Exploring the Cultures of Virtual Worlds with Tom Boellstorff

文摘   科技   2024-08-16 19:01   辽宁  

Virtual worlds have become an integral part of modern life, experiencing rapid growth and deep integration into our daily routines. Especially in the realm of gaming, these digital spaces have evolved from simple entertainment platforms to complex ecosystems where millions of users engage, socialize, and even conduct business.


With the extensive human participation in these virtual worlds, unique cultures have started to emerge and thrive. The intricate social dynamics and cultural phenomena present in these spaces make virtual worlds a fascinating subject for anthropological research. 














 Tom Boellstorff 



To delve deep into the anthropological mysteries of virtual worlds, we are delighted to have Professor Tom Boellstorff from the University of California, Irvine with us today. Professor Boellstorff has been researching virtual worlds for nearly two decades, with his landmark studies focusing on the popular online virtual world Second Life. This virtual world, which has attracted millions of people worldwide, allows users, known as "residents," to create avatars, explore environments, and interact with others in a rich, immersive experience. In 2008, Professor Boellstorff published his groundbreaking book Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human, providing a comprehensive examination of cultures in Second Life and serves as a valuable resource for future researchers in the field.

Our conversation will cover the origins and development of virtual worlds, the importance of studying them through an anthropological perspective, and the emergent cultures within Second Life.  Additionally, we will explore the role of companies that create and manage these virtual worlds and delve into the ethnographic methods Professor Boellstorff employs in his research.

The audio interview with Professor Tom Boellstorff:

This is an edited text: 


Virtual Worlds













▮ The Nexus: Professor Boellstorff, welcome to The Nexus. And thank you for being here with us today. Before we start, please introduce yourself.

Tom Boellstorff: My name is Tom Boellstorff, and I'm a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, which is near Los Angeles in the United States.

▮ The Nexus: Thank you for the introduction. And let's start with the fascinating virtual worlds. Can you share your definition of virtual worlds?

Tom Boellstorff: Yes, I've been studying virtual worlds for almost 20 years, which is hard to believe. Virtual worlds are places on the internet. And that makes them different from social media platforms, which are not shared places but media. So like in English, we say you go into a virtual world, you go into Minecraft, or you go into Second Life. But you go on Facebook, because they are media.

That's also different than virtual reality (VR), which sounds similar because it has the word virtual, but in the case of virtual reality, "virtual" refers to an interface. It means wearing goggles or a headset that provides a different kind of experience, but you can use VR on a computer that's not even connected to the internet. For instance, you could use a VR interface to play a flight simulator on a computer that's not connected to the internet at all. You can go into a virtual world with a VR headset, but you can also just use a regular screen, which is still what most people are doing. In fact, the earliest virtual worlds were composed completely of text, and some still are. Such virtual worlds just use a description in words, but they are still virtual worlds.

▮ The Nexus: Yes, thank you. And next, let's explore the origins of virtual worlds. So what were the roots of virtual worlds?

Tom Boellstorff: It depends on how far back you want to go. The telephone can be considered an early virtual world, because if you're on a phone call with someone, in a sense you are in a shared place with the other person on the call.

Here's an image from my book Coming of Age in Second Life:


The origins of VIDEOPLACE (from Myron Krueger's book Artificial Reality (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1983), page 126; reprinted in Coming of Age in Second Life (page 44).


The first virtual world, as we understand it today, was created in the 1970s and was called VIDEOPLACE. It basically began when Myron Kreuger, a researcher at a university campus, had a friend in a different building. They put cameras on each other so that their two hands appeared together in the same space, like you see at the bottom there, even though they were in two different rooms. When the friend moved his finger, Myron noticed that the friend pulled his hand back as if he thought they were going to touch. They were in a shared place! This early experiment is considered one of the origin stories of virtual worlds.

Another origin of virtual worlds can be traced back to MUDs (Multi-User Domains). The first MUD was created in 1978. But how one defines the origins of virtual worlds can vary. What we consider today's virtual worlds, like Fortnite or Roblox, couldn't come into being until we had fast internet connections. The early 2000s saw the emergence of virtual worlds, many of which were very game-oriented, like Ultima Online and EverQuest.

