3-D Virtual Environments as Melodrama: Emotion, Class, and ...

3-D VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS AS MELODRAMA:
EMOTION, CLASS, AND DOMESTICITY IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD OF CYBERTOWN
A Thesis
submitted to the Faculty of the
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
of Georgetown University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of
Master of Arts
in Communication, Culture and Technology
By
Jeffrey R. Young, B.A.
Washington, DC
April 25, 2001
1

Copyright 2001 by Jeffrey R. Young
All Rights Reserved
2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank my advisor, David Silver, and my second reader, Matthew Tinkcom, for
their patience, guidance, and support in preparing this thesis. Thanks also to J.P. Singh
for pushing me to improve my research methods. And thanks to Meredith Balderston
for helping me proofread and improve the project along the way.
I would also like to thank the many participants of Cybertown who answered my
questions and helped me find my way around their virtual world.
3

A Space for Emotion
INTRODUCTION
In Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, the Internet has evolved into a 3-D graphical
realm called the Metaverse, complete with richly drawn virtual streets, stores, bars, and
virtual bodies, which are called avatars. The addition of this graphical interface is not
just eye candy, according to the novel; it brings with it the ability for participants to
display and detect body language and facial expressions. And these new visual cues
transform cyberspace from a male-dominated data warehouse to a kind of theatrical
stage where complex interpersonal communications – and thus, the dramas of daily life
– can be played out.
It is the character Juanita, a feminist programmer at a male-dominated computer
company called Black Sun Systems, Inc., who first codes detailed facial expression into
the interface of the Metaverse. Male programmers at the company are said to consider
faces to be unimportant in cyberspace – arguing that they are "just flesh-toned busts on
top of the avatars" and thus "trivial and superficial." 1 Juanita realizes, however, that
visual cues presented by people's bodies – through their dress, gesture, and faces –
deliver information in ways that can enhance or even ironically comment on their
spoken dialogue.
1 Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (New York: Bantam Books, 1993) 57.
4

In explaining the inspiration for her ideas to the male protagonist, Juanita tells a
story of when her grandmother had visited her house while she was a teenager. At the
time, Juanita had just discovered she was pregnant, and she had been struggling to hide
this fact from her family. But within ten minutes, the grandmother had discovered
Juanita's secret just by watching the teenager's behavior at the dinner table. "I don't
know how my face conveyed that information, or what kind of internal wiring in my
grandmother's mind enabled her to accomplish this incredible feat. To condense fact
from the vapor of nuance." 2 Juanita says that her work coding digital representations of
faces and gestures is a method of efficiently communicating information – and doing so
with visual codes that have the potential to bypass language and transmit signals on
another, perhaps even deeper, level.
And the example Juanita uses suggests that such gestures are best suited for
expressing highly emotional information. Thanks to body language, the grandmother is
able to detect an emotional state, which she uses to deduce that Juanita is pregnant. The
fact that Juanita, a woman, is the one who recognizes the importance of body language
is telling. This detail plays on the stereotype that women – rather than men – are more
likely to be concerned with emotional issues and interpersonal relations – the stuff of
daytime soap operas traditionally aimed at female viewers. Juanita's story also suggests
that only through replicating bodies and social space can people untangle webs of
interpersonal relationships in a computer-mediated environment.
2 Stephenson 60.
5

Virtual space, it seems, domesticates the data wires. Graphical virtual
environments allow emotion to enter an electronic system that was once characterized
as a cold, faceless, rational world of computer code and textual commands – at least in
Stephenson's fictional account. And this graphical interface begets a new, more
feminized, point of view on line that promises to act as a civilizing force on the once
male-dominated, lawless frontier that preceded it. Juanita and her expressive avatars
thus provide a commentary and corrective for the digital world of the "console
cowboys" described in William Gibson's Neuromancer. The shift from abstracted
graphical data in Neuromancer to the more-realistic 3-D representations of bodies in
Snow Crash is depicted as a shift in genres – moving from the male-centered Western to
the female-centered melodrama.
A Fiction Realized?
This strategy of representing gesture and facial expression in cyberspace is now
being applied to 3-D virtual environments on the Internet, many of which explicitly take
Snow Crash's Metaverse as their inspiration. 3 In fact, as the prominent 3-D developer
Marc Pesce has noted, science fiction works such as Snow Crash have had a remarkably
strong influence on computer programmers. As he puts it: "The recent history of hard
science fiction has been the defining influence on the direction of software systems
development. The hacker community has been strongly shaped by science fiction texts,
3
The company that makes the 3-D environment of Cybertown, for instance, is run by a company
called Blaxxun Interactive.
6

and this has lead to a direct, often literal concretization of the ideas expressed in those
texts." 4
The first computer environments to make use of 3-D graphical spaces and
avatars were video games. Online shoot-'em-up games remain the most popular
examples of virtual worlds, as these networked environments are sometimes called.
Examples of video game virtual worlds include Asheron's Call, Diablo, Everquest,
Phantasy Star Online, Ultima Online, and Quake, which together have attracted
hundreds of thousands of players who gather on line to hack, slash, and, occasionally,
socialize. 5 But another group of 3-D virtual worlds have sprouted up on line that use
similar interfaces but that focus on social activities rather than gaming. Like the
fictional Juanita, the designers of these social virtual worlds make an explicit attempt to
introduce expressive virtual bodies into the general fabric of the Internet. Companies
like Microsoft and Sony are among those now experimenting with 3-D virtual
environments, suggesting that the technology may soon become more prominent, and
that Juanita's vision will have completed the transition from science fiction to interface.
Textual Predecessors
Graphical 3-D environments are not the first electronic social realms to employ
the notion of space as a unifying element or the notion of expressive virtual bodies.
4 Marc Pesce, "Magic Mirror: The Novel as a Software Development Platform," Media in
Transition conference, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 6-8 Oct. 1996, 10 April
2001 .
7

Text-based virtual environments such as Multiple-User Dungeons, or MUDs (and
similar environments called MOOs) – which have been around since the late 1970s –
also attempt to simulate space and bodies, by using words rather than pictures. In
MUDs, spaces are sketched using text descriptions that are displayed on the screen as
users move among virtual rooms. Each participant writes a description of his or her
virtual body that other users can access, and body language is simulated through a
practice called "emoting," in which participants type descriptions of body movements or
emotional states which are then posted for everyone in the virtual room to see. 6
In both text-based and graphical virtual worlds, however, the selling point has
frequently been their potential for social interaction – whether it take place in the
intimate, private space of an immersive virtual home or large-scale public town squares
where virtual bodies from around the globe can gather to communicate. "What is
interesting," said Pesce, in a speech in 1996, "is that we've never envisioned cyberspace
as anything but a social space." 7
In fact, some proponents of 3-D environments see their efforts as a revolution
that will turn the Internet into a more social, and even a more civilized, space. Bruce
Damer, head of the Contact Consortium, a non-profit group that promotes the use of 3-
5
Karen J. Bannan, "Getting Hooked on an Online Game, and Hitched to a Fellow Gamer," New
York Times on the Web 30 March 2000, 17 December 2000
.
6
For a more detailed description of personal communication in MUDs and MOOs, see: Jeffrey
R. Young, "Textuality in Cyberspace: MUDs and Written Experience," Ibiblio Web Site May 1994, 15
December 2000 .
7
Marc Pesce, "The Panoptic Self," Earth to Avatars online conference, 26 October 1996, 3
March 2001 .
8

D environments, argues that the effort to popularize 3-D virtual worlds represents an
attempt to overthrow the current discourse of the World Wide Web. Damer says the
Web currently relies on metaphors of books and other print-based media to shape
participants' experiences. The Web is often described as a vast library – as a set of
documents – and thus figures users as solitary figures roaming and reading the various
Web pages. As Damer writes: "Apart from being a very useful source of information,
the Web is really just a big pile of documents, and a pretty lonely place. Web surfing is
like going to someone's house only to find that it is just a billboard and there is nobody
home." 8 Damer argues that with the introduction of 3-D space – and in particular, with
the introduction of expressive visual avatars – "the Internet is about to become a place
for people." 9 Thus, the graphical 3-D environments serve as a place for people to
encounter one another as well as data.
Many scholars and cultural critics have studied the dynamics of social
interaction within text-based virtual worlds – most notably Howard Rheingold, Sherry
Turkle and Julian Dibbell. Their work has largely established that people can, and do,
have meaningful – though not always positive – social interactions with others within
text-based virtual worlds. It appears that people make friends and fall in love in virtual
8 Bruce Damer, Avatars!: Exploring and Building Virtual Worlds on the Internet (Berkeley, CA:
Peachpit Press, 1998) xiv.
9 Damer, Avatars xiv.
9

worlds, but they can also experience addiction, crimes of the heart, and even virtual
rape. 10
Few scholars, however, have yet explored the dynamics of social interaction in
3-D graphical environments. This is truly a research gap, since the move from text to
graphics raises a new set of crucial questions. For example, how can we 'read' these
new social realms? When the visual cues of 3-D space are added to a virtual world,
how do world builders and users mobilize them to communicate? How can theories
used to understand other visual media be brought to these visual environments (just as
literary theory has been used to analyze text-based virtual environments)? And what is
driving this movement to build a graphical representation of a space where people can
somehow detect the "vapor of nuance" in a computer-mediated environmnent?
Methods
My analysis will focus on a single 3-D virtual environment, called Cybertown,
paying special attention to how designers and users in this environment employ gesture
and mise-en-scene to interact and to support or undercut a dominant ideology.
Cybertown was chosen because of its large user base – more than 600,000 registered
10
For a description and analysis of a virtual rape that took place in LambdaMOO, see: Julian
Dibbell, My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World (New York: Henry Hold and Company,
1998).
10

users 11 – and its attempt to institute a master narrative that offers a unifying metaphor
for the virtual space.
To approach the issue of interpersonal communication in Cybertown, this thesis
draws on approaches from several disciplines. I situate my observations within the
budding field of cyberculture studies, which seeks to understand new forms of
communication and community facilitated by digital media. 12 Like several scholars of
cyberculture studies, I have attempted to use ethnographic techniques to determine how
participants use virtual objects and virtual gestures to communicate. I was a participant-
observer in Cybertown for a total of about six months, during two distinct periods in
2000 and 2001. The first period lasted from July 5 through July 18, 2000. I published
my observations during that time in an article about Cybertown that appeared in the
electronic journal PopPolitics.com. 13 The second period lasted from December 1, 2000
through March 25, 2001. During this time, I interviewed dozens of Cybertown users –
via the virtual environment and via electronic mail. I also participated in various
activities in Cybertown, including decorating a virtual house, performing a virtual job,
11
An updated number of registered users is reported each day in Cybertown Virtual News
, a newsletter updated daily by
employees of Cybertown and volunteers from the virtual community.. As of 15 February 2001, there
were 616,122 reported users. The actual number of individual users is probably lower, since it is possible
for the same person to create more than one account. The number of active users is likely much lower
still, since there are typically only a few hundred people logged on to the environment at any given time,
according to statistics provided on Cybertown's home page, .
12
David Silver, "Looking Backwards, Looking Forward: Cyberculture Studies 1990-2000"
Web.Studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age ed. David Gauntlett (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000) 19-30.
13
Jeffrey R. Young, "Death and Taxes in a Virtual World," PopPolitics.com. 4 September
2000, 10 December 2000 .
11

and running a virtual club. 14 I also conducted interviews with two employees of
Blaxxun to compare users' perceptions of the virtual town to those of its creators.
I have taken steps to protect the anonymity of Cybertown citizens whenever
possible. Though participants generally use pseudonyms rather than their legal names, I
have in most cases changed the nicknames of Cybertown participants, in order to mask
their virtual identities as well. I generally identify Blaxxun's employees by name or by
nickname, with their permission.
I also draw heavily on film theory, which has long struggled with analyzing
gestures and mise-en-scene in the visual narratives of cinema. In part, this approach
follows the work of new media theorist Lev Manovich, by arguing that 3-D graphical
environments draw heavily on cinematic conventions to represent their virtual spaces. 15
In particular, I focus on what is one of the earliest and most persistent genres of
Hollywood cinema – the melodrama. In fact, as I will attempt to demonstrate, 3-D
virtual social environments contain features and conventions of film melodramas – in
terms of both form and content. Thus, theoretical approaches developed to analyze
melodramatic films can help shed light on how virtual environments "work" on and for
their participants. In addition, I will argue that, like film melodramas, virtual 3-D
environments – and the narratives that play out among participants within them – can
reveal "real-world" social tensions – especially concerning issues of class and
14
I use my personal experiences mainly to inform my understanding of the behaviors of others
in Cybertown.
15
Lev Manovich, "Cinema as a Cultural Interface," Manovich.net Home Page. 1997, 15 April
2001 .
12

domesticity. Through my analysis, I will suggest that even though 3-D cyberspace
represents cutting-edge technology, what is at stake in its representations are some of
the same moral and ideological forces evident in the work of early Hollywood
melodramas.
13

Simulating Space
LITERATURE REVIEW
The electronic simulation of physical space dates back to the earliest days of
software development. The first known video game, created in 1962 at MIT, was
Spacewar, and the first coin-operated video game, released in 1971, was called
Computer Space. 16 Though both of these games showed an overhead view of a flat
space, by 1979, video games began to attempt to represent three-dimensional space,
with the release of Atari's Star Raiders. 17 All three games take place in a simulated
outer space, depicting crudely drawn spaceships that fly around dodging and shooting at
enemy craft. This is not the only kind of game that was possible with the technology of
the time. As science historian David Nye points out, "no machine is inevitable. It's
configuration and specifications are the result of a myriad human decisions." 18 But
simulating space has long been a popular choice of software developers and users. In
fact, software developer Alan Kay has argued that several different groups invented
something very similar to Spacewar independently, causing him to argue that: "The
16
Lev Manovich, "Navigable Space," Manovich.net Home Page. 1998, 10 December 2000
.
17
Espen Aarseth, "Allegories of Space: The Question of Spatiality in Computer Games." Espen
Aarseth Web Site, 18 May 1998, 15 February 2001 .
18
David E. Nye, Narratives and Spaces: Technology and the Construction of American Culture
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1997) 189.
14

game of Spacewar blossoms spontaneously wherever there is a graphics display
connected to a computer." 19
Popular fiction about computers has also long embraced a notion of graphically
simulated computer space. In the film Tron, released in 1982, a prodigious video-game
programmer is transported inside his company's computer network, which is
represented as a highly geometrical space full of labyrinths where computer programs
are embodied by human-like forms that navigate these electronic grids. Two years
later, William Gibson's Neuromancer introduced the word "cyberspace," and depicted
computer users "jacking in" to a computer matrix that presented a "shared hallucination"
of graphically rendered data. 20 Neal Stephenson fleshed out what this graphical data-
space might look like in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, in which he imagined computer
users donning goggles to enter a Metaverse complete with virtual streets, stores, bars,
and highly expressive virtual bodies. And Star Trek has managed to add graphical
computer realms to the gadgets it portrays, in the form of the holodeck on the Next
Generation series. In these narratives, space is portrayed as the most natural interface
for humans to interact with machines, and electronic space is often portrayed as a more
idealized place for humans to interact with each other than the physical world these
representations are meant to simulate.
In many of these game and film plots, humans are figured as crossing into the
simulated electronic space of the computer – or at least having their perceptions
19
Quoted in Brenda Laurel, Computers as Theatre (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing
Company, Inc., 1991) 1.
15

completely immersed in electronic realms. Computer users have reported similar
dreams of entering digital environments. As one Macintosh user told cyber-researcher
Sherry Turkle in the mid-1990s: "I had a dream that I was swimming in there where the
files are. I think I had the dream after I heard the expression 'to information surf' on the
Internet." 21
Even in the physical world, the architecture of space is often said to play a key
influence in making people feel comfortable in their social interactions. As Peter
Anders observes:
Unlike most animals, humans manipulate their landscape. We lay claim
to space, marking it with fences, walls, monuments – even articles of
clothing left on a chair. These personal extensions are a part of the
shared cultural code that regulates our social interaction. Territory eases
social stress by clarifying our roles and providing security. This
extension is vital to our identity and social standing. Linking ourselves
with our environment projects us into the arena of shared experience. 22
Humans use space not only to foster a sense of security or identity, but also as a
tool for social organization. Lev Manvoich writes that: "Architecture and ancient
mnemonics, city planning and diagramming, geometry and topology are just some of
the disciplines and techniques which were developed to harness space's symbolic and
20 William Gibson, Neuromancer (New York: Ace Books, 1984) 52.
21 Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1995) 43.
16

economic capital." 23 Manovich further argues that the word cyberspace is derived from
"cybernetics," a mathematical term meaning (roughly) "communication science," which
in turn comes from the Greek kybernetikos, or “good at steering.” So the conceptual
roots of computer science include the notion of navigating information as if it were a
kind of space. "Navigable space," as Manovich calls it, characterizes the way simulated
space is employed in computer software. The structure of most video games, Manovich
argues, is one of successfully mastering this navigable space. "A typical game begins at
some point in a large unknown space; in the course of the game, the player has to
explore this space, mapping out its geography and unraveling its secrets." 24
Text Spaces – Places of Excess
By the late 1970s, programmers began creating text-based games that allowed
people to interact in real time over the Internet. In 1979, British university students
created the first MUD, which allowed players from around the world to play a text-
based version of the popular role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. 25 TinyMUD
Original, developed in 1989, was the first MUD to drop the adventure gaming aspect
altogether to concentrate solely on social interactions among characters. 26
22
Peter Anders, Envisioning Cyberspace: Designing 3D Electronic Spaces (New York:
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1999) 124.
23
Manovich, "Navigable Space."
24
Manovich, "Navigable Space."
25
David Cuciz, "The History of MUDs: Part II," GameSpy.com. January 2001, 15 February
2001 .
26
Jennifer Smith, "Frequently Asked Questions: Basic Information about MUDs and
MUDding," 1996, 15 February 2001 .
17

