''
An amusing example of code that functions even when a player is not
connected is illustrated below, sent to me by one of the participants.
The character Joe has a bit of code that removes people from his MOO
room when the user is not connected, by first trying to move them
through the door, and if it's locked, ejecting them. In the example
below, Jay was ejected to his home, where his idle twitch then went
off. Jay's user saw this exchange in his scrollback later. (From the
point where ``Joe stirs'' in line 6, all activity was automated.)
1 Joe says, ``filfre to hang out here until my parents get home''
2 Penfold says, ``should we sneak out?''
3 Joe has disconnected.
< disconnected: Joe. Total: 156 >
4 Penfold leaves too!
5 Penfold goes home.
< disconnected: Penfold. Total: 156 >
6 Joe stirs, opens his eyes, and notices there are people in his
room while he's trying to sleep. He quickly ushers you outside.
7 The door seems to be stuck. You get a little claustrophobic.
8 Joe frowns. ``You're still here? Well, if asking politely doesn't
work...''
9 Jay's Home
10 Jay's home is a biology lab taken over by scores of slightly obsolete
computers: Apple IIs, first generation PC clones and an Amiga 1000.
[shortened]
12 Jay (#3920) arrives.
13 Jay lies, ``I'm awake! I'm awake!''
The word ``filfre'' in line 1 is an abbreviation for ``feel free.''
Line 9, the announcement that Jay's character is now in a new
location, indicates that he has been ejected from Joe's room. Line 12,
the actual arrival message, triggers his idle twitch in line 13,
because idle twitches respond to mention of the character name.
Some users have special ``verbs,'' or MOO code, on their characters
that allow other people to ``do'' things to them, producing amusing
output; some of them call this ``human toy'' code, although the
character is the locus of the interaction, not the human body. Joe,
for instance, has a ``throw'' verb on himself which allows people to
throw him around, and generates a random exclamation from Joe. (The >
is the MOO prompt, and the text after it is what I typed to call his
verb. The character's code produces the ``ooch,'' not the human
typist.)
>throw joe at bed
You throw Joe at an old-fashioned bed. Joe is now slumped over an
old-fashioned bed.
Joe says, "Ooch!"
The character Dave on EM produces nonsense utterances when ``poked''
or ``kicked''; some of those utterances actually orginated on
LambdaMOO, recorded by an object in the living room (a Cockatoo bird,
which babbles things it has heard LM characters saying in the past).
Dave simulates bird-behavior in response to being poked (line 2
below), and then spouts messages recorded by the object on LM, shipped
to EM by network link (lines 3 and 6). This example was collected
while Dave was idle (i.e., his character had been sitting there
inactive due to the user being busy in real life).
1 >poke dave
2 Dave shifts about on his perch and bobs his head.
3 Dave squawks, ``BRB - gotta help out somewhere else''
4 >kick dave
5 lynn kicks Dave.
6 Dave babbles, ``long time Listen, Purple, Dharma is away from
his keypad right now, I guess. you hold tight and work on that
beer; I be right back!''
In a rather extreme example of cyborg metamorphosis, the character
Tari turned herself into a human appliance while she was programming a
washing machine object for EM. In line 3, Berke activates her, and she
continues to converse normally while meanwhile her code generates
output messages appropriate to a washer working. (At least one
character complained about her being able to function simultaneously
as a talking character and as a washing machine, however.)
1 Berke says, ``Hey, are you a washing machine?''
2 Tari says, ``no...i was messing with the washing machine adn
copied the verbs that worked to myself so i wouldn't have to
start over if i screwed up.''
[later]
3 Berke hands Tari four quarters and a pile of dirty clothes, and
presses the button on Tari's left shoulder.
4 You hear Tari fill with water.
5 Berke hee
6 Karen hehs.
7 Tari giggles.
8 Tari makes a clunking sound.
9 Tari begins to jump around the room, agitating the clothes.
10 Berke lol
11 Tari will take it off soon.
12 Tari stops and you hear water draining.
13 You notice that Tari is beginning the rinse cycle.
14 Berke [to Tari]: So add an `unplug tari' verb which will shut the
washing machine off.