▮ The Nexus: What role did the technology play in their development?

Tom Boellstorff: You can't have a virtual world without the internet. Before broadband internet speeds, you could use a modem to access virtual worlds, but were largely limited to text-based ones due to the slow connection. (There were, however, graphical virtual worlds even in the early period, in particular Habitat, which was first released in 1985). So the internet is a very important technology. Faster, more widespread internet connections meant more people could access virtual worlds and they could also become more complex, with more detailed graphics, larger numbers of people in one place, voice, and other possibilities. In addition, the development of graphics chips and other kinds of technologies has been important as well. 

▮ The Nexus: Yes, it's a shared place and you have to communicate with other people.

Tom Boellstorff: That's right. But you can visit a virtual world and be by yourself, too. Based on my research and that of many others, sometimes people go online to get away from others. They want to be alone. That happened a lot during COVID. People often found themselves in an apartment with their family and friends, and would spend time on their island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons to escape from other people.

▮ The Nexus: It's like getting rid of the chaos.

Tom Boellstorff: Quiet time.

▮ The Nexus: Professor, the next question is, why is it important to study virtual worlds from an anthropological perspective?

Tom Boellstorff: I'm a cultural anthropologist, not an archaeologist who digs up artifacts from the past. I study human interaction, culture, and the social worlds we all live in. There are people in virtual worlds, so there's culture in virtual worlds. We want to understand that culture and how physical-world culture shapes it. For example, how do people from a particular cultural context in the physical world shape virtual-world cultures? What aspects of virtual-world cultures are emergent and can't be traced directly back to any single physical-world culture? New things are happening in virtual worlds, and new communities are creating new cultures. It's crucial to understand those cultures because what happens online is very important for us, both online and offline. What's changing? What's not changing? How are different virtual worlds different? Some virtual worlds are more game-oriented, while others focus on socializing, work, or education. Many of them do multiple things. How does all of this shape culture in every sense of that term?


Coming of Age in Second Life














Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human

▮ The Nexus: Professor, now let's move on to your research in Second Life. Among all the available virtual worlds, why did you choose Second Life for your research?

Tom Boellstorff: One of the secrets to any kind of research, including anthropological research, is you have to make choices. You have to choose what you're going to study, because you can't study everything. When I started exploring virtual worlds 20 years ago, I examined three or four different options and became very interested in Second Life. Back then, it was quite small, with only about 5,000 residents. I've also done research in Animal Crossing and other virtual worlds as well in the years since.

Part of the decision is always based on opportunity, but it was also a good fit for my research. Second Life is a very flexible virtual world, which made it relatively easy for me to do ethnographic work.

▮ The Nexus: Are there any other current virtual worlds that offer unique opportunities for anthropological research?

Tom Boellstorff: Oh, absolutely. Many other anthropologists have studied various virtual worlds. Some have researched World of Warcraft, while others have written about YouTube, which, although a media platform, has some aspects of a virtual world. There are so many different virtual worlds that have been studied, including Roblox, Minecraft and Eve Online. They're all very interesting to study. The biggest virtual worlds are very game oriented, so game studies can make a real contribution. 

Just like in the physical world, where every place and country has something unique to offer, virtual worlds also have something to teach us. 

▮ The Nexus: OK. Then what interesting discoveries have you made regarding how Second Life culture shapes identity? Is there a clear boundary between virtual selfhood and actual selfhood?

Tom Boellstorff: There's no single answer because people engage with virtual worlds in many different ways, whether they're more game-oriented or more open-ended like Second Life. In Second Life, some people have a very clear boundary between virtual selfhood and actual selfhood. They create identities that are completely different from their physical-world identities, and no one knows who they are in the physical world.

In other cases, people reveal their physical-world identities in Second Life. I'm like that, because I want people to recognize me as a researcher. However, in Second Life, you can have more than one avatar, much like having more than one Gmail account, so you can have multiple identities. Many people have three, four or even more avatars, with some having clear boundaries and others not. 