A striking change of mise-en-scene occurred when developers began building
social environments. The dungeons of early MUDs were replaced by more inviting
domestic spaces, where people could go to feel at home and to meet new friends. In
fact, the setting for one of the most popular social MUDs, LambdaMOO, takes place in
a large virtual mansion and surrounding grounds. 27
Inside these comforting virtual buildings, users began to report feeling that they
were living virtual lives. In his book, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the
Electronic Frontier, Howard Rheingold argues that interactions in MUDs and other
online chat rooms constitute meaningful human exchanges rather than mere play. As he
writes:
People in virtual communities use words on screens to exchange
pleasantries and argue, engage in intellectual discourse, conduct
commerce, exchange knowledge, share emotional support, make plans,
brainstorm, gossip, feud, fall in love, find friends and lose them, play
games, flirt, create a little high art and a lot if idle talk. People in virtual
communities do just about everything people do in real life, but we leave
our bodies behind. 28
Rheingold's vision of cyberspace is not purely utopian, since he recognizes that where
there are virtual friendships, there are likely to be virtual feuds. He defines virtual
27
"LambdaMOO House and Grounds," map, 10 April 2001 .
28
Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier
(Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1993) 3.
18

communities as "social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people
carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form
webs of personal relationships in cyberspace." 29 The use of the word "homesteading" in
the book's subtitle is fitting for Rheingold's description, then. The word means to
establish a place where a family makes its home. Rheingold's work seeks to assure
those who are unfamiliar with the "electronic frontier" of the Internet that it can be
tamed, just as the American West was smoothed over and civilized 30 by the many
families that settled in its harsh, open spaces.
Other studies of interactions in these text-based virtual worlds have found that
not only are users in interactive environments expressive – but that they tend to be more
expressive than in off-line communities. As Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff
found:
Users do seem to be less inhibited by conventions seen in everyday life.
They can be seen to be both more intimate and more hostile with each
other than would be socially acceptable in everyday life, particularly
when considering that hostility or intimacy may be shown among users
who are strangers to one another. 31
One telling example of this expressiveness is the practice of "toading" in MUDs,
in which participants who violate the rules of a virtual world are publicly humiliated. In
29 Rheingold 5.
30 This smoothing over was done through violence, of course. I believe Rheingold is playing on
the frontier mythology that painted the settling of the American West as a positive development, though
that mythology is itself problematic.
19

"toading," a wizard (as MUD designers are sometimes called) takes control of the
offender's virtual character, changes its description to that of a toad or other monstrous
figure, and then parades the toad around a public area to humiliate the virtual criminal.
Elizabeth Reid sees such excessive expressions of punishment on MUDs as "a return to
the medieval," and she argues that "the exercise of authority on MUDs has revived the
old practices of public shaming and torture." 32
The theater of authority in virtual reality is one which demands and
facilitates a strongly dramaturgical element. All actions on MUDs must
be overt, every nuance of experience must be manifestly represented for
it to become part of the play, and so punishment must be flamboyant. 33
So from their early days, it seems, virtual worlds have been marked by excess.
Other scholars have argued that an emphasis on spectacle and excess has also
shaped representations of race in virtual environments. Lisa Nakamura, for instance,
says that though users of text-based virtual worlds often try to discourage explicit
discussion of race, when race is depicted it often takes on highly stereotypical
characterizations. For instance, some people attempt to "pass" as members of another
race – a race of which they may have very little knowledge or understanding. This
practice, which she calls "racial tourism," leads to skewed depictions of racial identity
on line:
31 Elizabeth Reid, "Heirarchy and Power: Social Control in Cyberspace," Communities in
Cyberspace Marc A. Smith and Peter Kollock, eds. (New York: Routledge, 1999) 112.
32 Reid 118.
33 Reid 118.
20

Tourism is a particularly apt metaphor to describe the activity of racial
identity appropriation, or "passing" in cyberspace. The activity of
"surfing," (an activity already associated with tourism in the mind of
most Americans) the Internet not only reinforces the idea that cyberspace
is not only a place where travel and mobility are featured attractions, but
also figures it as a form of travel which is inherently recreational, exotic,
and exciting, like surfing. 34
Many observers have complained that a major drawback of text-based virtual
environments is that they lack communication cues that people are accustomed to in
face-to-face encounters. The lack of such cues seems to present an obstacle to the
vision – set forth by Rheingold and others – that meaningful day-to-day social
interactions can occur entirely on line. Users of text-based environments have,
however, developed ways to use text to simulate body language and other elements of
face-to-face interactions. As Elizabeth Reid notes: "MUD environments are extremely
culturally rich, and communication between MUD players is often highly emotionally
charged. Although they cannot see, hear or touch one another, MUD players have
developed ways to convey shades of expression that would usually be transmitted
through these senses." 35 In many cases, virtual body language in text-based worlds has
been used in an attempt to express emotion and to develop a sense of intimacy among
34
Lisa Nakamura, "Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the
Internet" 10 December 2000.
35
Elizabeth Reid, "Cultural Formations in Text-Based Virtual Worlds," Elizabeth Reid Home
Page, 10 April 2001 .
21

participants. Some users in text-based virtual worlds have complained that text has its
limits, however. In a study of an online lesbian chat room, Shelley Correll reports that:
"One woman told me that if her relationship with Paula was going to 'make it,' they
would have to see each other. Another relayed the frustration of wanting to look into
someone's eyes and seeing only the screen." 36
3-D Virtual Environments
Computer programmers have been experimenting with 3-D online environments
since at least 1994. Many of the earliest experiments in 3-D virtual communities arose
out of work with text-based environments. Because they are more visual in nature, 3-D
virtual worlds are referred to as "virtual reality" more often than their text-based
predecessors. Some classify 3-D virtual worlds as "desktop virtual reality," because
they can operate on consumer-grade computers without bulky head-mounted displays.
Some proponents of 3-D virtual worlds have gone out of their way to distance their
projects from popular notions of virtual reality, however. Bruce Damer says:
In truth, these virtual worlds are not trying to be immersive, in fact, the
graphics matter less than the quality of the communication between
people. Embodiment of a person online comes through dialogue, with the
scenery and dress taking second place. And, there is nothing "virtual"
about the "reality" of people's interactions and lives in these worlds,
36
Shelley Correll, "The Ethnography of an Electronic Bar: The Lesbian Cafe." Journal of
Contemporary Ethnography 24.3 (October 1995): 270-298.
22

where they meet people and experience events that touch them as deeply
as anything in "RL." 37
Cybertown is one of the longest continuously-running 3-D virtual environments.
The environment begun in 1995 as a series of text-based chat rooms on the Web. In
1998, Cybertown was purchased by Blaxxun Interactive, a company that designs 3-D
software, and the company merged Cybertown with its 3-D community, which was
called Colony City. 38 The 3-D version of Cybertown uses a technical standard called
Virtual Reality Markup Language, or VRML. This standard is intended to provide an
open format that any company can use to develop compatible 3-D digtial
representations.
Other 3-D virtual worlds include ActiveWorlds, OnlineTraveler, and
WorldsAway. 39 While these companies have had limited commercial success, recent
advancements in computer hardware and the growth of broadband networking services
have led to renewed interest in building 3-D virtual worlds, as evidenced by a recent
article in The New York Times that proclaimed that "3-D is popping up all over." 40
In fact, many large companies are now working to bring 3-D social
environments to the Internet. Microsoft’s research division operates a "Social
Computing Group" that has created several prototypes of 3-D virtual community
37 Bruce Damer, "A History and Manifesto on Virtual Worlds and a Vision for its Future," 10
April 2001 .
38 "Colony City and Cybertown Now a Single Virtual Community," Blaxxun Interactive press
release, Blaxxun Interactive Web Site. 6 April 1999, 15 April 2001
.
39 Damer Avatars 271.
23

software, including V-Chat, Comic Chat, and a new Virtual Worlds Platform. 41 And
Sony runs a "Virtual Society" project that is developing 3-D community software called
Community Place. 42 Macromedia, the maker of Shockwave, is working with Intel to
develop similar software. And Adobe Systems, producers of the popular Photoshop
software, released a beta version in 2001 of interactive 3-D software called Atmosphere.
Proponents of the 3-D technology frequently argue that the primary benefit of 3-
D graphics is to simulate communication cues from face-to-face interactions that are
missing in text-based environments. As Hannes Vilhjalmsson, a researcher at the
M.I.T. Media Lab, has argued: "It's the premise of having an actual face-to-face
encounter online that holds the strongest lure." 43 A related field of research, known as
emotive computing, has focused on better expressing and evoking emotion via
computer interfaces. 44
Virtual Community
Many scholars who have looked at social MUDs have attempted to discover
whether they constitute true communities. 45 As such, these theorists often focus on
40
Matthew Mirapaul, "3-D Space as New Frontier," New York Times on the Web 5 Oct. 2000,
10 March 2001 .
41
Microsoft Research Social Computer Group Web site, 10 April 2001
.
42
Sony Virtual Society Web Site, 10 April 2001.
43
"Using 3-D Graphics in Online Communities," online panel discussion, MediaMOO, 2000, 10
April 2001 .
44
For an overview of emotive computing, see: Rosalind W. Picard, Affective Computing
(Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press, 1997).
45
For an enthusiastic look at the possibility of online community, see Rheingold. For a broader
range of views, see Marc A. Smith and Peter Kollock, eds. Communities in Cyberspace (New York:
Routledge, 1999).
24

examining social networks created in virtual environments. Though studies of
community have led to important observations about the nature of online
communication and its potential for collective action, 46 this thesis will not attempt to
determine whether Cybertown constitutes a community in the technical sense of the
term. Instead, I consider 3-D spaces as jointly constructed narratives, and I examine
how images and text function within this narrative context. This view is consistent with
the work of Steven G. Jones, who argues that the Internet as a whole is "an imagined
and imaginary space, and thus is a narrative both because it is an area of discursive
interaction and because it contends, often very successfully, for our imagination." 47
Similarly, Janet Murray calls text-based and 3-D environments "participatory
narrative." 48 Like Murray, I view users of 3-D environments as "interactors," which she
distinguishes from either the relatively powerless readers of a novel or the ultra-
powerful authors who create literary realms. As she puts it: "The interactor can
experience one of the most exciting aspects of artistic creation – the thrill of exerting
power over enticing and plastic materials. This is not authorship but agency." 49 Jerome
McDonough attributes a similar agency to participants in a 3-D environment that he
studied (whose name he changed to CyberVerse in his text to protect the identities of
46
One good example is Nessim Watson, "Why We Argue About Virtual Community: A Case
Study of the Phish.Net Fan Community," Virtual Culture: Identity & Communication in Cybersociety ed.
Steven G. Jones (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 1998).
47
Steven G. Jones, "The Internet and its Social Landscape," Virtual Culture: Identity &
Communication in Cybersociety ed. Steven G. Jones (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: SAGE
Publications, 1998) 15.
48
Janet H. Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (New York:
The Free Press, 1997) 103.
49
Murray 153.
25

his subjects): "In many ways, CyberVerse is most accurately characterized not as a
virtual location, but as a discourse in which designers and users vie for power and
control over users’ behavior, including users’ identity performances." 50 Here,
McDonough calls attention to the heightened importance of a graphical interface's
designers in constructing the overall experience of a 3-D environment: "When
technology determines your ability to exist, those who control that technology wield the
ultimate political power." 51 One reason for this power dynamic is that it is
technologically more difficult in 3-D spaces than it is in text-based worlds for most
users to create their own avatars or design new spaces from scratch. McDonough also
found that users and designers do not always agree about how a virtual world's narrative
should play out.
The Influence of Film
Several media theorists argue that 3-D computer spaces attempt to mimic
cinematic space. Mark Wolf, for instance, says that: "Most games representing their
diegetic space as an interactive three-dimensional environment follow, to some degree,
the precedent set by the space represented in the classical Hollywood film." 52
Interactors in 3-D environments act as virtual camera operators, controlling a lens that is
placed in the visual environment. Many 3-D environments allow users to shift among
50
McDonough.
51
McDonough.
52
Mark J. P. Wolf, "Inventing Space: Toward a Taxonomy of On- and Off-Screen Space in
Video Games," Film Quarterly 51.1 (Fall 1997): 20.
26

two or more camera positions. The default is generally a first-person mode, in which
the virtual camera is roughly at the eye level of the user's avatar. Another common
choice of virtual camera position is third-person mode, which places the camera above
and behind the avatar, so the user can see his or her own gestures as well as those of
other characters. Movement in these environments can then be seen as a series of pans,
tilts, tracks, and dollies of the camera through virtual space. 53 Though some virtual
worlds claim to transport the user's physical body to the virtual space depicted on the
screen, it would be more accurate to say that 3-D environments position users as
directors of a film-like narrative in which they also control the action of one of the
characters.
By constructing their narrative worlds as if through the lens of a camera, 3-D
virtual environments place a strong (perhaps disproportionate) emphasis on spectacle.
In some ways, virtual worlds can be seen as invoking what Lynn Kirby calls a
"spectacle-oriented 'touristic consciousness.'" 54 Since the birth of tourism, travel has
often involved bringing a camera along to capture highlights of the trip. "For the first
time in history, large numbers of people regularly travel out of their habitual
environments for short periods of time. It seems positively unnatural to travel for
pleasure without taking a camera along." 55 Visitors to virtual environments are both
tourists to a strange new space and virtual camera-toters. Because these visitors can
53 Wolf 20.
54 Wolf 42-3.
55 Susan Sontag, quoted in Lynne Kirby, Parallel Tracks: The Railroad and Silent Cinema.
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1997) 39.
27