15 Tari goes silent for a moment, then suddenly begins to spin round
and round, water spraying everywhere.
16 Tari [to Berke]: yeah...i'm just waiting to have someone jump me
about turning myself into a toy.
17 *PING*
18 Tari drops a pile of clean, wet clothes. You have a feeling she's
kept at least one sock, though.
In line 10, ``lol'' means ``laughs out loud.'' Note that she has some
uncertainty about whether she has crossed into a territory that isn't
acceptable for the regulars on EM. She was eventually asked to make
herself incapable of talking during washing machine behavior, because
the mix of characteristics (human and appliance) was disturbing on
aesthetic grounds.
Anthropomorphic Objects and More Toys
Humor often depends on objectifying characters or, indeed, on
anthropomorphizing other objects on the MOO. One day's play revolved
around attacking the trees in the park, in response to a ``spoof''
from me in line 5. A spoof is a message that does not appear as a
normal utterance from a character; on EM, the author is named after a
dash at the end.[6]
1 Jon stands up from the tree stump.
2 Jon [to the trees]: Come to Perkins!
3 Jon [to a tree]: Come to Perkins!
4 Jon giggles
5 The trees groan and pull their roots out of the ground; they
advance on Jon threateningly... --lynn
6 lynn eyes herself warily.
7 Ray giggles
8 Ray nails a tree down.
9 Jon detonates a low yield nuclear device over a tree.
10 lynn shakes the trees.
11 Ray spraypaints ``WAKE UP'' on a tree in dayglo orange.
12 Ray giggles
13 Jon takes off and nukes a tree from orbit. ``It's the only way
to be sure.''
14 Ray [to a tree]: I will not support what I see as a flagrant runaway,
illegal and rogue decision here.
In line 6, I ``eye'' myself ``warily'' because I just did the strange
spoof in the line above; impossible physical actions like this one
play a regular communicative role in MOO conversation.
Objects are often at ontological risk as much as bodies are;
abstractions like plans or projects can become ``real'' objects which
can be carried or dropped like other objects. For instance, on EM,
plans for MOO development are embodied as MOO objects, making it
possible for Tom to drop the Appliances Project in a room.[7] Dropping
an object in front of people is an action that has some communicative
force, usually meaning ``take a look at this'' or ``use this.''
Agency in Crisis
Part of the acculturation process on MUDs is learning to identify
which text originates from a human typist, and which is automated. The
problem of agency identification is particularly acute in cases of
spoofing; although spoofs originate from human typists, on many MUDs
the author of a spoof is hard to track down. Spoofs, which are
frequently used to attribute actions or utterances to other characters
on LambdaMOO, are often unpleasant or vicious. A spoof effectively
renders another character a plaything. To newcomers on LM, many spoofs
probably appear to be authored by a character they are intended to
make fun of.[8] The spoofed entrance message below is confusing to the
audience because it attributes actions to the Guest which were not
performed by her.
Ochre_Guest frantically scurries over to the nearest door, opens it
and announces, ``Ladies and Gentlemen of The Kitchen, please welcome....
SIDEWALK!!!! Sidewalk walks boldly into the room and hands
Ochre_Guest a $2 tip. Ochre_Guest seems overwhelmed with glee by
this gesture.
Shiggy waves to Fread.
Ochre_Guest leaves the kitchen for the dining room.
This spoofed scenario below (lines 3, 6, 8, 11-13, 15) is
representative of a particularly obnoxious class in that it is not
only noisy (``spammy'') but also hostile in content, and results in
the movement of the target (the Guest) against her will, somewhere
around line 15:
1 Sark falls down laughing.
2 Guest kicks sark while he lies on the ground
3 You hear a deep rumbling noise.
4 Gennifer hugs CountryGirl warmly.
5 Fread [to Arch]: brisbane, australia
6 The rumbling gets louder. It's shaking the whole MOO!
7 Sark stands up and waits expectantly.
8 Cripes! It's a diesel locomotive, and it's headed at Guest!!
9 Sark smiles at Guest.
10 Roth says, ``It's the Big One!!!!''
11 ====================
12 *******SPLAT!*******
13 ====================
14 Prof comes in from the living room.
15 Yuck! Bits of Guest's brain and flesh are everywhere!!
16 Sark . o O ( Some guests don't have brains... )
The initiator of the spoofs was Sark; he moved the Guest somewhere
called ``the Dungeon of Purgatory,'' which purports to be used to
``hold the scum of the real world.'' Unpleasantness between Guests and
regular users is frequent on LambdaMOO for various reasons; guests,
who do not generally have a regular character, are viewed as more
anonymous (and therefore freer to ``misbehave'') than regular
characters who can become known by their character name and associated
with behavior patterns over time.