I think we'll see this trend continue in virtual worlds. For instance, if you're a teacher in a virtual world, you need your students to know who you are, but when you're done with work, you may want to kill some dragons, and you might use a different avatar that has no connection to your physical-world identity.

The structure of virtual worlds, or anything online, is influenced by various factors. For instance, social media like Facebook try to connect you to your physical-world identity. So it is often shaped not only by the interests and desires of the person, but also by the platform's governance and structure. 

▮ The Nexus: Yes. There are many possibilities. It depends. Now, let's talk about relationships. How do virtual relationships in Second Life impact the dynamics of existing committed relationships in the actual world, especially concerning issues of fidelity and trust?

Tom Boellstorff: In that regard as well, there is huge variation. Sometimes people who are in a relationship in the physical world continue their relationship as a couple in Second Life. Sometimes people who are single in the physical world may have a relationship in Second Life or the other way around. There are also cases where someone has a partner in the physical world but a different partner online, and sometimes the partner in the physical world knows, and sometimes they don't. There's a wide range of possibilities, and this is just one example of an issue that isn't unique to virtual worlds. For example, dating apps like Tinder and Bumble often lead to similar situations, as do email, texting, and messaging platforms like WhatsApp and WeChat, where people can have relationships that are different from their physical-world relationships. 

I don't think there's a huge difference in virtual worlds just because you have an avatar and a shared space. The issues of trust and how to handle them are quite similar to what happens online more generally.  

▮ The Nexus: Yes. Here is a question about the technical capabilities of Second Life. Second life introduced voice capabilities in 2007, and that was a significant change. But it sparked a heated debate among its residents. So why did residents react so strongly at the time? And have they adapted to those capabilities over time?

Tom Boellstorff: This is an interesting issue that happens with any platform when the platform changes what's possible. For instance, Twitter (now X), used to have a 140-character limit for posts, which was then changed to 280. Platforms frequently update and change their features, which can have social consequences and be quite controversial. A great example of this is when Tumblr banned adult content in 2018, and a lot of people left the platform.

When Second Life introduced voice in 2007, there were two main areas of debate. Number one, hearing someone's voice can make it easier to gather information about who they are in the physical world, with regard to region, gender, or even age. For people who wanted to have a clear boundary between their online and offline identities, the presence of voice threatened that. For instance, if I am a man but want to be a woman in Second Life, text allows me to do so without revealing my physical-world identity. However, if I use voice, people might know my actual gender. 

Another issue around the introduction of voice involved disability. Deaf or hearing-impaired persons could be excluded by voice, but blind people or visually-impaired persons could find new inclusion. In addition, many virtual worlds have participants from around the world. An advantage of text in this regard is that for many persons not fluent in English, it is easier to read and type than speak.

What ended up happening in Second Life, like many virtual worlds, is that voice and text often coexist. For instance, music performances are important in a lot of virtual worlds like Second Life. If you're at a concert and someone is singing, using your voice can disrupt the performance, but typing your comments won't get in the way. You can express your appreciation by typing "I love that song" without interrupting the performance. 

People have definitely adapted to voice capabilities in many ways, but this example highlights a broader issue: these platforms are created by companies and are frequently updated, and those changes can have consequences.

▮ The Nexus: Yes. Professor, you just mentioned people with disabilities. So my question here is, I know you did research on people with disabilities in virtual worlds. Can you tell us more about it?

Tom Boellstorff: Sure. People with disabilities have been online from the very beginning, doing very creative things, including within virtual worlds. Since there are many different types of disabilities, the impact of virtual worlds can vary widely.

For example, some people with disabilities have mobility limitations. For such people, virtual worlds can be a great way to socialize, access education, or work. People with disabilities I've worked with have reminded me how many of them were doing remote work long before COVID-19. They were far ahead of everyone else in that sense. 

For people with sensory disabilities using a combination of text and speech can be helpful, as well as connecting with others who have similar disabilities to build community. For people with some forms of autism, who have trouble reading facial expressions, having an avatar can be very comforting and facilitate social interaction. Overall, people with disabilities have found many creative ways to engage in virtual worlds. This offers valuable insights for those without disabilities on how virtual worlds can be designed to be more inclusive and accessible for everyone.