point their cameras nearly anywhere they desire within the simulated space, they might
be constantly on the lookout for interesting details in the landscape. As Wolf points
out, the fact that a participant in a 3-D video game can look anywhere makes the
particular details in the scenery even more important than the details in the diegetic
spaces of film or television. 56
The Melodramatic Imagination
In many ways, the move to add body language to cyberspace bears important
similarities to the narrative strategies of a film genre generally associated with female
spectatorship – that of the melodrama, or, as it is sometimes called, "the woman's film."
Though melodrama technically refers to a dramatic narrative set to music, 57 Thomas
Elsaesser and other film theorists define the genre differently, arguing that spatial and
visual elements – such as the exaggerated use of gesture and mise-en-scene – are as
essential as music to the functioning of the genre. Elsaesser describes melodrama as a
"system of punctuation, giving expressive colour and chromatic contrast to the
storyline, by orchestrating the emotional ups and downs of the intrigue." 58 He argues
that melodrama is not only characterized by a female point of view and certain thematic
56 Wolf 12.
57 Thomas Elsaesser, "Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Family Melodrama"
Imitations of Life: A Reader on Film & Television Melodrama ed. Marcia Landy (Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1991) 74.
58 Elsaesser 74.
28

concerns, but also by a strategy of "style-as-meaning" that is sometimes put to
sophisticated use. 59
In forging this description, Elsaesser points to the historical origins of film
melodrama – which date back to the silent film era when directors needed to find
strategies of representation that could compensate for the absence of spoken dialogue. 60
These silent-film directors, Elsaesser argues, succeeded in using the visual plane – by
way of "lighting, staging, decor, acting, close-up, montage, and camera movement" – to
convey emotion and to draw viewers into the narrative world. 61
Gestures in film melodrama are marked by excess. A girl who is embarrassed
by her mother does not simply look away, she runs from the soda shop while grabbing
her hair, as Laurel (Anne Shirley) does in Stella Dallas (1937). A rich traveler doesn't
simply walk through a hotel lobby, he struts in with his fisted hands by his side, and
pauses dramatically with an intense look on his face, as Maxim de Winter (Laurence
Olivier) does in Rebecca (1940). As Mary Ann Doane notes, "The term 'melodramatic'
in colloquial language connotes excess, the artifice of theatricality." 62
Though such excessive theatricality has led some critics to dismiss the genre as
artistically shallow, other film theorists point out that such excess opens up possibilities
for readings of melodramatic film elements as more than straightforward
communications of petty emotional scenarios.
59 Elsaesser 77.
60 Elsaesser 75.
61 Elsaesser 75.
29

In a discussion of literary melodrama, Peter Brooks argues that these excessive
gestures are hyperbolic because they are metaphoric – and thus can be viewed as an
attempt to represent a deeper level of meaning in human relations that he calls the
"moral occult." 63 As Brooks notes: "Things cease to be merely themselves, gestures
cease to be merely tokens of social intercourse whose meaning is assigned by a social
code; they become the vehicles of metaphors whose tenor suggests another kind of
reality." 64 Brooks suggests that it is possible in melodramas to be more "true" to the
essence of human interaction than the actual encounter might be if it merely played out
in a more traditionally realist drama. 65
Jumping off from the work of Brooks, Doane argues that the metaphoric, visual
language of film melodrama attempts to invoke a kind of spiritual or emotional pre-
language. "In this group of films, little is left to language. The texts, in fact, exhibit a
distrust of language, locating the fullness of meaning elsewhere." 66
To emphasize her point, Doane looks to the 1937 film version of Stella Dallas,
which offers another instance of a woman decoding a hidden truth of a social situation
through body language. In the film, Stella is a lower-class woman who has married a
wealthy man named Steven Dallas. Stella soon finds that she cannot (or will not) live
up to the tasks of the proper, sophisticated wife her husband demands. She talks loud,
62 Mary Ann Doane, "The Moving Image: Pathos and the Maternal" Imitations of Life: A Reader
on Film & Television Melodrama ed. Marcia Landy (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991) 284.
63 Peter Brooks, "The Melodramatic Imagination" Imitations of Life: A Reader on Film &
Television Melodrama ed. Marcia Landy (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991) 53.
64 Brooks 56.
65 Brooks 56.
66 Doane 295.
30

dresses louder, and has no interest in the stiff, reserved role that Steven insists his wife
play. Early in the marriage, Stella separates from her husband, and clings instead to her
daughter, Laurel – and to her role as a nurturing mother – as the site of her pleasure and
happiness, and Laurel grows up to be a bright, successful teenager. Just as Stella settles
into her role as a single mother, however, she becomes aware of her deficiencies in
providing Laurel with the kind of upper-class environment that the daughter desires. In
one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the film, Stella pays an unexpected visit to
the apartment of Helen Morrison, a well-to-do widow who has won Stella's husband's
affections and her daughter's respect, in order to offer to grant her husband a divorce
and to give over her only daughter to Helen and Steven so that Laurel can inhabit a
'proper' domestic environment.
Helen sits down and offers a seat on the couch to Stella, who sits awkwardly on
a chair instead, wearing a fur coat that she refuses to remove. A medium shot
foregrounds the two seated women as they talk, revealing details of the stately room,
including a window and a drapery in the background. Stella pulls her chair closer to the
couch, saying, "If you and Steven did get married, well, what about Laurel, would you
take her too?" Helen leans over to put her hand on Stella's hand, and tries to reassure
her that she has no plans to steal away her daughter. Seeing that her point is not getting
across, Stella moves onto the couch to join Helen and starts again. "Yeah, but if a
mother didn't want her ... if she couldn't very well have her…" Helen looks down, as if
she cannot bear to look at Stella's pained face now that she understands Stella's
intention to sacrifice her own happiness for the sake of her daughter's happiness.
31

Stella, meanwhile, stares off into the distance, seemingly to contemplate the best
way to make her point. "From now on, there's lots of things that Lolly ought to begin
having," Stella tells Helen, nearly in tears. "I feel I've done about all I can for her."
Here, Stella fiddles nervously with her handkerchief – a gesture she repeats in the final
scene of the film, when she stands outside this apartment watching her daughter's
wedding through the window (perhaps the window in the background of this shot).
"You're the kind of mother that any girl would be proud of," Stella concludes. Helen
leans in and touches Stella's arm in motherly sympathy. Helen's response indicates that
she has seen through Stella's story, and that she understands Stella's true intentions. "I
didn't know anyone could be so unselfish," she says quietly. Though this is the first
time Helen has met Stella, she is able to quickly discern Stella's thoughts and feelings.
Doane notes that in this scene, the two women move closer and closer together
in the frame as Helen's understanding increases, as a way of signifying her empathy
with Stella. "The communication between them is almost instantaneous and eschews
linguistic foundation." 67 The gestures of both women are excessive, and by the end of
the scene, the two women are practically in each other's arms. Through her excess,
however, Stella communicates her true intentions and wins the empathy of Helen. And
more importantly, Doane argues, Stella activates a fundamental contradiction in the
social and psychic roles of motherhood. Mothers and children (particularly daughters)
share a bond characterized at once by an absolute closeness and a forced distance – a
tension whose inner violence rises to the surface in the women's performances. The
32

hyperbolic performances might also win the empathy of audience members – some of
whom might even be brought to tears.
The genre of melodrama not only depicts emotions, but it often causes viewers
to become so emotional that they themselves burst into tears – which is why
melodramas are also know as tearjerkers (such as in the situation with Stella noted
above). If the film genre of the Western privileges aggressive physical violence, Doane
argues, the violence of melodrama is "displaced onto affect" to such an excessive
degree that the viewer actually cries. The use of pathos – where a display of emotion by
a character arouses feelings in the viewer – can be seen as a strategy for reducing the
distance between characters and spectators, drawing the audience into the narrative
world. As Elsaesser argues, this desire to evoke the emotions of viewers involves them
in the fictional world. "Such archetypal melodramatic situations activate very strongly
the audience's participation, for there is desire to make up for the emotional deficiency,
to impart the different awareness, which in other genres is systematically frustrated to
produce suspense." 68
Any such narrative device that encourages immersion – by allowing viewers to
experience "make-believe and emotional participation in the events" 69 stands in
dialectic opposition to meta-narrative devices that attempt to reinforce viewers' distance
and critical evaluation of the textual world presented. As Marie-Laure Ryan observes,
67 Doane 289.
68 Elsaesser 88.
69 Marie-Laure Ryan, "Allegories of Immersion: Virtual Narration in Postmodern Fiction." Style.
(Summer 1995) 283.
33

postmodern critics shun immersive texts – an attitude that helps account for the low
status often assigned to melodramatic narratives. As Ryan notes:
Immersion is viewed as a shameful pleasure, and as a threat to mental
health. The postmodern contempt for immersion is compounded by the
phenomenon's resistance to theorization: a text regarded as a system of
signs can be endlessly deconstructed and put back together again in a
different configuration, but what can be said about immersion in textual
worlds except that it takes place? 70
Melodramatic cinema offers the answer to Ryan's question – promising a
narrative world that is both immersive and also comprised of complex signs ripe for
deconstruction. The excessive visual gesture signal the internal violence of characters
in melodramatic films, and point to broader societal struggles than are immediately
evident in the often closed-in narrative worlds of melodrama.
A New Kind of Space
Though virtual environments largely attempt to mimic conventions of cinema,
many scholars note that digital-constructed space is fundamentally different than the
physical space of everyday human interaction or even than the Hollywood sets where
cinematic representations are staged. For one thing, electronic "space" is entirely
constructed, with no direct grounding to a physical object or model. From a
technological standpoint, each screen in a virtual world is not a unified entity, but a
34

picture that is generated "on-the-fly" by combining objects from a database using rules
of the programming code. As Lev Manovich has observed:
A VRML file which describes a 3D scene is a list of separate objects
which may exist anywhere on the Internet, each created by a different
person or a different program. The objects have no connection to each
other. And, since any user can add or delete objects, no one may even
know the complete structure of the scene. 71
Since everything is an object constructed from the same computer code
(fundamentally, ones and zeros), there is little to distinguish a user's body from that of
an inanimate object in the environment. "Since bodies are virtual and readily
dismemberable, there is in fact no clear distinction between body parts and props and
costumes; here, your head is just a prop!" 72 Though a user's avatar (or, as has been
noted, the avatar's camera) does serve to organize the construction of space for any
given user, this does not guarantee that the space will be consistent for other users, even
if they occupy the same virtual room. Put simply, 3-D environments are rendered on
the local machines of users, rather than being inherently present on a central computer
(except, perhaps, in the piecemeal form of the database).
codes.
Technically, there is no shared space in these environments, but only shared
70 Ryan 283.
71 Lev Manovich, "The Aesthetics of Virtual Worlds: Report from Los Angeles," Manovich.net
Home Page. 1996, 10 December 2000 .
35

In How We Became Posthuman, N. Katherine Hayles describes this distinction
as one of pattern versus presence. 73 Unlike physical presence, embodiment in a virtual
world (through the use of avatars) can take place only when the physical body is
somehow reduced to a pattern, or data. Referring to the vision of cyberspace in
Gibson's novels, Hayles says pattern poses an "implicit challenge to physicality.
Pattern tends to overwhelm presence, leading to a construction of immateriality that
depends not on spirituality or even consciousness but only on information." 74 Pattern is
overwhelming, Hayles argues, because plugging into a sensory-immersive data-space
forces human users to (at least temporarily) neglect their physical bodies and their
physical surroundings.
Cyberspace presents not space, but a simulation of space – or, as Jean
Baudrillard says, a more-real-than-real simulation of the physical world that can be
called the hyperreal. 75 Though this hyperreal space is often imagined as a frontier – as a
boundless expanse – some postmodern critics note that the Internet in fact presents a
space that is radically flat. Baudrillard describes screen space as a 'superficial abyss,'
and argues that screen space is depthless even though its virtual space is infinite. If this
view is correct, the abstract, patterned space of 3-D environments breeds spectacular
displays out of a desire to overcome its fundamental existence as a hollow
72 William J. Mitchell, "Replacing Place" The Digital Dialectic: New Essays on New Media ed.
Peter Lunenfeld (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999) 117.
73 N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature,
and Informatics (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1999) 36.
74 Hayles 35.
75 Mark Nunes, "Jean Baudrillard in Cyberspace: Internet, Virtuality, and Postmodernity. Style.
(Summer 1995) 317.
36

epresentation on a flat screen. Following on the work of Baudrillard, Mark Nunes says
the simulated space of virtual worlds are – by their technological definition – already-
charted environments with no hope of new discovery:
Internet has no frontier because its territory has already been
comprehensively mapped: the connections between nodes precede the
attempt to explore this terrain, meaning that every 'journey' in cyberspace
is a repetition and a retracing of steps. Internet has no provision for
'undiscovered country,' but has only the simulation of such like a planned
treasure hunt. 76
Michael Heim, comes to a similar conclusion, and further argues that cyberspace's lack
of a true frontier can make experiences in virtual worlds emotionally unsatisfying.
Remove the hidden recesses, the lure of the unknown, and you also
destroy the source of yearning. Set up a synthetic reality, place yourself
in a computer-simulated environment, and you undermine the human
craving to penetrate what radically eludes you, what is novel and
unpredictable. 77
Margaret Wertheim argues that Americans' fascination with cyberspace is a
symptom of a changing popular notion of how space is conceptualized. In The Pearly
Gates of Cyberspace, she tackles the question of why Westerners are so drawn to virtual
reality and the Internet. She identifies a historical shift away from the notion of space
76 Nunes 318.
37

as it was understood in Dante's era, when notions of a divine (non-visual) mode of
existence presented alternatives to the visual realm of Earthly life. Now, she argues,
space has become the supreme way to organize the narrative of the universe: "One way
of understanding this new digital domain is as an attempt to construct a technological
substitute for the Christian space of Heaven." 78 Psychologist Jeri Fink argues that
cyberspace represents an attempt to avoid the afterlife altogether through gaining a kind
of immortality:
Virtual reality is an adaptive mechanism to promote survival of the
human species. Consider this: in virtual reality we shed our bodies – we
become part of an environment where we experience the illusion that
biology does not count. And if we're not biological creatures, we don't
have to follow the essential rule of biology: to live is to die. Perhaps
cyberspace is the best example of our need to deny death. ... Everyone is
immortal in cyberspace because mortality – death – does not exist. 79
Can melodramatic film theory offer not only a reading of Cybertown's
representations, but also provide a better understanding of why people attempt to build
and inhabit visual imitations of life?
77
Michael Heim, The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality (New York and Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1993) 104.
78
Margaret Wertheim, The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space From Dante to the
Internet New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999) 18.
79
Jeri Fink, Cyberseduction: Reality in the Age of Psychotechnology. (Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Books, 1999) 87.
38

