metropolis m

On the internet the imagination is king, particularly in role plays in which you and I can participate and take on a different identity in the form of avatars we have made up ourselves. The games may have been quite simple initially, but by now apparently perfect and extremely complicated imaginary worlds have been created, which merge seamlessly with real life. The internet is a breeding ground of identities, where masks roll off the conveyor belt and with an electronic hall of mirrors in which what is real and unreal are a constant source of perplexity at almost every level. Why is there this mushrooming of false identities on the internet? Usually it is a practical decision. When you are involved in semi-illegal activities such as exchanging media which are protected by copyright legislation, you need an identity to enter into these transactions. Throughout history, only the most noble thieves have used their own name, and although there is not a huge risk of being arrested in this dizzying deluge of bits of information, it is better to be safe than sorry in these cases. A fake identity is also useful in the many endless discussions which are conducted on the internet. When these are about sensitive subjects, a fake identity can give you the freedom to take part in a dialogue without fear of repercussions in everyday life. The enthusiasm for fake identities on the internet above all shows how much identity has become part of a game, just as it has always been a game in the sociological sense. Ever since Erving Goffman described social interaction in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) with metaphors from the theatre, as a complicated game with roles, masks and agreements between actors, it has been difficult to see identity as something permanent or authentic. According to the theory, it is the mask (persona) which is actually the real face. As far as that’s concerned, you could see the internet merely as an extra arena in which we can present ourselves in a different way. The bigger and more complex the role plays in which you participate, the more they start to look like everyday life, with a slightly different twist. Since the Dungeons & Dragons role plays of the 1970s, when they were still purely imaginary, virtual worlds have slowly but surely become visible. Nowadays, we no longer speak about Dungeons & Dragons, but about the world of the metaverse, a term used by the science fiction writer Neal Stephenson in his novel Snow Crash (1992) to describe a virtual street or space which runs across a black globe (a virtual representation of the earth) and where users can be represented by so-called avatars. To become a member of the virtual community of the metaverse, the user must first design an avatar. The more real and detailed that it looks, the more it will cost, and therefore the higher the member’s social status in the virtual community. 2 One of the most attractive and successful recent translations of metaverse is Second Life, which was started by the American Linden Lab in 2003. It functions very well as a frontier of the new identity, revealing the problems and possibilities. As a recent VPRO programme of De Nieuwe Wereld explained about Second Life, this is not an avant-garde science fiction game for computer nerds with a personality disorder, but an international network of ‘ordinary people’. 3The basis for Second Life, a three-dimensional world in which you can and may move about freely is not innovative in itself, as it has existed in a primitive form since the 1980s. However, because of the better performances of computers and faster internet access, the world of Second Life is much more detailed and its movements are more fluent then ever before. Second Life gives access to a world where you can be whoever you want to be. At best it is a collective fantasy, an expression of dissatisfaction and desires, and an almost essential mixture of theatre, magic and dream, which clearly shows that the arid life in ‘first life’ (life in meat space) constricts a large number of people and lacks an essential symbolic life. In Second Life a persona is also needed for social interaction, another identity in the form of an avatar. As this ‘character’ is wholly a product of the imagination, it is difficult to describe it with the rather negative terms ‘fake’ or ‘counterfeit’. This ‘novel which everyone writes themselves’ does not mean that you are completely exempt from moral behaviour, but there is certainly a reorganization of behaviour. This must be because the unconscious, which is by definition amoral, comes to the surface in the imagination, and because the sense of shame is less dominant – sanctions are not felt very strongly in cyberspace. In that respect it is a shame that the reality principle penetrates the dream at crucial moments, in particular in Second Life – or its competitor, There. Second Life is not only surrounded by economics (having to pay for the avatar which you get to walk around) but is also permeated with economics (the Linden dollar is medium of exchange). Every economic rule can be translated back to the world outside. But instead of developing a truly alternative economy, it is ultimately the same capitalist rules that we are used to in the outside world which also prevail in Second Life. Fortunately there are enough people who do not take much notice of speculating in land, and who set up interesting projects. They are not so much interested in the status of their avatar, to dress him or her as expensively and in as much detail as possible, but also engage in intriguing role plays in the sexual arena. In itself this is a hopeful sign. However, it only becomes really positive when the freedoms of the digital world do not remain locked in a vacuum, but carefully percolate into everyday life. 4