This week, I will be talking about the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplay Game) Guild Wars and scrutinising the obvious gender divide that I have encountered in playing it whilst maintaining its relevance with mentions of the paper by Laura Robinson 'The cyberself: the self-ing project goes online, symbolic interaction in the digital age'. In doing this, I will go beyond the recommended 350 words (I'm so, so sorry about this Matt) and explore the issue with, perhaps, other games which demonstrate my point.
Robinson discusses the Cyberbody in that instead of viewing the online self as a liberation of one's physicality, the cyberself is simply a re-embodiment of physicality. Robinson elaborates with "[the] cyberself seeks re-embodiment as a means of identity signaling and as a medium of interaction" which basically means that creating an online persona creates identity and offers socialisation. It becomes necessary to consider that an online persona is perhaps merely exploring all facets of the offline self, as I don't believe someone goes online to be their own opposite, there is always truth in one's behaviour (so if you're online being a bit of a dick, you're probably actually a bit of a dick). She also states that fragmentation of self shouldn't be feared, as maintaining an online character or entity doesn't mean that the offline self falls into disrepair (I agree to a point), it's just that having an online self goes against the "societal imperative" of having one identity in the offline world.
What interested me most, was "...when these users create online selves through role playing, they often engender a ‘signifying body’ or ‘simulated body’ that resembles the types of physical bodies idealized in the offline world."
The markers of gender, race and age are accentuated in games to no end (and the most idealised markers of identification and judgment). Of these, however, gender is perhaps the most exaggerated feature in an avatar, a male will be muscular, tall, chiseled and a woman will have massive breasts, a small waist, and robust thighs. I will often find that there is a slider for all of these things for a woman (to which the woman's physical appearance can be edited to the user's liking), but in a male avatar, such variation is often considered obsolete and the only slider available helps adjust the size of his massive to moderately massive pecks. There is an MMO by ArenaNet called 'City of Heroes' where I have been informed there is a crotch slider for the man-bits but it falls short as a counterargument due to the fact it's also a far less realistic art style than Guild Wars and many other MMO's.
Robinson also states that "characters are created to act in rigidly gender-stereotyped ways." Which you can choose to disagree with, but I find that if an MMO encourages roleplaying, in which one is to escape reality to create and maintain an online persona, it becomes less of a creative process when there is a predetermined gender divide in the making of one's character. You can also see this behaviour in "idle movement" in that, a woman's avatar, when left alone, will put her hands to her hips and push her chest and behind out or fix her hair. A male avatar will play with his weapons. To me, this robs the user of complete freedom in creating a persona completely unaffected by the offline world's influence. I will further demonstrate with armor sets in Guild Wars.
We have the light, medium and heavy armor (appropriate for their respective classes). I think the Necromancer class helps demonstrate my point in the best possible way, so allow me to draw your attention to the male and female Necromancers of the light armor class.
As you can see, the male and female vary drastically in terms of body coverage whilst the male is sensibly dressed, the female has a skirt so short - with the right camera angle you can see up it. This sort of setup seems to be making females more vulnerable in the game and you can see the mentality in the game, when male avatars will often come to a female's rescue (even if her avatar is higher leveled and overall more capable). It also upholds the gender stereotype of the woman having to cater to the 'male gaze', herself having to be both the object and her spectator when she decides on her attire (or rather, is given her attire). To a degree, I can forgive this, but when you put the Norn race (nine foot Nordic Warriors) in a miniskirt, garter and bra, you're just asking for trouble.
It should also be mention the Cooley's the looking glass self says "our sense of self is really our perception of society’s evaluation of us" and that holds up even in the offline world. Especially in MMO's where you're able to project an image of self, with the behind the scenes knowledge of how one is going to be perceived (with certain armor, colours or avatar genetics). It's just that when you're online you can also be more of what society wants you to be (and sometimes it's more easily attainable in-game to accomplish this). I'm going to demonstrate this point with a sight I see quite often in-game:
A level 80 (the highest level you can be, in-game) with top tier armor (the best armor you can have, in game) will stand in the major city of Lions Arch, an avatar of accomplishment (these signal time, effort and dedication to the game), wanting to be perceived as everything one desires to be in the universe of the game. So, in a way, we have these games remove the concept of 'ugliness' and create a way to which material goods create worth to an avatar. This does create freedom from one's self perceived ugliness offline - but this doesn't allow people to be officially excused from bullying or segregation, the human race will find a way to define the outsider or 'the lesser'.
If you actually read this entire post, I applaud you, if you have read this and think I'm full of crap, feel free to tell me why in a comment - but be mindful of the fact that this may be edited at a later date. And to tie this all together, I shall conclude with a a series of haikus:
Acting like a dick,
even if you are online
means you are a dick.
Light armor classes
are rather scantily dressed
but only females.
Online champion
LFG 6 Pros 4 Raid
stop talking nonsense.
