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Transformation of Social Relations Through Virtual Play

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When user-players mod online virtual worlds for purposes of play, they remake the technical virtual machine into a social machine through their immaterial labor. People invest in these virtual spaces by slightly modifying them, consequently allowing them to grow in value and become more desirable to users. These immaterial laborers are not paid for their work, which undermines the Marxist idea of paid labor in the capitalist system. Instead, they are pulled into the value of the virtual space, intrigued by the various ways it can be manipulated. Through this manipulation, social input is introduced to these online virtual spaces, which ultimately allows social relations to be created and transformed.

In the creation of online virtual worlds such as Second Life, new social possibilities emerge as users can represent themselves however they wish through their avatars, whereas in the real world, their physical appearances are largely fixed. Immaterial labor drives online virtual game worlds. Rather than existing simply as appendages to the virtual space, people invest in the game worlds through their techne: “a creative mediation between nature and humanity,” which induces the social (Guattari, 1995, 33). In Second Life, modding occurs not only when people reinvent the virtual space by adding or removing features or graphics, but also more interestingly when people play within the space by modding their avatars. Modding creates a social environment within a powerful social world in which users play and interact with each other. In Second Life, the social aspects that people show about themselves – such as their gender, sexuality, or race – through their avatars typically differ from those in real life. By modding their avatars, users fragment themselves, creating a highly social place of play in which their self-representations may not, and usually are not, who they truly are. Even so, their “virtual embodiment” may more accurately depict who they feel and think they are or wish to become (Boellstorff, 2008, 134). Through these self-representations, people create social relations with other players, which can help them better understand their “self” in the real world.

In one case, a Second Life resident whose avatar was a “beautiful female” named Pavia was actually a man in real life (Boellstorff, 2008, 138). Through his avatar and the social relationships he formed online, the man realized he was transsexual. Through the social machine, he was able to create  Although this aspect of his selfhood was formed in a simulated and “fake” space, it allowed him to better understand who he truly was in the real world. He discovered a whole new part of himself through Pavia that would have otherwise been unrecoverable in the repressive environments of real life. As Kayla discusses further here, avatars can allow individuals to express and discover who they truly believe themselves to be. The social, as it manifests and transforms in a virtual space, can be meaningful and real, as it gives rise to real consequences in the actual world. For example, the social interactions and relationships that Pavia formed in Second Life will affect and transform interactions in real life. Through the mods that people make to online virtual worlds, social input is able to powerfully enliven the virtual space, facilitating social relations and thereby producing tangible effects in the real world.

Note: Social input into the technical machine, which creates the social machine, can also transform social relations through military incentives and the fleshy machine.

Citations:
Guattari, Félix. “Machinic heterogenesis.” In Chaosmosis: an aethico-aesthetic paradigm (1995): 33-57.

Boellstorff, Tom. Coming of Age in Second Life (2008).
 

This page has paths:

  1. Transformation of Social Relations Esther Liu

This page has tags:

  1. Transformation of Social Relations Esther Liu
  2. The Virtual and The Real Chloe Lewis
  3. The Second Life Self Kayla McCoy
  4. The Tension Between the Virtual and the Real Esther Liu
  5. Second Life Chloe Lewis
  6. Virtuality Chloe Lewis
  7. How the Virtual Influences the Real Self Theresa Tong
  8. What Is Self? Theresa Tong
  9. Immaterial Labor Kayla McCoy
  10. Esther Liu, Author Esther Liu
  11. Tom Boellstorff Kayla McCoy

Contents of this tag:

  1. Transformation of Social Relations
  2. The Tension Between the Virtual and the Real