THE SETTING AND MISE EN SCENE OF CYBERTOWN
Dateline Cybertown, March 10, 2001, Angel's House 80
"there i think that it looks good there," said a 19-year-old woman I will call
Angel, as she placed a Japanese Shoji screen in her bedroom, between her four-poster
bed and her dresser. There were dozens of objects in her cozy room in her five-room
home. Some decorations, such as a waterfall in the backyard, had sentimental value for
Angel, since friends had given them to her.
screen.
"there now this all feels like home," she added, as she finished setting up the
Technically, of course, this home was nothing but a series of 3-D images
appearing on personal computers connected via the Internet. By manipulating the 3-D
images on the screen with her mouse, Angel rotated them and moved them precisely
where she wanted them.
scene.
"Too bad my actual home isn't this nice:)," I said, as I looked at the bedroom
"I know. Ditto," she replied.
An Alluring Invitation
When users sign up for a free membership to Cybertown (for which they must
provide an e-mail address and demographic information about themselves), they are
80 Author's Cybertown Chat Log, Cybertown: Angel's House, 10 Mar. 2001.
39

told that they are not just logging on to a series of 3-D chat rooms, but that they are
immigrating to a town. And it is not just any town, but a "a futuristic, immersive
society accessible via the Internet," according to introductory materials on Cybertown's
World Wide Web site. 81 Cybertown citizens are even encouraged to believe that they
are traveling in time as well as over international data wires. The year inside the town,
according to a note that appears at the top left corner of Cybertown's home page, is
2089 (and the time advances each calendar year of the environment's operation). The
environment's motto – also prominently posted on the home page – is "civilization for
the virtual age" – and flashing text on the page promises "Virtual Homes, Pets, Roles,
And More!"
So the environment is not presented as a straightforward chat room or
"community," but as a fictional space where users and designers craft a narrative in
words and images. In many ways, the home page serves as the introduction to the
narrative theme of Cybertown. The Web page is dominated by a stylized drawing of a
bustling future city, with spaceships buzzing overhead and floodlights crisscrossing the
landscape. (See Figure 1.) In the foreground of the image stands a female cyborg. This
female character, named Mina, faces viewers, holding her right hand in the air in a
come-hither gesture and her other hand pointing to the city in the distance. She wears a
skin-tight leotard and hip boots, and she seems to have one or more computers attached
to her face and shoulders. She also wears some type of wireless telephone headset,
81
"Cybertown Information: What is Cybertown?" Cybertown Web Site, 10 April 2001
.
40

making her overall appearance seem like a cross between a telemarketer and Lara Croft,
the buxom star of the Tomb Raider video games. The word "Guide" is stamped on
Mina's costume just above her sizable breasts. 82
What are users to make of this invitation? The narrative of Cybertown as
depicted in this image seems to promise a fantasy of a futuristic world filled with
attractive and friendly people (especially women) who are eager to communicate with
you (that is, the user viewing the page). Mina addresses users directly with her gaze
and gesture – emphasizing the kind of intimate relationship that Cybertown appears to
promise. This image also suggests that, with the help of such a friendly guide, users
will find a place for themselves – a "role" – in a larger fictional "civilization." Users
who click on the link to "Log In/Join" are told that the act of clicking will "transport
you into the Cybertown Plaza" – and thus into the heart of this fictional world.
In their roles as "citizens," Cybertown users are encouraged to participate
actively in maintaining the city narrative – and the social order – of the environment, by
performing activities such as enforcing the rules of the city's "constitution" 83 and
greeting and helping new immigrants. Citizens are automatically granted virtual
property in their choice of the city's themed neighborhoods, which are arranged in eight
"colonies." New participants are also automatically given enough virtual money –
82
The character Mina recurs once users enter the City Plaza. Her image appears on virtual
billboards, along with the slogan, "I'm Mina - Click me and be a part of the future!" Mina even roams the
plaza 24-hours-a-day as an artificially intelligent avatar giving tips to citizens about how to use the
interface.
83
"The Cybertown Constitution," Cybertown Web Site, 10 April 2001
. These rules appear to have been set
up by the owners of Cybertown without any kind of democratic process.
41

called "community credits" or "CityCash" 84 – to buy a modest virtual house for their
virtual property. In fact, setting up a home is essential to full participation in
Cybertown, because it is the only place within the interface that a user can exchange
asynchronous e-mail messages with other participants.
Every participant is also encouraged to take on one or more jobs, such as leader
or deputy of their block or neighborhood, or owner or assistant at a virtual club (which
is simply a meeting place where people with common interests can gather). Each job
pays a salary in CityCash, and the money can be used to buy virtual objects or bigger
houses. My first job was as an assistant for a club, which is a kind of entry-level
position that mainly entails recruiting new club members and promoting any activities
that the club sponsors (such as virtual parties and trivia contests). Other jobs are more
specialized, however. For instance, the town's daily newspaper, called the Cybertown
Virtual News (and which is managed by the company that runs the environment), hires
citizens to write articles in exchange for a virtual salary. And at least a few of the jobs
demand large amounts of time and effort by users. One user – who in real life is a 40-
year-old woman from Pennsylvania – said that: "I have a CT window open though, at
least 40 to 50 hours a week." 85 She said she stays logged on to Cybertown while she
performs her real-life job at a government agency tasked with helping abused kids.
84
"Cybertown Information: Economy," Cybertown Web Site, 10 April 2001
85
"Re: questions about Cybertown," E-mail to the author (youngjr@georgetown.edu), 16 March
2001.
42

The 3-D interface of Cybertown provides constant reminders of what each user's
virtual job is, as well as how long the user has spent in the environment. In 3-D mode,
every character's job title is printed in front of their name each time they make a
comment in the text chat. 86 (See Figure 2.) For example, because I recently started my
own virtual club within the environment – a club for people interested in writing – the
title "Club Owner" appears before any comment I make. A user's "experience points"
are also posted with each comment, appearing just after a participant's name.
Experience points reflect how many hours users have spent in the environment, and
they give a clear indication of whether a Cybertown citizen is new to the environment
or a long-time member. These design elements of the interface indicate that great value
is placed on extended or repeated visits to the environment as well as active
participation within the city narrative.
Thus, the story of Cybertown is one of a city full of people going about daily
tasks of performing their jobs, buying objects to decorate their virtual homes, and
talking to friends and strangers in the public spaces of the environment. Despite the
futuristic setting, Cybertown highlights seemingly mundane activities of working,
shopping, and socializing – with the goal of settling down to become a respected virtual
citizen. As one of the lead designers of Cybertown, Hawk, put it in an e-mail interview:
"Cybertown gives people a home-away-from-home where they can by their
achievements and contributions in and to the community gain a social status and respect
86
In 2-D mode, however, only nicknames are displayed, and the job title and experience points
are never highlighted. The reason for this difference appears to be driven by technology.
43

that may be not as apparent in their real lives and thus gain a stronger sense of self-
worth." 87 As Sherry Turkle has argued, virtual worlds allow participants to live
"parallel lives," 88 and explore aspects of their personalities in an anonymous
environment.
This narrative can also be seen as a display of a certain ideology – one of
bourgeois individuality, family, and consumerism. In this light, Cybertown stages a
capitalist contest with the goal of accumulating the most money, goods, and power.
Spaces and Objects in Cybertown
Cybertown allows users to select from either a 2-D or 3-D mode while they are
in the environment. The 2-D interface offers presents a text-only realm similar to that
of a MUD. Though the designers privilege the 3-D environment, they provide a 2-D
version so that people with older computers and/or slow Internet connections can
participate, according to Cheryl Cox, the marketing director for Cybertown. 89 To use
the 3-D mode, users must first download a free software plug-in so that their Internet
browser can display the graphics.
When a user is in 3-D mode, his or her browser is divided into four windows.
(See Figure 3.) The largest window, at the top left, is the graphical window, in which
the 3-D pictures are shown. On the lower left is the chat window, where the text of
87
James Wells, a.k.a. Hawk (Hawk@cybertown.com), "Re: questions about Cybertown for an
article," E-mail to the author (youngjr@georgetown.edu), 22 March 2001.
88
Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1995) 186.
44

public comments is displayed (or else the text of a private chat if the user initiates a
one-on-one chat with another participant). In the lower middle of the browser is a
variable display that lets users see information about other users in the room, about how
many people are in other rooms within Cybertown, about what objects are in the current
room, or about other aspects of the environment. Finally, a navigation bar along the
right-hand side of the browser provides several buttons and pull-down menus that let
users jump among rooms or send messages to users in other rooms. An extensive how-
to manual attempts to explain all of these features to users, though many users seem to
learn by asking each other. Learning the Cybertown interface (as well as those of other
popular 3-D environments) is thus a kind of rite of passage, in which users not only
learn what is possible, but they learn what is expected of them within the shared
narrative. Users in 3-D environments learn the ideology of a virtual space while they
learn the technical skills necessarily to participate.
Virtual objects within Cybertown can either be purchased or traded among
participants using City Cash, or they can be constructed by users who have the required
software and knowledge to create 3-D images. (See Figure 4.) Most users, it seems, do
not make objects of their own, but rely on buying or trading to obtain decorations or
other items. Among the most popular areas of Cybertown are the Shopping Mall, where
objects can be purchased from a catalogue of unlimited supply, and the Flea Market,
where users can trade objects they have purchased or created. In the hundreds of visits I
89 Cheryl Cox, personal interview, 7 July 2000.
45

have made to the environment, these two spaces consistently ranked as the most
crowded areas of Cybertown.
For the most part, users are not allowed to construct new virtual buildings or
rooms themselves (with the exception of some virtual homes that allow customization
of the color and shape of rooms). A selected group of "World Builders," who are
chosen by other users who are part of a world builder's "guild," are allowed to build
new virtual spaces in an area of the Cybertown environment called "The Suburbs." 90
For these citizens, off-the-shelf 3-D graphics software can be used to create VRML
spaces that can be imported into Cybertown.
A 'Family' Environment
In public areas of Cybertown, the dominant ideology of the environment is
frequently discussed and enforced, as users publically criticize anyone who makes a
statement that is deemed inappropriate. The town's "constitution" – written by the
environment's paid staff but enforced by security volunteers and many citizens – lays
out basic rules of conduct. The first article of this constitution appeals to users' sense of
"manners." "In communicating to others in Cybertown follow customary manners as
they are (or at least as they should be!) followed in real life." 91 This is further explained
as a ban on sexual discussion or foul language in public areas. The rules are less
restrictive for private areas, such as users' houses. There are, however, rules that mark
90 "World Builders Up Close and Personal," Cybertown Web Site, 29 March 2001,
.
46

some types of virtual objects as forbidden – even in virtual homes. For instance, the
constitution states that: "You cannot furnish your spaces with textures, texts or images
that would be considered offensive, illegal, pornographic, racist or that violate
copyrights." 92
Violations of the constitution happen regularly in the City Plaza and other
popular public spaces in Cybertown. The most common breeches are "shouting" (using
all capital letters in a comment) and "flooding" (sending several lines of text one after
the other so that others cannot get a word in edgewise). But users frequently violate the
content rules as well. Some of the violations appear to be made in an attempt to
provoke a response. For example, a new participant in the Plaza typed (apropos of
nothing): "I lost my left testical in world war penis." And the comment drew an
immediate response by a "security sergeant" who was sitting in the room: "[name of
user] This is a family chat please refrain from using that type of language here or that
type of chat content! thank you CT Security." Any language that security considers
inappropriate is quickly rebuked. When one user said, enthusiastically, "this is a bad
ass chat room," it drew the response, "please watch the language, thank you CT
Security."
These reactions sometimes seem automatic, since they come so quickly and
consistently. But the environment uses real participants to monitor the chat rather than
software "robots" – pieces of computer software that can monitor the text of chat rooms,
91 "The Cybertown Constitution."
92 "The Cybertown Constitution."
47

which can be set to trigger automatic responses when certain words or used. Even
though the security officials are real people, however, they have been provided with
stock phrases that they cut and paste into their browsers to warn users of violations of
the constitution – thus giving a consistent voice to Cybertown's security. When a user
repeatedly said, "Helllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll," a security official said, " This is a family
chat please refrain from using that type of language or chat content here thank you CT
security." No matter which security guard is on duty, the same stock phrases appear as
warnings.
Security volunteers are not the only ones who attempt to enforce this moral
order in Cybertown. Regular participants are also quick to reprimand a user who
violates the rules – even though they have no direct way to punish or remove the
offender. 93 When a user typed, "hey guys anyone wanna chat to a sexy kiwi chick in a
thong??" in the main plaza, another participant quickly replied, "This is a family chat,
keep it clean - go to the bars to p/u men." Security agents are not always in force in
public areas, but users can always summon a virtual police official if they feel that
someone is violating the rules.
The word "family" appears frequently in these official and unofficial
reprimands. Designers and players who enforce the rules seem to feel that the concept
of family best characterizes the overall ethos of the environment's rules. By making
reference to the concept of family, designers and members attempt to paint Cybertown's
93
Users often do threaten to call in a security volunteer, however, if one is not already in the
virtual room.
48

ules as a natural implementation of a larger morality at work in society. As Jan
Fernback has argued, many virtual communities attempt to draw on ideologies of
community to enforce order: "The 'moral voice' of communities provides the social
cement that holds together the moral order but does not supersede the values of society
or even of humanity in general." 94 Fernback further describes what she calls a
collectivist "virtual ideology":
There is a 'virtual ideology' in cyberspace which is collectivist in
orientation. There is a strong sense among users that, despite the
tolerance needed for the space to be open-minded and despite the
potential for oppressiveness, virtual interaction gives users back some of
their humanity – a humanity which is authentically expressed among its
constituents … It is an ideology that characterizes collectivist rhetoric as
something positive, not something anti-American or anti-democratic. 95
The family ideology is even cited when users are asked why they come to Cybertown.
As one female member told me: "we're a community a virtual family in here." 96
This foregrounding of family provides an interesting link to melodrama. Of all
film genres, the melodrama seems to most consistently figure the family as its central
subject matter. Chuck Kleinhans argues that family is the center of drama of
melodramas because it is such a problematic site within bourgeois ideology. He argues
94 Jan Fernback, "The Individual within the Collective: Virtual Ideology and the Realization of
Collective Principles" Virtual Culture: Identity & Communication in Cybersociety, ed. Steven G. Jones
(London: SAGE Publications, 1997) 45.
95 Fernback 46.
49

that the family as an institution is charged with bringing meaning to the lives of
workers, who are otherwise alienated during working hours in a capitalist economy. 97
But because Cybertown is an interactive forum, it not only presents a utopian vision of
family, but it allows users to in some ways inhabit this vision. Cybertown, then,
perhaps attempts to fill a gap in the high-tech capitalist ideology it celebrates, by
providing a virtual family that can fulfill emotional needs that cannot be met in the
sphere of work.
But the family cannot bear the immense emotional and spiritual weight it is
asked to handle under capitalism, says Kleinhans, and so it inevitably fails to live up to
its own ideological promises. In film melodrama, these tensions are in some ways
revealed by the genre's excessive turns of plot – in which family members or lovers are
betrayed, hidden pasts are discovered, or fortunes are suddenly lost.
Though Cybertown does not directly parallel this kind of plotting, it does
occasionally offer moments of ideological tension. One incident in the City Plaza one
Tuesday night revealed that the content rules cover more than just foul language. When
a user asked whether any other lesbians were on line, security quickly stepped in:
Penelope: is anyone a lesbian, if so, wanna chat?
SecurityAgent: Penelope Please refrain from using that type of chat, this
is a family place and it is not allowed Thank you Ct Security
96
Author's Cybertown Chat Log, Cybertown Flea Market, 3 Dec. 2000, 16:44:25 G.M.T.
.
97
Chuck Kleinhans, "Notes on Melodrama and the Family under Capitalism" Imitations of Life:
a reader on Film & Television Melodrama (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1991) 198.
50

Penelope: is admitting that your a lesbian bad, are you prejudice?
Researcher: where is that in the rules?
BlockLeader: Could you please just stop talking about lesbos ?
SecurityAgent: Read the constitution of the city that you agreed to when
you joined this is a family chat and it is not allowed
ClubAssistant: would you SHUT UP about LEZBOS?!? 98
Apparently, the rules forbid any discussion of sex or sexual orientation – at least as
interpreted by most of the participants in this discussion. Penelope's statements
appeared to trigger discomfort, or at least annoyance, by other participants. No one
other than this researcher came forward to defend Penelope's speech. She logged off
soon afterward.
Though the rules might seem highly restrictive, many users state that the
presence and enforcement of conduct rules is one of the most positive aspects of
Cybertown. "It make this place a lot safer than most other chat sites on the net," said
Auraeanna, who in real life is a 21-year old woman attending college in Idaho. 99 She
said that in another chat system she has used, for instance, "if someone was cyber
stalking you, or being sexually lewd to you, or being racist, or other such intolerable
nonsense, there was nothing that could be done about it."
98 Author's Cybertown Chat Log, Cybertown City Plaza, 12 Dec. 2000, 23:22:32 G.M.T.
. For clarity, I deleted comments on
other topics that took place during this time.
51