References:
Robinson, Laura. 2007. “The cyberself: the self-ing project goes online, symbolic interaction in the digital age.” New Media and Society, vol. 9, no. 1: pp. 93-110.
Lauren, in response to your blog for this week; yes I did read your whole entry and no I don’t think your full of crap.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your frustration with the reading as my boyfriend also feels very strongly about computer games (unfortunately). In fact, most nights I fall asleep to the clicking of the mouse and him furiously hitting the keyboard because some person on the other side of the world is throwing stupid things at his character in some imaginary world.
I would like to offer another one of these silly games as a comparison to Guild Wars to show that the example you gave is not the only game where there is a blatantly obvious divide between the male and female characters. League of Legends (LOL) is probably one of the more ridiculous of the MMORPG games which many of my friends are (for god knows what reason) very addicted to and have been for a very long time.
I agree with the points raised in the reading, particularly that people “…engender a ‘signifying body’ or ‘simulated body’ that resembles the types of physical bodies idealized in the offline world…”. LOL (from what I can gather) is a bit different to Guild Wars as the characters are basically set and you cant alter them, and also there are some that are people, but also includes imaginary creatures and monsters (you can all see how stupid this game is right??). When the boys play, they always try to get the characters which are considered by their group to be the most tough or strong or masculine and which have the best abilities within the ‘arena’ to kill the opponents- which are more often than not the largest one with the most features. In relation to the female characters, there are only a few within the game (as pictured on by blog with the comment because I don’t know how to put it in here), most of them are tiny, slight and clothed in little more than lingerie (also their boobs can be used as floatation devices ha-ha). In relation to the reading and your comment, it is not only one or two games that have this “rigidly gendered stereotyped ways” it’s basically all of them.
In conclusion- don’t edit/delete this post as I think the points made are very valid in today - especially to those of us who have friends/boyfriends who area obsessed with these stupid games and even to people such as yourself who play the games.
(BTW to everyone reading – you may pick up on my absolute hatred of the games so I really cannot believe that I am writing about LOL for this subject, but it struck a chord).
Lots of good points in your post! I honestly had not thought at all about online avatars in relation to last weeks reading, so thankyou for reminding me of them . I think you could go even further with this train of thought if you relate it to sites that offer less restricted, more personalized avatars, where a woman doesn’t have to be, for example, all boobs and thighs, but can have trackpants and a beard if she so wishes. The only site I can think of off the top of my head with options like this is the stagnant backwater that is Yahoo! Answers, though I’m sure there are many many more. If we go back to the idea of online gaming then sims3 would fit perfectly, however most of the time I believe people are playing as fictional Sims, and not necessarily themselves, so perhaps that’s a bit off topic.
ReplyDeleteSo with Y!A ( as we will now refer to it), users (read: young tweeny girls) can and often do create avatars with their likeness, post genuine queries about their lives, and post often genuinely honest responses. The avatars can often act as an outlet for self expression, allowing users to appear closer to how they would like, and less like they actually do. So for example if a user is desperate to have, say, blue hair, but their offline likfe (job, school, etc) will not permit this change, they can express this aspect of their self through the avatar. This also extends to significant cosmetic differences, racial identity, and a burning desire to be Santa Clause.
The content of their q’s and a’s is often far more explicit and honest (and quite often scathing) than it would be if they were just their offline selves. This I believe resonates rather well with a quote from our dear old friend Mr. Wilde, who said something along the lines of "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." Users are able to express their mind in a truthful fashion, and don’t have to worry about people judging or disagreeing with them and being able to link this judgment to their offline self. What happens on Y!A stays on Y!A. In theory anyway. It all starts to fall down a bit if a user has the same username for all online accounts, and may then be recognised and then both their online and offline constructed selves may be exposed and begin to crumble. Although I completely agree that if you’re a dick online, you’re a dick offline too, even if that is an aspect of your self you choose to hide or suppress IRL.
As an aside to Jessica, whenever my boyfriend plays HON (very similar to LOL) he almost always chooses to be the nymph/fairy character. He claims it’s because he likes their skill set, though you have to wonder what it says about his online identity, and how the other players are going to perceive this petite little nymph talking to them in a gruff manly voice.
Now, the sad news. Lauren, Haiku No.2 and 3 have errors in their syllable counts. I suggest for No.2 line 2 “rather scantily dressed”, and No.3 line 1 “online champion”.
Your news wounds my soul, but I have fixed both Haiku's so that my online identity isn't tarnished and perceived as someone who doesn't know how to count syllables. I think I got away with it, don't you?
DeleteAlso, if I might invade your inside with Jessica, I have much the same experience in that my boyfriend tends to play women characters that are also quite smaller than my women avatars. No matter how much we play, it still feels weird playing alongside a woman when I'm talking to her user on Skype simultaneously - so I understand the having expectations of a female voice and getting a gruff, manly voice instead.