The spoof above is doubly problematic in terms of location of agency,
since the entire interaction was written and programmed by a user
other than Sark, who just invoked it with a single MOO command. It is
a scripted interaction that can be aimed at anyone. Similarly and more
disturbingly, the sex scenario below that was ``aimed'' at me by a
user was written by a third party and made available to the community.
1 You slowly blink and realize that The_Monkees has come into the
room with you, slipping their arms around you.
2 They says, "I want to take you on a journey, but I want to make
sure you want to go, just type REJECT The_Monkees WITH #6919 in
the next 15 seconds and I'll leave. You can REJECT me anytime
on our journey. I just wanted to warn you that this is very
. . . explicit."
3 The_Monkees says, "I thought we could take a bike ride to the
waterfall and go skinny-dipping under the moon's pale light."
4 The Underground Waterfall
5 Although you are quite sure that this room is underground, it is
nearly impossible to tell. The chamber is absolutely enormous.
The walls are invisible in the hazy distance, and the ceiling, if
truly a ceiling exists, is obscured in a soft, white mist which
floats like a lazy cloud in the air high above.
[edited out 15 more lines of description]
11 The_Monkees is here.
12 The_Monkees undresses you, kissing your mouth and neck as they
takes off your shirt and bra., pulling down your jeans and running
their hands over your breasts.
13 You respond to their kisses and start to peel their shirt from off
them, dragging your nails down their back until you reach their
waist, then tugging at the fly of their jeans to release their
already hard prick.
14 The_Monkees whispers softly in your ear, "Remember, lynn, you
can REJECT The_Monkees WITH #6919 anytime and I'll stop.
15 You start to stroke The_Monkees's sac softly and carefully,
moving your hand up and down their swollen shaft.
16 The_Monkees eases their fingers inside your tight, wet opening.
17 You gasp in surprise as they strokes your clit, tonguing your mouth
more deeply than before and pushing their hips closer to yours.
18 >reject the_monkees with #6919
19 You both break from your embrace and walk into the cool water of
the plunge pool. The_Monkees pulls you close, kissing your sweet lips
once more, forcing their tongue into your mouth.
20 The_Monkees start to feel all around your crotch, rubbing their
fingers through your pubic hair and making circles over your hole
lips. The_Monkees whispers softly in your ear, "lynn, you can REJECT
The_Monkees WITH #6919 anytime and I'll stop, I won't mention
it again . . .
21 The_Monkees sulks, but leaves, blowing you a kiss!
The entire text above, except line 18, was produced by the automated
script, which was started by The_Monkees character. The reason my
``reject'' command didn't appear till large amounts of text had
appeared on my screen was that I was not looking at my MOO window at
the time, and the lag time between typing a command and seeing the
response on LM is often significant. In line 21, you see the effect of
the ``reject'' command which turned off the script interaction (#6919
is the object number the command lives on).
Marcus (1992) discusses the linguistic discourse around rape, and
although her discussion is not about assaults online, it may come as
little surprise that many of her points hold for nonconsensual
incidents like the above (and Dibbell 1993). In fact, the term
``netrape'' is in use among some community members. Marcus discusses
rape as a scripted action which also scripts women's bodies into being
seen as ``vulnerable, violable, penetrable, and wounded'' (Marcus, p.
398). Marcus suggests that the notion of a script, a social scenario,
allows rebellion and rewriting from the actress, ``perhaps by refusing
to take it seriously and treating it as a farce, perhaps by resisting
the physical passivity which it directs us to adopt'' (p. 392).