Interiors of Excess
Consistent with the theme of family in Cybertown is the importance of virtual
homes within the environment. One of the most prominent types of space within
Cybertown is the virtual home, and it is a popular setting for interactions in the
environment. Designers cite decorating homes as one of the major features of the 3-D
technology. According to Steve Leitner, a volunteer who reviews avatars and objects
for the environment: "Times when 3d is needed, probably the one that is done the most
is decorating houses. People buy stuff then want to decorate their house and show it
off." 100
Houses also play a central part of communication within the Cybertown
environment. Virtual citizens must visit their houses in order to check their personal e-
mail box. The internal e-mail system is the way many bosses communicate with their
virtual employees when the employees are not logged on. For instance, when I got a
job as a club assistant for a Star Trek fan club, my new virtual boss said: "Be sure and
check your Inbox and Messages at your home when you log in, it is the best way for us
to tell you what is going on." 101 Virtual houses are also used for holding meetings,
parties, or other gatherings. Thus, they provide the mise-en-scene for many of the
discussions, arguments, and romances of Cybertown's citizens. Many houses in
Cybertown resemble a kind of Barbie dream home, full of markers of upper-class
99 Author's Cybertown Chat Log. Cybertown City Plaza. 16 July 2000, 06:50:57 G.M.T.
.
100 Steve Leitner (sjl@ttc-cmc.net), "Re: questions for my latest article about Cybertown," Email
to the author (screenager@yahoo.com) 16 Dec. 2000.
52

affluence and comfort. As in film melodramas, these sets and objects are often
seemingly gratuitous, and yet they are often called upon to shape the meaning of
situations within the environment.
Cindy73, a 27-year old woman who is the deputy of her block in Cybertown, has
a fairly typical virtual home. 102 It is a loft with four enormous rooms, and she has
placed 23 objects throughout. As I entered the house for a tour, Cindy73 wrote, "my
house takes forever to load. sorry lol." 103 As the data that defines the house slowly
transferred to my computer over the Internet, objects appeared to magically pop into
place in the spacious dwelling. Anyone who enters the house is first beamed to the
middle of the entry room, in which Cindy73 has placed a large decorative carpet, a set
of couches with a coffee table, end tables and lamps, a fish tank, and a desk with a
computer on it. The house's large staircase leads to a kitchen area, complete with
counters and appliances. (See Figure 5.) On the far end of this room are a dining table
and chairs, as well as a bar and a washer and dryer. Clicking on the washing machine
causes clothes to rotate inside – which can be seen through a window in the machine's
door. Some of the other objects in the house are also animated with similar special
effects.
101
Author's Cybertown Chat Log, Cybertown Virtual Home, 11 July 2000, 23:48:19 G.M.T.
.
102
Author's Cybertown Chat Log, Cybertown Virtual Home, 14 Dec. 2000, 17:35:29 G.M.T.
.
103
"Lol" stands for "laughing out loud." It is a common abbreviation in online chat rooms as a
way to signal humor or a light, friendly tone. To enter a particular house, users type a URL or click on a
link from a neighborhood map.
53

A bedroom is located beyond the kitchen and dining area. The bedroom has
antique-looking furniture that includes another set of couches and a picture on the wall.
The picture shows an image of a popular actor of whom Cindy73 is a fan. Cindy73 said
that a close friend in Cybertown gave the picture to her. In the far corner of this room is
an elevator that lifts avatars to the last room of the house, called the "greenhouse."
Cindy73 had not yet gotten around to decorating this glassed-in room yet.
When asked why she spent so much time and effort collecting objects and
decorating her virtual home, she replied: " just to have a nicer home effect I guess." She
said she had just moved to this house from her original virtual home – which had been
small but cheap (160 CityCash). She saved up for several weeks to buy this house,
which is a medium-sized pad that cost $2,000 CityCash. "It's kinda like the american
dream ... bigger.. better..." She said she had literally filled her old house to the limit,
and it had run out of server space to hold any more items, large or small. Cindy73 said
that even the smaller virtual house is much bigger than her home in the real world,
which is a mobile home. At the time I spoke with her, she was getting ready to host a
Christmas party for the citizens on her block – the first gathering in her new virtual
house.
Houses represent the most private spaces in Cybertown, though they are not
completely private. As far as I can determine, users have no way to lock the doors of
their virtual homes, so anyone who knows the users' virtual address or sees other links
to it can enter at any time. Only the homeowner can add objects or rearrange the
furniture of a house, however.
54

In virtual houses, then, users' decorations can be seen as an example of using the
visual portion of the interface to participate in Cybertown's narrative. Users mark
territory with items that are said to express their identity, and this seems to reinforce the
illusion that users are bodily transported into the fantasy space of Cybertown. By
moving furniture into a virtual house, participants figuratively "move in" to the virtual
world.
It is important to note, however, that houses are not decorated in an entirely
realistic fashion. They are interiors of excess, with large rooms with numerous and/or
large objects. Many houses, including Cindy73's, are not simply decorated, but
excessively packed with as many objects as the software allows. At a recent town
meeting in which citizens could pose questions to Cybertown's Mayor, several users
asked if designers could alter the software to allow more than the current limit of 32
objects per house.
"can we please increase the amount of items you can have in you house over
32?" wrote a block deputy.
"they cannot have more items at present … due to system restraints at blaxxun
and on low end PC's," another block leader replied. In other words, if the software
allowed more than 32 objects in a house, some computers might crash when attempting
to display them.
Another participant in the town meeting requested that bigger houses be made
available for purchase within Cybertown:
55

Citizen1: Mr mayor I was wondering if you could add more houses
bigger more features.
Mayor: we have mansions now, you want them bigger?
Citizen1: yes.
Citizen2: we want bigger houses for smaller prices
The excess of these domestic interiors, then, provides another link to film
melodrama. Their abundance suggests that they can be read as more than a realist
presentation of domestic space. Following the work of Elsaessar, Laura Mulvey argues
that the interior of the home in film melodrama occasionally doubles as the interior of a
character's psyche, ultimately revealing "irreconcilable or inexpressible internal
contradiction, and this 'unspeakable' affects and overflows on to the mise en scene." 104
The virtual home seems to be used by characters to reveal interests or aspects of their
personality without the need to verbally state them in the text chat. One example is
Cindy73's wall portrait of a favorite actor, which represents her interest in the actor as
well as her friendship with the user who gave her the virtual object. In some senses, the
objects become overwhelming within this environment. As Elsaessar says of objects in
melodramatic films: "Pressure is generated by things crowding in on them, life becomes
increasingly complicated because cluttered with obstacles and objects that invade their
104
Laura Mulvey, "'It will be a magnificent obsession': The Melodrama's Role in the
Development of Contemporary Film Theory" Melodrama: Stage Picture Screen eds. Jack Bratton, Jim
Cook, and Christine Gledhill (London: British Film Institute, 1994) 125.
56

personalities, take them over, stand for them, become more real than the human
relations or emotions they were intended to symbolise." 105
The use of virtual homes also stages a contradiction within capitalist ideology.
Though wealth and goods appear to promise happiness, they seem to lead to an endless
desire for more wealth and goods. The surprise that Cybertown's mayor expresses when
users call for more and larger goods highlights that even an excessive abundance in a
virtual world leaves users wanting even more virtual products to collect.
Virtual Domesticity
Keeping up with a virtual home in Cybertown requires real and regular effort.
In fact, if users do not visit their home at least once every 30 days, a block leader is
supposed to delete the home from the system. Homeowners are also encouraged to
delete old messages in their mailbox (to save space on Blaxxun's file servers).
Activities such as arranging virtual furniture and cleaning out mailbox are essentially a
kind of labor that is similar to real-life housework. Cybertown offers a representation
of what has traditionally been viewed of women's domestic labor – though masked in a
high-tech 3-D interface. The values reinforced by the housework of Cybertown are
ones of order and responsibility.
All virtual homes also come with the option of installing a virtual pet (generally
a dog) that serves as a kind of virtual dependent who benefits from the virtual wealth of
the household. (Avatar children are impossible to conceive in Cybertown, though
105 Elsaesser 84.
57

participants sometimes joke about a desire for virtual children.) The virtual pets can be
programmed to respond to commands and greet visitors. Cindy73 has a virtual dog
named Ludo, who would appear at my avatar's feet every time I wrote the word "here"
in the chat area. (See Figure 6.) If I were to say, "Come here Ludo," or "Here boy!" the
dog's avatar would automatically appear and the robot pet would say, "Here I am, to
save the day!" In this way, virtual pets serve as a constant reinforcement of the town's
ideology of consumer capitalism and a family-friendly chat environment.
But because the pets are software robots, they are not always virtual man's best
friend. When I happened to ask Cindy73, "Have you had a party here yet?" the dog
appeared and said, "Here I am, to save the day!" Such moments, where the virtual dog
appeared based on an inappropriate and unnatural cue, remind users that this virtual
space is only a metaphor – only a representation.
To some Cybertown visitors, maintaining a virtual life does seem like labor
rather than leisure. As one 19-year-old male user wrote on his first (and probably his
last) visit to Cybertown: "I would rather face the real world than piss all my time away
pretending." 106
Virtual Consumerism
Cybertown citizens always seem to be looking for unusual objects to place in
their homes or to carry around with them in their virtual backpacks. As was mentioned
58

above, the two most popular sections of Cybertown are the Mall and the Flea Market,
where virtual objects can be purchased and exchanged. People also buy and sell objects
in other areas of Cybertown.
Virtual objects are in one respect a sign of status. Though some objects cost
only a few hundred CityCash, others, such as sports cars and swimming pools, can cost
thousands or tens of thousands of virtual dollars. Objects that are considered rare
within the environment are generally more expensive. Generally, only experienced
players who have spent many hours within the environment can afford expensive or rare
objects. Knowledgeable users who have access to 3-D software can create their own
objects – which they can then sell to others. In fact, it seems that the quickest way to
get rich in Cybertown is by creating your own objects or avatars and selling them. As
Cox says: "There have been CityCash millionaires that have created because of it,
because people who are object builders create their own objects." 107 There is even a
club within Cybertown for virtual millionaires. But, as in real life, not everyone has
access to the means of production necessary to create commodities.
According to Cox, Cybertown's designers did not anticipate how popular the
trading of virtual objects would be: "At first there wasn't a Flea Market…. [people]
106
Author's Cybertown Chat Log, Cybertown City Plaza. 3 Mar. 2001, 16:19:16 G.M.T.
.
107
Cox.
59

were selling out of ther backpacks all over the plaza. Capitalism just sort of came out on
its own." 108 Designers created the Flea Market to serve as a space for virtual trading.
The emphasis on consumerism in Cybertown provides another link to
melodrama (and to Hollywood cinema more generally). As Maria Laplace has written,
Hollywood cinema of the 1930s centered around "the creation of mise en scene that
'fetishises' consumer objects and a consumerist lifestyle." 109
Interestingly, however, most virtual objects in Cybertown lack what Marxist
critics call "use value" – meaning a function that fulfills a human need. Cybertown
citizens cannot consume virtual food that they buy, and they cannot sit or sleep in their
comfortable-looking virtual furniture. These objects are nothing but pictures – and
ultimately nothing but computer code. They are radically ornamental, existing purely
for show. Within the context of Cybertown, however, virtual objects have a high
"exchange value," meaning they are worth something above their (often nonexistent)
use value.
There are some exceptions, however. Citizens can buy virtual photo albums into
which they can paste digital pictures, such as screen captures from moments in
Cybertown. Many users carry virtual photo albums that contain virtual snapshots of
moments in Cybertown. Such objects do appear to have a kind of "use value" as an
108
Cox.
109
Maria Laplace, "Producing and Consuming the Woman's Film: Discursive Struggle in Now
Voyager," Home is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Women's Film, ed. Christine
Gledhill (London: British Film Institute, 1987) 138-166.
60

object that serves a function within the environment. Users generally mark photo
albums as not for sale.
Smoothing Over Contradictions
According to the ideology of Cybertown, all security officials represent the good
guys – especially since users are required to have sparklingly clear security records to
win a job working for security.
But what happens when security officials abuse their power?
One night, a gathering in Cybertown's "Newcomers Club" was interrupted when
a virtual police cruiser rolled up. I was a new user at the time, and I had never seen a
virtual security car before. My own avatar was pretty bland – a man in a black shirt,
blue jeans and glasses. With the police car on the scene, I tried hard to look innocent.
"What do you do?" 110 someone asked the police car character.
"I boot ppl," said the police car. Booting someone from a virtual world
essentially means killing them, or at least ejecting the character from the system.
boasted.
"I can boot the mayor if he is doing things wrong," the police car further
I was later told that this security agent was acting inappropriately when he
bragged about his powers. And this security agent was not the only one who
overstepped their boundaries, apparently. In fact, a feud within the security forces
61

seems to have erupted during the latter part of the year 2000, with different factions
within the security volunteers and other long-time users disagreeing on how
Cybertown's rules should be interpreted and enforced. The first official reference to the
incident I saw was an open letter from Cybertown's deputy mayor that appeared in the
Cybertown Virtual News:
Fellow Cybertonians,
We have come to one of those crucial crossroads that most people
encounter at least one time in their lives.
We have arrived at a point in our expansion when Cybertown needs
further direction and vision.
I am sure many of you have heard rumors flying in all directions and
don't know what to believe and what not to believe. Believe this: The
Cybertown Mayor, City Council, and Security will do everything in their
power to bring the fun back into the city. Some restructuring will be
occurring with an aim to make some city laws easier to understand. The
Security system will also be included in the restructuring and Security
will no longer hold a seat on the Council and will directly answer to the
Mayor and City Council. A new Security Commissioner and Security
Chief will be appointed with an emphasis on more input from officers in
110
Author's Cybertown Chat Log, Cybertown City Plaza. 7 July 2000, 00:48:16 G.M.T.,
.
62

the field. A system of checks and balances will also be put into place to
prevent abuses.
Security is indispensable to us all and will be provided by the city. We
encourage those of you who are interested in serving CT to think
seriously of doing so by joining the ranks of those whose aim it is to do
their utmost best to help their community.
It is up to us to either remain in the past or to forge ahead with new vigor
and passion. I ask you to join me in a search for an improved Cybertown.
Respectfully,
crashdummy
Deputy Mayor
Cybertown 111
Another cryptic reference to the dispute appeared in an inteview with Hawk in
the Cybertown Virtual News: "The social aspects have had their ups and downs but
seem to be improving. We have made a lot of changes recently in response to the unrest
of late last year. In June the hardworking Mayor and Deputy Mayor will be stepping
down so that new blood can move up the ranks." 112
Despite many attempts, I could not get any participants to talk to me about the
"unrest," however. A block leader with 2,619 experience points (indicating that he had
111
"From Mayor Flyby & Deputy Mayor Crashdummy," Cybertown Virtual News 19 Dec.
2000, 19 Dec. 2000 .
112
Zoundite, "Interview with Hawk: Our Founder Speaks," Cybertown Virtual News 7 Mar.
2001, 7 Mar. 2001 .
63

een active in Cybertown for at least a few months) was among those who gave evasive
answers to my questions: "no one wants to TALK about it … it isn't that they don't
know about it." 113 When I e-mailed one of the founders of Cybertown, who goes by
the name Hawk, he gave this reply:
Due to agreements made I can't go into details but there were some
political clashes last year that divided a number of the town's members
and a major re-organization occurred that finally solved the unrest. And
starting next week the new Electoral process will be announced and the
next few months of electoral campaigning and voting should be a lot of
fun.
It seems that when contradictions arise within the utopian ideology of
Cybertown, both designers and participants work hard to suppress evidence of the strife.
Like a classical Hollywood film, Cybertown wants to deliver happy endings, even if its
staging of status and power occasionally breeds disagreements among characters.
An Edgier Plot
Early in the year 2000, Cybertown's corporate staff introduced a more complex
fictional narrative to the environment, which was intended to add a bit of an "edge" to
the experience, according to Cox, the marketing director. 114 Using a mix of graphics
113
Author's Cybertown Chat Log. Cybertown City Plaza. 23 Mar. 2001, 16:06:47 G.M.T.,
.
114
Cox.
64

and text messages, Cybertown officials announced that aliens called "morphs" were
trying to steal the technology that keeps Cybertown running. Designers placed one new
"morph" character in the town each week, and citizens had to ferret out and report the
aliens to win prizes. In an unusual twist, these fictional aliens turned out to be mutated
humans from Earth, fleeing the planet after a nuclear holocaust. Cybertown's leaders
encouraged citizens to choose sides, sympathizing either with the morphs who claim
that they actually invented the technology in the first place, and the entrenched
Cybertown leaders who wanted to retain their control of the infrastructure. Designers
even staged a well-attended public trial of a morph leader. Knowledge of this ongoing
narrative is not necessary to participate in most aspects of the environment, however,
and many citizens I interviewed and observed expressed little or no awareness of the
struggle that supposedly divides the community.
The Morph Wars, as they are called, stand in sharp contrast to many of the most
popular activities of Cybertown. Rather than melodrama, this story seems to fall into
the genre of the science-fiction action film. In fact, Cox says that the Morph plot was
created to help make Cybertown more appealing to male users and others who are
typically thought to enjoy traditional (action) video games. The goal, she says, is to
offer something for everyone within the virtual city: "In a city, you probably like to go
out and do different things than I do. There are people who like to do different things.
The unifying theme is the social aspect of it." 115
115 Cox.
65