Furthermore, you can be born with a disability,but many of us become disabled during our lives, because of a disease or an accident or aging. So disability is something that's a category that anyone could enter in an instant, and most of us will eventually. People often talk about being temporarily able-bodied, acknowledging that many of us may face some form of disability at some point. That's another reason why there's so much to learn from people who are disabled. It's a real missed opportunity when companies design virtual worlds in ways that are inaccessible to people with disabilities. Often, there are simple solutions to improve accessibility that benefit everyone.

▮ The Nexus: Professor, my next question is about social inequality. Does the virtual world of Second Life exhibit social inequalities similar to those in the actual world? If so, what are the major contributors to those inequalities?

Tom Boellstorff: Yes, there are lots of inequalities and some are related to physical-world inequalities. There's class in the most basic sense of it. If you don't have money for a good computer or a fast internet connection, accessing virtual worlds can be difficult. In some virtual worlds, you need to pay to gain access initially. Some virtual worlds like Second Life are free, but to own land in Second Life, you have to pay money, or you can be "homeless." You might be able to join a group with land to overcome this, but it still reflects underlying economic and class inequalities. 

Some virtual worlds can be accessed on a cell phone or smartphone, such as an iPhone. Second Life has just created an app so that you can use Second Life with an iPhone, but you can only do certain things on it. Most virtual worlds need a computer, laptop or gaming console, like an Xbox or a PlayStation. These are not cheap. Sometimes it costs $60 or more for the online game or virtual world, or there may be a monthly fee, so not everyone can afford access. 

There are also inequalities around knowledge and status. If you're a newbie, you might not know how to do basic things, such as walking and building. Someone else might know much more, have more friends, and hold a higher social status. These kinds of inequalities about skill and knowledge often happen whenever you enter a new place.

▮ The Nexus: Yes, I think especially in those game worlds, you have to pay to level up. Professor, it has been over 15 years since the initial publication of your book Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human, so what significant changes or improvements have occurred in Second Life during this period? And how have the residents responded?

Tom Boellstorff: There have been a lot of changes in things that you can do in Second Life. For instance, you can now create mesh objects, which are three-dimensional objects made with programs like Blender. There have been improvements to the graphics and new features, such as the ability to join more groups. The virtual world itself has also expanded in size. However, many aspects remain similar to 15 years ago — the basics are pretty much the same. 

We see in other virtual worlds as well that there are ongoing updates and changes to the virtual world. For some of these virtual worlds, this can be a challenge, particularly if the virtual world has a lot of user-generated content, like Minecraft, Roblox, or Second Life. There's a challenge that if you update it too much, the things that people made might not work anymore. It's challenging for virtual worlds to balance backward compatibility with the need to update and introduce new features, especially when dealing with user-generated content.



Companies Behind Virtual Worlds
















▮ 
The Nexus: Okay. Professor, let's talk about the concept you established in your book. It is called creationist capitalism. What does it mean? And is it unique to virtual worlds?

Tom Boellstorff: That was a term I came up with to consider how capitalism is changing in virtual worlds and online more generally. For example, if I want to make 100 cars, I need more metal, rubber and other materials. I also need the idea for the car. However, if I create a virtual car, I only need the idea; making 100 of them is just copying and pasting. I don't need more materials, really almost nothing. The idea of the car is really where the money comes from; it is where the value is located online. But this isn't unique to Second Life. It's also true for an image or a YouTube video. For example, a viral YouTube video, like a cute dog clip, can make the creator famous with minimal production cost.