Although I did not view the event as farce at the time, it now appears
humorous in a twisted way. In the programmed script above (which of
course is not Marcus' notion of a social script), note the ridiculous
mismatch between the plural name of the character who invoked it,
The_Monkees, and the singular verbs. Note the grotesque mismatch
between what ``they'' are doing and saying--``You can REJECT
anytime.'' Note finally that fifteen seconds is ridiculously short for
a courtship before consummation: I had never met The_Monkees before
this incident.
Resisting passivity, my response was to dispute the character in
LambdaMOO's baroque legal system (after my immediate response of
``FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE,'' to which ``they'' responded ``HA HA HA HA
HA!''). The_Monkees claimed ignorance of what the script actually did,
and in light of the third party authorship and the newness of their
character, I became confused about the location for responsibility,
blame, and agency, and I dropped the dispute after minimal
concessions.
The author of the script agreed to make changes requiring consent
before it began running, but it is clear to me that the situation
remains problematic: a script cannot be truly approved in advance of
seeing its contents. Someone may approve the initiation of the script,
but may end up very disapproving of some act it ascribes to her.
Should acceptance of the script constitute agreement with any contents
it may have? If line 15 constructs the target as performing an act
(``You start to stroke The_Monkees's sac softly and carefully, moving
your hand up and down their swollen shaft'') can the target
successfully claim ``I didn't really do that'' after the fact? These
are open questions.
In this interactive forum, it seems to be difficult to undo events
after they have appeared on the screen. Normally, emoted events are
felt to occur as soon as they are uttered. In one instance on EM, a
Guest character emoted that she hugged Karen, who attempted to retract
the entire event in line 2:
1 Guest hugs Karen.
2 Karen is NOT hugged by Guest!
Afterwards another character referred to ``the Guest who hugged
[her],'' suggesting that he did not see the event as having been
``denied'' successfully (Cherny 1995).
Scripted actions like the sex scenario may constitute a different
category of event, but the problematic portrayal of them on every
``overhearer's'' screen as undifferentiated from emotes remains.
Finally, it seems significant that these scripts are indeed mimicking
interaction between people, rather than just spamming someone's screen
with impersonal pornographic text; there is a specific ``you'' and a
specific instigator involved, playing very particular roles in the
scenario. The ``you'' above is constructed as a female body, initially
the passive undressed body, then ``responding to their kisses'' and
undressing in return, stroking their swollen shaft. The ``you'' has a
clit and breasts and a mouth that tongues can be forced into. The
script mimics interaction but denies any real possibility of it,
making the scenario necessarily something ``done to'' someone, and
more eerily, ``done with'' someone who is objectified and removed of
any agency during the act. It seems probable to me that a reasonable
overhearer of the sex scenario may indeed claim that it was an event
that happened to a specific ``you,'' even if he doesn't believe
``you'' did any typing during it, and even if he believes ``you''
didn't want it to happen and ``you'' didn't type during it. As
MacKinnon says, citing Creel Froman, ``subordination is `doing
someone else's language''' (MacKinnon 1993, p. 25). Although not
a physical action, in a MacKinnonesque world in which speech acts
about sex constitute sexual actions, the imposition of erotic material
on someone (who is supposed to enjoy it, like all victims of sexual
abuse) has characteristics of an assault (MacKinnon 1993, p. 108).
Conclusions
In this paper I discussed the ways in which the simulation of the body
has become semi-``real" in virtual reality or even ``hyperreal" (cf.
Baudrillard 1983), and the status the virtual body has as an element
in a multi-party constructed discourse. The body is intimately
involved in the discourse of the MOOs I discussed. It has become what
Hayles (1993) called a ``flickering signifier'' of identity, changing
its terms for comprehension and circumscription regularly.