VIRTUAL BODIES IN CYBERTOWN
Dateline Cybertown, February 6, 2001, City Plaza 116
"Are you the blue guy?" asked a character I'll call Kaliani one afternoon in the
main plaza of Cybertown.
"The blue guy?" I replied, not sure what she was talking about.
The two of us were in private chat mode, which blocks out all other
conversation, and we were standing face to face – or at least, our avatars were standing
face-to-face – staring into each other's virtual eyes. She had asked someone to answer a
few questions about the software, and I had volunteered.
"I'm new," she said, by way of signaling that she needed to have the basics of
the system spelled out. "There's a character on my screen." The character she was
seeing was my avatar.
At that point it hit me – I had no idea what I looked like inside this 3-D world.
Was I tall? Was I short? And, what color skin did my virtual body have? Was I the
blue guy?
look like."
"Hmmm. I don't think so," I typed. "I've changed avatars, so I'm not sure what I
I quickly switched the settings so that I could see my own avatar. Sure enough,
I was the blue guy. Actually, I was a sort of blue genderless form – the default avatar
that the computer assigns players until they select one. The software must have reset to
66

the default at some point while I was altering some other settings. Kaliani's avatar was
identical to mine, since she had not yet chosen an avatar.
To anyone else passing by in the plaza, we looked like two strange blue clones
chatting with each other. But neither one of us were entirely in control of our virtual
body language.
Virtual Body Basics
Though many discussions of virtual environments argue that the primary benefit
of the 3-D graphics technology is to better replicate the visual cues of body language
that mark face-to-face encounters, avatars in Cybertown are far from "realistic" in their
portrayal of human bodies. What are the characteristics of bodies within Cybertown,
and how do participants use them? How can we "read" the movements of these bodies?
This section explores the use of virtual bodies in Cybertown, beginning with a technical
overview of how avatars function within the environment's interface.
Every participant in Cybertown can select or create an avatar to represent them
in the virtual environment. The avatar is something like a playing piece in a board
game, in that it marks a user's position within the virtual space. A player's avatar can
only reside in one room at a time, and it can only be in one place in that room at a time
– just as a physical body grounds humans in physical space. When a Cybertown citizen
is in 3-D mode, the graphical portion of the user's browser shows a continuously
116
Author's Cybertown Chat Log, Cybertown City Plaza, 6 Feb. 2001
.
67

updated drawing of the Cybertown environment as seen through the virtual eyes of the
avatar. As the player moves around – using the arrow keys on the keyboard – the scene
changes to reflect the avatar's resulting movement. If a user sees another avatar or an
interesting object in the distance, she can move toward that avatar or object to get a
closer look.
In technical terms, an avatar in Cybertown is a 3-D drawing stored as a
computer file coded in Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML). Many commercial
software packages enable people to create a file that can be used as an avatar.
Technically, an avatar doesn't have to look anything like a human body. An image of a
grandfather clock could just as easily serve as an avatar in Cybertown as a picture of a
man or woman. Skulls, spaceships, cars, and jets are among the avatars I have also
observed in Cybertown. The majority of users I observed, however, wore avatars that
looked at least vaguely human.
According to promotional materials and documentation on Cybertown's Web
site, avatars are meant to represent a participant's identity. The company that operates
Cybertown runs a virtual billboard in its main plaza advertising its own avatar-building
software (which sells for about $30), and it pitches its product this way: "Create your
virtual identity in Cyberspace." The virtual identity of the avatar is on display for
everyone else who happens by within the virtual environment – assuming that the
software is working properly.
In some ways, then, the avatar serves the same role as a player description in a
text-based MUD. In a text-based environment like LambdaMOO, for instance, players
68

are asked to write a brief description of what their virtual character looks like. Other
players can access this description by typing the "look" command. For instance, if I
type, "look Sonic," then the player description of the character name Sonic would
appear on the screen. A key technical difference between LambdaMOO and
Cybertown, however, is that it is fairly easy to write an original text description, while it
is much more difficult to draw an original virtual body. In an online discussion by
researchers studying 3-D environments, one of the moderators noted: "If any of you
have used the avatar toolkit, it takes quite a while to make your custom gestures,
whereas typing them in does not." 117
Excessive Avatars
Cybertown's designers do provide users with an "avatar library" featuring
dozens of virtual bodies from which to choose, and these avatars are freely available for
any participant to use. These choices reveal expectations about what type of virtual
identities Cybertown's designers imagine that users want to embody. As of March
2001, the avatar library included five distinct sets of avatars. Not all of the avatars are
drawn to look human, but all of them seem to depict some kind of living being rather
than an inanimate object. All of the bodies have some kind of face, for instance, and all
sets but one depict creatures with prominent arms and legs.
The first of the five sets of avatars in the library is called the "Cybertown
Avatars Library," and this set appears to contain the cast of characters that the designers
117 "Using 3-D Graphics in Online Communities."
69

intended to match the themed narrative of Cybertown. (See Figures 7, 8 and 9.) When
users open the Cybertown avatars library, they see a Web page with a menu of 26
virtual bodies, sorted into three categories: male, female, and alien. 118 All of the
Cybertown avatars are also identified by a nickname – though a participant's user name
is not expected to be the same as their avatar's nickname. A buff male avatar with
baggy red pants and vest, for instance, is called "BigRed."
Many of the male and female avatars are excessive in their characterizations of
body types and are essentially stereotypes. Most of these avatar bodies are drawn as
remarkably thin, for instance – with the exception of "Sumo," an avatar that looks like a
Japanese sumo wrestler. Nearly all of the avatars look young, with the exception of a
gray-haired Japanese avatar called "Sensei." Further, most of the avatars are white,
Asian, or have indeterminate race. Non-white avatars are generally stereotypes, such as
the black character with the purple cape called "Othello." It is important to note,
however, that many white avatars in Cybertown are equally stereotyped, such as
"Cutie," a blond woman in ponytails and a skimpy pink outfit, and "Hippie," a man with
long hair and sandals. Some of the alien avatars make explicit references to popular
characters from science fiction films. One avatar, nicknamed Vulcan, depicts a pointy-
eared male alien that looks like Spock from Star Trek. Another alien avatar, nicknamed
Broc, looks like the monster from Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). In this
118
"The Cybertown Avatar Gallery," Cybertown Web Site, 15 April 2001
.
70

way, Cybertown follows the same pattern that McDonough found in a similar 3-D
environment that he studied, in which he observed racial stereotyping in avatars.
Thus, the naming and body types of Cybertown avatars suggest a parallel
between avatars and fictional characters in a Hollywood film. In other words, the user
in Cybertown is figured as an actor dressing up as a costumed fictional character. In
this environment, then, different participants can wear the same avatar without causing
a crisis of identity – just as it is routine for different actors to take on famous roles in
films. In one movie, Michael Keaton is Batman, while in another, Val Kilmer is
Batman. In Cybertown, two or more Vulcans can walk the virtual streets without much
notice.
There is no requirement that a participant wear the same avatar for their entire
stay in Cybertown, or even for an entire session. The same Cybertown citizen can take
the form of Batman at one moment and of a sexy female vixen the next. In fact,
Cybertown's designers encourage such wardrobe changing. On one of the help pages
within Cybertown, for instance, the text reads: "Want to change your image in a flash?
Here's how to body swap whenever the mood hits you." 119 Making the change is in fact
fairly simple, involving entering a URL of the desired avatar into a box within the user's
settings. 120 So the avatar "identity" is a kind of costume or mask that can be changed at
will. Unlike a user's character name, which cannot be changed after it is first created (at
119 "How to Change Your Avatar," Cybertown Web Site, 15 April 2001
.
71

least not without starting a new character from scratch), the virtual body is not
necessarily persistent from session to session.
Because Cybertown avatars are so idealized, and because they can be changed at
will, it seems that users are not expected to choose avatars that bear any resemblance to
how the user looks in the physical world. So even though avatars simulate body
language, they are not meant to signal features of the user's actual physical body – such
as race, complexion, or body type. In fact, Cybertown designers cite the ability to erase
traces of real-world body features as a key benefit to entering this virtual graphical
environment. Cheryl Cox, Cybertown's marketing director, said the fact that
participants cannot see the actual race or body type of other participants is a benefit of
the technology. "If someone's the geek, or someone's overweight, or someone's Black,
or someone's Asian or White, you know, you don't see those things, so therefore your
personality" is the basis for judgment. 121 In this way, the environment foregrounds the
practice that has been observed by Sherry Turkle in text-based virtual worlds – that
users explore multiple identities, or aspects of their personalities while on line. As
McDonough argues: "A fundamental assumption of most of the virtual environment
design community is that users of virtual environments want to be able to portray a self
different than the one they perform offline." 122
120
An avatar file must reside on a public Web site to be used in Cybertown, so that every
participant's computer can access the image to display it. So users either need to know the Web address
of an avatar created by someone else, or they must upload an avatar they have created to a Web site.
121
Cox.
122
McDonough 862.
72

Some users seem to comment against this norm in their use of avatars, however.
One participant, a 37-year-old woman from Washington state who I will call Muse,
makes a habit of wearing overweight avatars, which have become her signature within
the environment. She makes the avatars herself, and she says she creates a new one
each day – though all of them are far more plump than most avatars. (See Figure 10.)
As she pointed out herself: "Not many fat chick avs walking around. When asked why
she uses larger avatars, she replied: "cause I am a fat chick… hah." 123
Users who choose to enter Cybertown as a "visitor" (meaning they haven't
officially registered a character – a process that is free but requires that the user provide
an email address and other personal information) are forced to use the "blue dummy"
avatar mentioned in the example at the beginning of this section. The blue form seems
meant to signal a lack of identity within the virtual world. This blue dummy also
highlights an economy of avatars present within the environment. Avatars become a
sign of how technically savvy (and possibly of how virtually wealthy) a user is. In
many cases, a registered participant who is wearing the default blue avatar usually does
so because he or she does not know how to change bodies, as in the example I
mentioned at the beginning of this section. Meanwhile, a user who has a one-of-a-kind
avatar is often a skilled participant who either purchased avatar software and built his or
her own avatar or paid someone else virtual money to obtain a designer body.
123
Author's Cybertown Chat Log, Cybertown City Plaza, 17 Mar. 2001, 05:26:30 G.M.T.
.
73

Here, Cybertown fulfills one of dystopian prophecies of Neal Stephenson's Snow
Crash. In the novel, economically wealthy or highly skilled users are able to purchase
or create highly realistic, custom-made avatars, while less wealthy or skilled users must
use more generic, Barbie-doll-like virtual bodies. The poorest users of Stephenson's
Metaverse are those who log in from public terminals and who appear as low-
resolution, black-and-white avatars. As Lev Manovich has noted, some of the earliest
3-D environments quickly began to play out a similar economy of virtual bodies. In
fact, Manovich argues, in virtual worlds, realism itself becomes a commodity, since the
quality of the reality effect that a user can evoke becomes quantified – as the amount of
computing power and storage space that it takes to create more conventionally realistic
images. 124 But in Cybertown, it seems that expressing identity, rather than realism, is
the primary goal of people who don avatars. Thus, it seems that in Cybertown, identity
becomes a kind of commodity – taking the convenient and highly portable form of a
small computer file that looks like the body the user would like to be.
Regulation of Bodies
There are a few privileged avatars in Cybertown that can only be held by
designated players. The primary example of privileged avatars is security vehicles –
which are generally avatars of cars or trucks with sirens and the word "security" on
124 Manovich, "The Aesthetics of Virtual Worlds."
74

them. 125 Players who are chosen by Cybertown's staff to hold security positions are the
only ones who are allowed to display these avatars. Security officers circulate
throughout Cybertown and enforce the rules of the environment's constitution. Unlike
typical players, these characters have the power to remove, by technological means,
players who break the rules.
Some types of virtual bodies are officially forbidden in Cybertown. The main
restriction on virtual bodies is size. According to rules, avatars should "fit within a cube
of 1-2 m size," and they should not have more than 500 polygons. 126 In addition, they
should have not more than one texture, and they should be less than 20 kilobytes in file
size. The reason for the rules appears to be primarily technical: large avatars can cause
slower computers to crash when they try to display them. One night a player entered
the plaza wearing a giant white disc-shaped avatar, and he immediately drew a rebuke
from a participant, who sent a message for a security guard to enter. Before a security
volunteer could arrive, the user left the plaza. During its short stay in the plaza, the
white disc avatar slowed all action in the area, making it difficult or impossible for
people to gesture with their virtual bodies. In Cybertown, size literally equates power –
at least the amount of power it takes to draw and redraw the virtual body. A player can
be banned from Cybertown for failing to abide by these size and texture restrictions.
125 In April 2001, new security avatars began appearing. These new avatars are of male and
female humans in skin-tight police uniforms, with the security agent's nickname written on the back of
the shirt. 126 "Avatar Library," Cybertown Web site, 15 April 2001
.
75

Though it is not well documented, avatars can also be banned based on the
content of their imagery. As one Cybertown programmer noted, "if the avatar is to big
or is programmed to do specific things that would be considered rude or annoying it
could be banned." Another programmer whose job it is to review avatars in Cybertown,
described some of the avatars that he has rejected:
I look to make sure the object complies with the Cybertown constitution,
things such as no items of a sexual, racial or violent nature. There are
two main things that I get uploaded, that result in being rejected for
content. I get one or two of these every other month or so. The most
prominent upload is probably items of a sexual nature that aren't
appropriate for a family community. I see a lot of whips and chains :-)
Truthfully, 9 out of 10 times on a rejection for content, the items being
rejected contain wips and chains for some reason.
There are also a few posters that the image file contains something of a
sexual nature, but not too many.
The next most prominant reject for content is because of a violent nature,
these usually seem to be something cutting off a body part and blood
spurting. I don't know if I have ever rejected because of violence except
for body parts being cut off and blood spurting. 127
This programmer's main guideline for judging the appropriateness of avatars is whether
they are "appropriate for a family community." So, as in with chat and visual space
76

within Cybertown, the language of family is invoked to summarize the ideology of
Cybertown's community.
One of the latest security features implemented in Cybertown is a virtual jail,
where rule-breakers can be virtually detained. (See Figure 11.) If a user is imprisoned,
his or her character is trapped in a virtual prison cell and cannot see or speak with other
characters. I have not heard of any virtual prison breaks, but banned characters often
attempt to simply create a new virtual identity and waltz right back into the main plaza.
According to the rules, if a user is caught "re-immigrating to avoid a ban," they will
receive the community's most severe punishment – permanent banishment.
Pre-Programmed Gestures
In Cybertown, each avatar is programmed to perform ten distinct animated
gestures that it can display on command. The ten default motions for pre-programmed
gestures in Cybertown are: waves hello, likes everybody, agrees, smiles, frowns,
disagrees, dislikes everybody, says good-bye, is cool, and laughs. 128 The styles of
performance vary among avatars: Vulcan waves hello differently than BigRed does.
These defaults reflect how designers intend for avatars to be used in Cybertown.
I would group these ten default movements into four main types: gestures of
greeting or politeness (waves hello, says good-bye), gestures of emotion (likes
everybody, smiles, frowns, dislikes everybody, laughs), gestures of opinion (agrees,
127 Leitner.
77

disagrees), and gestures of status (is cool). These categories represent the same themes
of the environment's constitution, which calls for politeness (a call for good manners is
the first article of the Cybertown constitution) and the "harmonious interchange of ideas
and information between community members and between communities." 129
There are two ways for Cybertown users to trigger their avatars to gesture. One
way is to choose from a drop-down menu within the environments' interface to activate
a particular movement sequence. Another way, however, is simply by typing one of the
many words that have been assigned to trigger the movements when they are used in the
text chat. Whenever a participant types the word, "yes," for instance, the avatar makes a
gesture of agreement. Users can alter the software's settings to make any word they
choose trigger any of the ten gestures, though this feature is not well documented, and
most users seem to rely on the default settings. Thirty-four words are set to trigger
gestures in the default state. These words are: hello, hi, howdy, laugh, hey, watch, like,
likes, yes, sure, nods, agree, agrees, smile, smiles, frown, frowns, hate, hates, no, nope,
disagree, disagrees, not, dislike, dislikes, reject, rejects, bye, seeya, goodbye, wave,
waves, and cool. 130 Thus, if a user happens to type, "I hate Madonna," then the user's
avatar would scowl violently. The exact same gesture would be triggered, however, if a
user told another character, "I hate you."
128
"Avatar Wardrobe," My Info Cybertown Web site, 15 April 2001
.
129
"The Cybertown Constitution."
130
"Body Language," Pop-up options window within Cybertown. 15 April 2001.
.
78

Many avatars in Cybertown also have preset gestures that occur periodically
without the user's direct control. If an avatar has not moved for several minutes, for
instance, it will look at its wristwatch or cup a hand over its eyes as if to look for
another avatar.
Finally, users can, in some cases, trigger other avatars in their line of sight to
perform a preset gesture – by clicking on their virtual body with the computer mouse.
In such cases, only the user who did the clicking sees the gesture. To everyone else in
the virtual room, the avatar remains unmoved.
In addition to gesture, users can also move their avatars in expressive ways.
Though the default is for users to "walk" around the virtual space, users can also choose
from one of several types of movement: "fly," "examine," "fly," "pan," and "jump."
Users can also "teleport" to selected locations within a room by choosing the location
from a pull-down menu. Also, by clicking on another user's name in the chat window
and selecting "beam to," a user can instantly teleport to the spot just in front of the
selected user's avatar.
These features highlight that the laws of physics do not govern the virtual space
of Cybertown. The interface promises users a radical freedom of movement. In coding
a mixture of word-triggered, user-instigated, and automatic gestures into Cybertown,
designers seem to be attempting to use the visual channel to convey an atmosphere of a
bustling town in which animated and meaningful conversations regularly take place.
Gesture and movement in Cybertown is marked by excess rather than realism.
Avatars do not merely wave, they extend a hand high in the air and move it downward
79

in slow-motion, or shake it vigorously side to side as if hailing a fast-moving taxi rather
than greeting a nearby friend. Avatars do not simply nod in agreement, they jump up in
the air and click their heels, or they leap into a standing back flip. Sometimes they
appear to vanish, as when they instantly teleport to another location. And avatars never
stop moving for long.
Bodies In Action (and Inaction)
Up until now, I've focused on the restrictions that Cybertown's software and
designers have placed on virtual bodies. But how do Cybertown citizens themselves
make use of virtual bodies?
On a recent evening, about 60 registered users stood in the City Plaza. 131 Not
surprisingly, participants' messages to each other appear rapid-fire in the text chat
window in the lower left portion of the Web browser. The amount of motion in the
graphical portion of the browser, however, was less than one might expect. Despite the
fact that users are free to walk around, fly, or gesture within the electronic space, most
of the virtual bodies stood perfectly still, holding their arms by their sides and
expressing neither motion nor emotion. Occasionally, an avatar would walk into or out
of the frame. For the most part, however, the only movements that avatars made were
automatic ones. These movements are symbols of inactivity rather than agency.
131 Estimate based on visits in December, 2000.
80

In many cases, users do not gather their avatars in close proximity to others, and
so most of these animated avatar gestures go unseen. Because the text chat can be read
no matter where users stand in a virtual room (and even while they are present in the
room in 2-D mode), users can converse with each other without standing within anyone
else's line of sight. And a large number of Cybertown citizens choose to turn off the 3-
D graphics mode during all or part of their stay in the virtual town, opting for the 2-D
mode which allows interactors to participate in the text chat and perform most other
town activities, such as moving from room to room or buying and selling objects. Other
studies of virtual environments report a similar immobility of avatars. McDonough,
who spent two-and-a-half years studying "CyberVerse," for instance, reports that:
As a rule, users simply do not use the facilities within the CyberVerse
software to have their avatars wave, or display anger or happiness.
While these motion features do receive occasional use, it is extremely
rare, and their use to connote the actual emotional state of the user at the
moment is practically non-existent. If the avatar is the extension of the
user’s body in cyberspace, than that body displays an amazing lack of
affect. 132
Though screenshots from McDonough's study reveal that the environment he examined
was not Cybertown, his research site is technologically very similar to Cybertown.
Cybertown's builders and citizens seem unconcerned by the selective use of
avatars and simulated space, and maintain that the graphical communication option is
81

one of the primary draws of the environment. Cox, the marketing director, said that the
availability of the graphical interface is intended to heighten the illusion that users are
entering of a town. "It's kind of immersive," she said, adding, "you feel that you are in
the city and in a place." The 3-D interface also helps set Cybertown apart from MUDs
and other text-based chat environments, she said, by providing a "cool factor."
Most Cybertown citizens I talked to named technical reasons for using 2-D
mode – mainly noting that the 3-D mode was too slow for general use. In some cases,
users reported that the 3-D software plug-in that is required to view the graphical
interface did not work properly on their computers. As one participant, a 22-year-old
male from Italy, put it, "I'm a strict 2der/I did not manage to download the applet."
About 15-20 per cent of Cybertown users participate in the 3-D mode exclusively,
according to Steve Leitner, a Cybertown volunteer who reviews avatars, and at least a
few users appear to use 2-D exclusively. The rest have developed a strategic use of the
simulated space, turning 3-D mode on when they want to communicate visually and off
when they just want to chat or perform routine tasks such as reading through messages
from other users.
"Being in 3d seems slower to me," wrote Chyana, a citizen who holds the title of
Elder 133 and in real life is a 39-year old woman, while she was in 2-D mode shopping
for objects to decorate her house. "I do use 3d," she adds, "but not to shop/ 2d you get
around faster." It is not uncommon, for instance, to see someone in the City Plaza
132 McDonough.
82

write, "Going into 3D," as a way of explaining why their character name is about to
disappear from the chat room for a moment while they re-enter in 3-D mode. Unlike
the fantasies of cyberspace presented in Neuromancer or Snow Crash, simulated space
in Cybertown is not always considered the ideal interface.
Making a Spectacle of Self
There are, however, situations (or scenes) in Cybertown where participants
make explicit use of their virtual bodies.
"Everyone look at my av :)," wrote a neighborhood deputy late one evening. He
had created (or appropriated) an avatar that looked like a grandfather clock, and he was
sliding around the City Plaza. Because the avatar had no arms or legs, its movement
looked haunted. The avatar was unusual for Cybertown, since most participants take
the form of people, aliens, or vehicles. The character attracted the attention of a few
citizens, who either used the "beam to" command to instantly teleport to a spot near the
character, or they turned or walked until they had maneuvered to see the avatar. This
type of peacock-like strutting of virtual plumage by participants is common in public
areas of Cybertown.
Cybertown citizens seem most interested in using bodies as conversation pieces
rather than as simulations of their real-world bodies. In many cases, the most attention-
getting avatars are ones that make references to popular culture, and thus might express
133
The title of "Elder" is given to citizens who have participated in the environment for at least a
year and who are considered valued members of the community.
83

a hobby or interest rather than a racial or ethnic background. One user, named "sith,"
flew around the town's Flea Market in the form of a star destroyer from the Star Wars
films. The avatar even exhibited an unusual special effect; as other avatars approached,
it would automatically shoot (harmless) green laser beams at them. Several players
complimented the user wearing the avatar. "Great avatar sith. you scared me," wrote
one participant. On another evening in the City Plaza, a club assistant wrote, "Come
look at my avatar i am bat man!"
Psychologist John Suler argues that virtual costume wearing in 3-D
environments allows users to express their "personality type" using a visual cue. "The
costume also symbolically highlights aspects of who you are. It amplifies one of your
interests, some facet of your personality or lifestyle, or something you wish for." 134
McDonough found a similar use of body-as-prop – or what he calls "avatar-as-
toy" 135 – in the 3-D environment he examined. He argues that such behavior represents
a distancing of a user from their virtual body, rather than the kind of immersion in the
environment encouraged by virtual-world builders. "The most common use of these
motion features is to make one’s own avatar a subject of display in a way which
distances the avatar from the user directing it." 136 These moments of identity play –
when users dress up or act out to gain attention – only further highlights the observation
that citizens are not usually attentive to subtle nuances of gesture or expression in
134 J. Suler, "The Psychology of Avatars in Graphical Space in Multimedia Chat Communities,"
The Psychology of Cyberspace May 1996, 15 March 2001
.
135 McDonough.
84

Cybertown – at least during routine interactions in public areas. Only by making a
spectacle of one's avatar self can a citizen get other users to beam over and take a look
at the visual cues he or she is sending.
The excesses of avatars can also be read in melodramatic terms. In other words,
the exaggerations of avatar gestures can be seen as a metaphoric expression that
emphasizes a kind of moral order in social interactions. Brooks argues that in
melodrama, meanings are frequently inscribed on the body:
Virtual Displays of Affection
It is, of course, in the logic of melodramatic acting out that the body
itself must pay the stakes of the drama: the body of the villain is
publically branded with its identity, exposed in a formal judgment scene,
then, if not put to death in hand-to-hand combat, driven from the stage
and banished from human society; while the body of persecuted virtue is
at first expressionistically distorted, as in a hysterical conversation, then
is rewarded, feted, married, and emblazoned with all the signs of the
public recognition of its nature. 137
One afternoon in the Flea Market – an area where users can trade virtual
possessions – two avatars stood face-to-face gazing into each other's virtual eyes. One
avatar looked like a princess, with a white gown. The other looked like a tough, burly
136 McDonough.
137 Brooks 19.
85