Immersive virtual reality has been claimed to be a radical new
technology for viewing the body and playing in cyberspace, shifting
perceptions and altering mental models (Walser 1990). After a
demonstration of an immersive virtual reality system in summer of
1994, several MUDders discussed the rhetoric around the idea of
``putting on bodies'' in immersive virtual reality. The experience of
the physical and experience of identity clearly change in an immersive
virtual reality setting, but the MUDders agreed that they did not find
this so different from a day in the MOO; they thought of null emotes
and Xythian-completion immediately:[9]
Jay once said something like ``xythian-completion is about exploring
alternate lifestyles''
Identity-shift, even to nonhuman or abstract discourse entities, is
commonplace in the course of playful conversation in a MUD. Even in
nonplayful conversation, the user is subjected to the split identity
of being physical and corporeal at a terminal, and being an entity of
code which can be manipulated by herself or other characters. Some
manipulations are amusing, part of collaborative fun; others are more
sinister, and raise profound questions about the ethics surrounding
construction and use of bodies and the identification of the location
for agency in interactive spaces. The self is constantly in question
and open to redefinition in such an environment, even through the
narrow bandwidth of text, and this experience may be exhilarating or
terrifying.
Identities forced on a user by another user with spoofs or scripts
disrupt the usual casual identification of a character
and her typist. A scripted sex scenario that embodies a character in
a way that her typist objects to makes the prosthetic code ``body''
undesirable baggage. As the identification between code and typist
decreases, so does the sense of responsibility and accountability
that ones assigns to others in the virtual environment, making the
establishment of community norms of behavior less likely. Although
play with identity will always be an important part of a virtual
system, transparent agency should be a built-in component as well;
users should be able to rewrite their own character signifiers in
whatever manner they like, but should not be allowed to manipulate
other characters as if they were puppets.
Notes
[1] This is a slightly expanded version of a paper I gave at the
Midwest Popular Culture Association, Pittsburgh, October 1994.
I owe big debts to the creative community at EM for making
this paper possible, especially to Ken, Jay, Dave, Joe, and
Tari. Special thanks to Erik Ostrom and Doug Orleans for
reading the draft carefully and giving detailed comments, as
well as Jeff Blaine, Jander, and Vernon Lee. Errors I have
introduced since their reading are my own fault.
[2] A MOO is an object-oriented MUD, named after the programming
language available in it. Character and location names have
been changed in this paper to protect the community's privacy.
[3] According to lew, a friend who has been mudding since
1990, the first roll call routine originated as a way to
identify who was logged on and active on a MUD where disconnected
characters were listed in a room's contents along with connected
characters. ``Back on Islandia, which ran under one of the
TinyMUD versions, when you did a `look' in a room, it listed
everyone there, regardless of their logged-in status. In
the Islandia treehouse or town square, this list could get huge,
making it almost impossible to tell who was `really there.'
The first roll call occurred in the Islandia treehouse, when it
suddenly occurred to me I had no idea who was there so I didn't
know what to start talking about. So I just emoted `ROLL CALL'
and then null-emoted (probably the first intentional null-emote)
and most of the awake people immediately realized the `rules'
and followed suit.''
[4] I don't have many examples of ``how'' null emotes, but one
character's automation of his null emote responses is
triggered by ``how'' and ``wonders how'' said in the
environment around him (indicating that he considered it a
fine context for a null emote).
[5] A ``verb,'' mentioned in line 2, is a MOO program.
[6] Almost all of the interaction with the trees was produced with
the set of ``antisocial commands'' on EM that produce stock
text phrases; the commands constitute a record of many
community in-jokes.
[7] I wanted to describe this as ``dropping the
Appliances Project at someone's feet'' (there are no feet to
drop it at, strictly speaking) or ``dropping the Appliances
Project on the floor''! Rooms exist programmatically, but
floors and feet do not.
[8] Special commands will show the author of a line of text, but
the new user often doesn't find out about these or understand
how to read the output trace until she is more experienced.
Spoofs on EM have the author's name appended, so they are
rarely used in the manner or frequency which which they appear
on LM.
[9] Jay's second comment was ``Jay also said this about the joys
of `@chparent me to $exit' though.'' He intended it
ironically: on a MOO, properties of objects are inherited from
their parent objects; changing a character's parent to an exit
object would be somewhat crippling, since the character would
lose its ability to communicate and move around. The ironic
comment shows that he is aware of the fact that ``alternative
lifestyles'' are not all pleasant or intentional.
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