woman. The princess said "hi gal," causing her avatar to wave. Since the two
characters were standing so close together, it looked as if the princess was affectionately
petting the other one. The burly character replied in kind, "hi gal," which triggered the
same motion, in what certainly looked like a public display of affection. (See Figure
12.)
I saw this couple standing face to face on several different occasions. Once, I
asked the burly one, who I wil call Bolt, why they did this. "lol we just like each other
av's so stand close," said the user. 138
It seemed to me at first that these two characters were using the visual interface
of Cybertown to express affection between two women – a topic that is apparently
banned from the text chat. But when I asked the gender of the burly avatar, he said he
was male. Thus, the images were intended as an expression of heterosexual desire, and
I had simply misread one of the avatars.
In any case, users occasionally position their avatars close together to simulate
an intimate face-to-face encounter. One occasion in which this virtual gaze is employed
is at weddings. It is difficult to determine how often weddings take place, but several
users I talked to said they had been married in the environment at least once. When I
asked one 14-year user if she had gotten married in Cybertown, she quipped, "yeah/like
138
Author's Cybertown Chat Log, Cybertown Flea Market, 7 Dec. 2000, 22:17:09 E.S.T.
.
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5 billion times." 139 One citizen even set up a public "club" called "st.pauls" and
decorated it like a church for the purpose of staging weddings. Bolt showed me a
virtual photo album from his own wedding. The virtual album contained six screen
shots from Bolt's virtual ceremony.
One of the only weddings I witnessed firsthand was one I stumbled in on – and
accidentally interrupted. It was held in the Flea Market on a Thursday afternoon, while
other users continued to buy and sell objects. The Flea Market is a large structure that
looks like a warehouse, with several numbered stages where people can display virtual
goods for sale. This wedding, which was officiated by a Flea Market deputy, took place
in the middle of one of these stages. The bride and groom stood close together facing
each other, with the virtual priest standing in front of them and a few onlookers
gathered nearby. The officiate, nicknamed Priest, asked everyone to be quiet, and then
he paused to give everyone time to switch to 3-D for the ceremony.
"Please everyone please be quiet while the wedding is going/ ok waiting for
them to go 3d if they wish." It seems clear that Priest is marking this occasion as a
moment where switching to 3-D mode is optimal. After a few minutes – and several
comments from people still chatting and selling objects – the wedding began. Below is
a transcript of what the officiate, the bride, and the groom wrote:
Priest: All who are in the fleamarket here are as witnesses for the
joining of Bride and Groom.
139
Author's Cybertown Chat Log, Cybertown Shopping Mall, 16 Dec. 2000, 03:09:23 E.S.T.
.
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Priest: these two have asked to be joined in Cybertown as virtual wife
& husband. If there are any who would stop them from joining say so
now.
Groom: !!!!!!
Bride: holds Groom's hand
Priest: ok now since no one is gonna make them part
Priest: Under the moonlight night of CT & lights of the flea market, do
you Groom take Bride to be your virtual wife to have & hold, cherish &
love til your parting days?
Priest: if so say I do
Groom: white/ i do
Bride: I do
Groom: ok And you, Bride, do you take Groom to be your virtual
husband to have & hold, cherish & love til your parting days?
Bride: Ido
Priest: Now with the power vested me from Lady, the high elder and
FMC, 140 I pronounce you two as husband & wife joined in the
matrimony of cyberdom to generously be marketeers all your days
together.
After the ceremony, several guests offered virtual gifts to the bride or groom.
140
"FMC" refers to the Flea Market. The "marketeers" quip seems to refer to the couple's
involvement with running the Flea Market.
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Though the flea market setting for this ceremony might be considered non-traditional,
the wedding itself seemed to mimic a Christian wedding in the placement of the
participants and the content of the service. It seems that in virtual weddings, avatars are
used as props to stage a ritual meant to signify intimacy between two participants.
Though weddings occur in text-based environments as well, 141 3-D space is used in
Cybertown to visually enhance the simulation of the ritual gestures associated with
weddings – and thus, to simulate an enactment of romantic love.
During the ceremony, the computer user controlling the bride or the groom
literally gazed into their spouse's virtual eyes, since the computer screen would have
shown a close-up of the other avatar's face while the two characters stood facing each
other. These virtual gazes are so meaningful to participants that some even save
screenshots to place in virtual wedding albums. The 3-D space helps bring shape,
meaning, and memory to the ritual wedding experience.
It is largely, as a technical matter, impossible for Cybertown users to
consummate these virtual weddings within the virtual environment. For one thing,
overt sexual expression is not allowed in public areas of the virtual world. Though it is
possible that users perform engage in cyber sex in private areas, physical intercourse is
impossible while users are sitting at computers at different physical locations. In many
ways, then, the desire expressed at virtual weddings is a kind of forbidden fruit – one
that can be staged metaphorically but never fully enjoyed.
141 I witnessed several while I was a member of LambdaMOO in 1994.
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Film melodrama also often figures the desire of the main character (generally
female desire) as one that is forbidden. Melodrama, argues Maria Laplace, features "a
particular mise-en-scene of female desire that focuses on the lovers' faces and, in
particular, the eyes and mouth." Laplace points to the 1942 film Now Voyager, in
which Charlotte (Bette Davis) and Jerry (Paul Henreid) are confined by circumstances
to what might as well be a virtual reality romance. Charlotte tells Jerry she is convinced
that "you and I were so in sympathy, so one, that you'd know without being asked what
would make me happy." But the two are unable to marry because Jerry is already
(unhappily) married and feels that he must stay with his wife out of a sense of duty. In
the final scene, the two negotiate a solution that combines ritual gesture and gazing.
Jerry offers, "Shall we just have a cigarette on it?" and performs a gesture that recurs
several times in the film – he takes two cigarettes and lights both of them in his mouth
before passing one to Charlotte. By this point in the film, the gesture has become
almost robotic in its repetition – like the gestures performed by Cybertown's avatars.
Precisely because of its excessive and ritual nature, however, it comes to serve as a
virtual union – either spiritually, erotically, or both – for the two.
Charlotte has the last word, as the two stand in front of the window gazing into
each other's eyes while the camera pans up to a shot of the starry night sky. This gaze
takes the lovers away from their bodies and off to the stars. As Laplace notes, "These
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'looks at' finally culminate in 'looking into' each others' eyes as they grow to know each
other; it is this intimate gaze that marks the erotic." 142
Depictions of Race
Three-dimensional virtual environments foreground the idea of a virtual body,
and thus they offer the possibility of routinely signaling race in ways that many text-
based environments do not allow. In text-based environments race has largely been
comletely left off of the descriptions that users are asked to write for their virtual
characters. As Lisa Nakamura noted: "Race is not only not a required choice, it is not
even on the menu." 143 A similar resistence to racial issues is evident in Cybertown as
well, however. Cybertown's designers attempt to keep actual race issues out of the
virtual town by depicting all races in a cartoon form. "I think [Cybertown] takes that
kind of thing out of the equation to some extent," Cox said. To help ensure that racist
remarks are not made, the Cybertown constitution bans "blatant expressions of bigotry,
racism, hatred, or profanity." 144
Cybertown's leaders may try to render race irrelevant in this 3-D environment,
but, interestingly, the idea of race is not absent in the environment's official stroyline.
The one attempt to discuss race in Cybertown's narrative – that of the Morph Wars that
pit native Cybertown residents against alien invaders – also allows participants to easily
take either side. Even when players do take their fictional races seriously, these races
142 McDonough 159.
143 Nakamura.
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are clearly imaginary. Thus, the science-fictional race narrative of Cybertown deflects
real-world race issues into an abstract realm. In this realm, it is 'no big deal,' to inhabit
the body of someone of another race.
144 "The Cybertown Constitution."
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Back to the Future
CONCLUSION: SIMULATIONS OF LIFE
While the theme and technology of Cybertown are decidedly futuristic, the
environment shares many properties of the age-old genre of melodrama – both in its
structural features and its content.
The story of Cybertown is one that foregrounds issues of family, domesticity,
consumerism and the individual's role in society. The setting of many social
interactions within the environment is the virtual home, and, as in melodrama, the
excesses in decorations in these architectural interiors can be seen as visual markers of
the interior of a character's psyche – and thus a window into the user's (virtual) identity.
As in melodramas in other media, Cybertown attempts to portray a world ruled
by a strict sense of moral order, where there are clear distinctions between right and
wrong. Those who violate the rules of the environment are branded as villains and
punished by virtual imprisonment or banishment. The explicit ideology of Cybertown
is one that celebrates bourgeois values, where strong family relations are key to
happiness and where identity is crafted through consumption. When users attempt to
discuss subjects that call these sanctioned values into question – such as when a user
attempted to discuss female homosexuality – such talk is suppressed by designers and
participants. The potentially controversial social issue of race does find expression
within Cybertown – since many virtual bodies depict some kind of race. But designers
and participants seem to go out of their way to render race irrelevant where it does
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appear within the representation. Since anyone can choose to render herself in any
color or shape, virtual bodies in Cybertown bypass issues of race to deal instead with
issues of class. It seems that one of the primary goals of many participants in
Cybertown is to gain status within the community. If one's virtual race is not deemed
important, virtual class – measured numerically in experience points and CityCash and
more subtly in demonstrations of technical skill – is foregrounded. As Cox herself says:
"How come when you go and you play a video game you want to get that highest
number and you want your name up there? … It's a status thing." 145
As in melodramas in other media, Cybertown promises a world of strong
emotions and highly meaningful social interactions. Many long-time Cybertown users
emphasize that it is "like a family," and that they feel close attachments to other
participants. Though most Cybertown participants have never seen each other face-to-
face, they often stage simulations of being face-to-face. Some participants express their
emotional interest in other users by positioning their avatars directly in front of the
other's avatar, creating a scene in which they gaze into each other's virtual eyes. And
many participants engage in the ritual of the virtual wedding, which generally features
this romantic virtual gaze as the central attraction. Sex itself cannot be represented in
Cybertown – as any overt sexual expression is against the rules of Cybertown. Instead,
attraction between users is figured as one that transcends physical copulation, existing
on an emotional or spiritual plane. Many participants I talked to suggested that forging
relationships in Cybertown made them better people in real life. As a male club
145 Cox.
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assistant put it: "The point of cybertown is to meet new people have fun share
experiences and thus broaden us all as people."
As in melodramas in other media, the body becomes a privileged site of
punishment and reward in Cybertown. The virtual bodies of those who repeatedly
break the rules are confined to a virtual prison, while participants with clean records can
win the right to wear virtual bodies reserved for "elders" and security officials. In their
excess, these representations strive for clarity, assuring everyone who sees them that
their status – and the system of meaning within the virtual space – bears a larger
meaning.
The promise of Cybertown seems to be the virtual achievement of the American
dream: that anyone who works hard enough and assimilates to sanctioned social
behaviors can rise to the highest level of wealth and social status. However, when
contradictions arise and when this utopian vision is challenged – such as when an
argument broke out among security officials over how to enforce the rules –
Cybertown's designers and participants work hard to suppress evidence of the strife. It
seems that, like a classical Hollywood film, Cybertown wants to deliver happy endings,
even if its staging of status and power occasionally breeds disagreements among
characters.
Brooks argues that melodrama can be understood as an effort to demonstrate the
existence of a higher moral or spiritual truth underlying human experience. He traces
the history of the genre back to the time of the French Revolution – a time when
religion and other belief systems began to be called into questions by enlightenment
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concepts of science and reason. "Melodrama does not simply represent a 'fall' from
tragedy, but a response to the loss of the tragic vision. It comes into being in a world
where the traditional imperatives of truth and ethics, their instauration as a way of life,
is of immediate, daily, political concern." 146 In a sense, Brooks argues that melodrama
assures middle-class viewers that their own daily lives have meaning. Similarly,
Elsaesser argues that melodramas emerge during periods of "intense social and
ideological crisis." 147
Cybertown has emerged at a historical moment marked by swift societal
changes facilitated by technology. The current information revolution has aroused both
utopian visions and anxieties about whether computing technology leads to
unprecedented alienation. In fact, some participants say that they enter Cybertown
looking to alleviate loneliness. As a woman nicknamed Sexydeb put it: "A lot of people
here are lonely, I think. They come here for entertainment." Cybertown promises not
only the comfort of a virtual family, but its ideology and melodramatic portrayals
reassures users that whether they are on or off line, the world is still governed by basic
principles of right and wrong.
If film melodrama is often described as an "imitation of life" 148 – presenting a
representation of seemingly mundane aspects of social life – then Cybertown offers a
simulation of life. Virtual citizens of this 3-D environment are not simply spectators.
146
Brooks 60.
147
Elsaesser 70.
148
Imitation of Life is the title of a popular film melodrama produced in 1934 and remade in
1959. It is also the title of a volume of essays on film melodramas.
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They are active participants in the representation presented on the computer screen.
Participants are interactors who take on roles within the dominant community narrative,
playing the parts of security guards, mayors, or even of troublemakers. As I've tried to
demonstrate, this 3-D virtual world is not simply a realistic portrayal of participants and
their social relations, however, but a highly exaggerated, participatory melodrama.
Cybertown's formula seems to have resonated with many Internet users: the
environment was named a "Best Chat" site of 2001 by Yahoo! Internet Life magazine. 149
Cybertown is not the only 3-D virtual world to enact exaggerated depictions of
seemingly mundane social interactions. A more recent example is the enormously
popular video game The Sims, in which participants design a virtual character and
virtual home and manipulate various scenarios. 150 The original version of the game
only allowed users to run a simulation on their own computer in isolation, but a newer
version lets players interact with other simulated people over the Internet. In a review
of The Sims, video game critic J.C. Herz found that the game also offered a not-so-
subtle ideological message that reinforced capitalism. As she wrote: "The Sims live in
a perfect consumer society where more stuff makes you happier, period. There's nothing
else. So your goals in SimLife are purely material: Work your way up the job ladder so
149 Alan Cohen, "100 Best Sites for 2001" Yahoo! Internet Life March 2001, 20 April 2001
.
150 The Sims, Maxis Software, CD-ROM, 2000.
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you can earn more money, so you can buy more furniture, a bigger house and more
toys." 151
And, as noted earlier, the discourse of virtual worlds has long argued that the
technology's major benefit is in creating what amounts to an interactive soap opera.
From the text-based domestic space of LambdaMOO to the fictional character of
Juanita in Snow Crash to the virtual 3-D homes within Cybertown, the history of virtual
worlds has been one that promises to tame the frontier of the Internet and turn it into a
place where people can, as Rheingold noted, "exchange pleasantries and argue, engage
in intellectual discourse, conduct commerce, exchange knowledge, share emotional
support, make plans, brainstorm, gossip, feud, fall in love, find friends and lose them,
play games, flirt, create a little high art and a lot if idle talk." 152 A consistent goal of
virtual world designers has been to bypass textual expression and allow computer users
to simulate body language and other nonverbal cues. This has also been a trait that
marks melodramatic texts, as Brooks observes: "Much late eighteenth-century
reflection on the nature of language and its origins tends to the view that gesture is the
first and ultimately the most passionate form of communication, that which comes to
the fore when the code of verbal language lapses into inadequacy." 153 Cybertown seems
to promise to bring passion (rather than physical sex) to cyberspace.
151
J.C. Herz, "The Sims Who Die With the Most Toys Win" New York Times on the Web, 10
Feb. 2000, 21 April 2001
.
152
Rheingold 8.
153
Brooks 19-20.
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The important distinction between virtual worlds and the "real" one is that in
virtual worlds, people leave their bodies behind and replace them with representations.
Baudrillard argues that the era of simulation is upon us, and that we live in a hyperreal
world where even our off-line behavior is enacted within a kind of simulation.
Understanding 3-D environments as melodramas suggests that people might be drawn
to these clearly simulated worlds as a way of coping with the vagaries and uncertainty
of the complex world of signs that postmodern subjects inhabit. Or, perhaps the
interactive nature of Cybertown is a sign that participants embrace the increasingly
hyperreal world we live in, where the boundaries between virtual and real seem more
and more fuzzy.
The technology that makes 3-D virtual worlds possible is improving at a rapid
pace, and many designers say they are working to make their 3-D environments even
more detailed and immersive. At the present moment, virtual reality appears to be in its
silent era, since many virtual worlds do not directly support two-way voice
communication, and instead rely on a combination of text chat, visual elements, and
simple music and sound effects. 154 Sound seems sure to emarge, as well as better image
quality – just as it did with cinema. Cybertown, for instance, is planning to release a
new version of its environment called Cybertown Next Generation, that promises more
photo-realistic images, a larger and "more immersive" 3-D window, and even voice
154
It is technically possible for users to run a voice chat software program while also
participating in a virtual world, though this feature is generally not integrated into the environments.
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chat. 155 As these simulated environments become more sophisticated and more popular,
they call out for closer study by scholars and critics.
Limitations of This Study
In my analysis, I have tried to emphasize melodramatic features of Cybertown.
This is not meant to suggest, however, that other narrative genres are not also drawn
upon within the environment.
The genre of science fiction, for instance, is frequently referred to by designers
and participants, and, as I noted, the marketing materials cite science fiction as their
main theme. Science-fiction film theory might also help to decode representations
within Cybertown and other 3-D environments. Vivian Sobchack's work on science-
fiction film would be a starting point for such a study. 156
Cybertown also draws on aspects of animation – especially considering that the
3-D environment is drawn rather than photographed. A useful study could be done
comparing Cybertown or other 3-D environments with animated films or television
shows.
It is also important to note that I focused on the most well traveled areas of
Cybertown, which could suggest that these are the only areas within the virtual world.
In fact, the environment is huge, with dozens of public areas and hundreds of private
155
"Vision: Cybertown NG is the next generation of online communities," Cybertown Web site.
2001, 21 April 2001 .
156
Vivian Sobchack, The American Science Fiction Film, 1950-75 (South Brunswick and New
York: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1980).
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ones. I did spend some time exploring such areas as the Café, the Library, Sunset
Beach, the Pool, the Stadium, the Fun Park, the Water Park, and City Hall, but I felt it
was beyond the scope of this project to provide a detailed description of the entire
virtual world.
Some critics have argued that video games and other 3-D environments should
not be compared to film because they are so different structurally. In his recent work on
video games, Steven Poole argues that: "The comparison between the forms – initially
so inviting because they both look like they are doing similar things – is in the final
analysis an informatively limited one" 157 I disagree, and I hope this work might serve as
an indication of the possibilities of applying film theory to video games and virtual
worlds. Poole goes on to clarify his point by saying that there can be no dramatic irony
within an interactive representation such as a video game:
When Janet Leigh mounts the staircase of the Bates Motel in Psycho,
Hitchcock deliberately chooses a very tight shot on her hand moving up
the banister, inducing tension through dramatic irony, as we know what
awaits her at the top of the stairs, although she does not. But there can
be no dramatic irony in videogames; because dramatic irony depends on
a knowledge differential between spectator and protagonist – yet in a
videogame the player is both spectator and protagonist at once. 158
157
Steven Poole, Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution (New York:
Arcade Publishing, 2000) 89.
158
Poole 81.
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I would counter that there are both drama and irony in Cybertown, in part
because of the clash between designers and users. Like film directors, designs hold a
privileged position of power with far more control over the environment than users.
Certainly, however, there are fundamental difference between films and 3-D
environments, and I have tried to take those differences into account in my analysis.
The software plugin that displays Cybertown automatically logs all text
discussions that a user sees, and I used the logs from my sessions for this paper. The
software does not log images, however. I included several screenshots to try to convey
the sense of the visual aspects of the environment. Once Cybertown changes to its new
interface, however, it might be difficult or impossible for other researchers to observe
the environment first-hand.
This research also raised novel ethical questions, to which I tried to remain
sensitive. On one occasion, a virtual user asked for virtual payment in exchange for
answering my questions. I gave this user a set of decorative palm trees worth about
$200 CityCash, but I did not use his interview in the study. I later decided that I would
not compensate participants for their responses, even if this compensation consisted of
virtual rather than real money. In the future, however, researchers might consider
whether virtual payment is appropriate, as it would likely attract a large number of
participants and would be relatively cheap in real dollars.
The research methods for this study were approved by Georgetown University's
Institutional Review Board (reference #01-071).
102