Now imagine 50 years ago: if you wanted a million copies of the film Gone with the Wind, you would have to produce more copies, which would take time and money. You can't just go viral in 24 hours, because making a million copies of Gone with the Wind and showing it in a million theaters is a lot of time and trouble compared to a hundred, because you need the physical materials, a movie theater, chairs and so on. But making a YouTube video, whether it's one or a million, costs almost the same. Consider the Beatles 50 years ago. For their popular song "Yesterday," if they wanted to sell 100,000 copies, they had to produce 100,000 records and deliver them to stores for sale. However, if a Taylor Swift song sells a million downloads, the extra cost to the record company is almost nothing. Whether it's a hundred, a thousand or a billion downloads, it's pure profit. They don't have to make the records. That's creationist capitalism. Many people, not just me, are thinking about how this affects economics. I know you wanted to ask about the role of Second Life's developer playing in this. The idea here is user-generated content. Linden Lab, the company that owns Second Life, intentionally decided not to create most content themselves. Instead, they allow residents to create their own content. Once again, this approach is not unique to Second Life. It's also the idea behind Facebook or TikTok. For instance, ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, doesn't create all the videos of cute dogs, cats, and people doing various things. Instead, users generate that content. 

▮ The Nexus: So what are the potential benefits and drawbacks of for-profit companies getting involved in virtual worlds?

Tom Boellstorff: It's hard to say, because almost all existing virtual worlds out there are owned by for-profit companies. I'm actually doing a little bit of research in a small virtual world called Wolf Grid, which is an open-source project that's run by just a couple of people, like a grocery store that someone's mother and father run at the end of the street. It's not a corporation; it's like a small business. There are a few nonprofit or small business virtual worlds out there. I think it's really important to learn from them and study them. We need to consider how these companies approach the public good, address inequality and handle various issues. I'm not saying that for-profit companies are always bad necessarily, but we need to be careful and certainly be more vigilant in looking at how they're using our data, monitor us, and manage misinformation and harassment. These concerns are significant both in the broader online world and within virtual worlds.

▮ The Nexus: Yes, professor, I totally agree with you. I think those companies have responsibilities.

Tom Boellstorff: They often think of themselves as selling a product, like selling us a car or a shirt. But with virtual worlds, we're talking about community.



Being an Anthropologist














▮ 
The Nexus: Yes, professor, now let's move forward and discuss your research methods. What ethnographic methods did you use while conducting field work in virtual worlds? And did these methods differ from traditional ones?

Tom Boellstorff: I had already done ethnographic research in Indonesia before I began doing my virtual worlds research. On purpose, I wanted to change as little as possible. I wanted to use the approach I had used in the physical world as an experiment to see if it would work or not. So I tried to use the very same methods that I had used in Indonesia to go to Second Life. What has been really amazing to me through all these years is that very little has had to change. It can still be very traditional in the sense that you're spending time with the community, getting to know them and doing participant observation and research. 

There can also be innovative methods. For instance, when I have done research about disability in virtual worlds, we, my co-researcher and I, gave disabled people parcels of that land for a period of time. We told them to build anything they wanted. We wanted to see what they built and interview them about it. Some people made a museum or a studio; others made art installations, or a home. Doing this in the physical world — getting land for people to build on — would be very expensive and difficult. So there are some innovative possibilities like this with virtual worlds, but I'm always amazed that most things don't really change.

▮ The Nexus: Then what are some of the major challenges you've encountered while conducting anthropological research in virtual worlds?

Tom Boellstorff: In terms of the challenges and opportunities, the biggest challenge is time, similar to what you encounter when doing research in the physical world. As a professor, I have to balance teaching and other responsibilities while setting aside time. In this case, I don't have to travel, like going to Indonesia, and I can just go online like we're doing right now, but it still takes time.

In my experience, people in virtual worlds, in almost every case, are really excited to talk about what they're doing. They think it's interesting when they know that you're being respectful and ethical in your research. I have encountered people who are incredibly kind and wonderful, showing me so many wonderful things, saying nice things and being really eager to participate. 

In terms of the opportunities for virtual worlds, what I disagree with is the idea of ethnographers trying to use them as laboratories and attempting experimental research. Some social scientists have conducted effective psychological research using virtual worlds, but if you are studying their cultures as an ethnographer, then the key thing is that these are real people with real lives and emotions. So I am skeptical of attempts to create entire societies in virtual worlds as an experimental method. Instead, we want to study what's actually happening. That's what's so exciting in terms of the opportunities that virtual worlds present. 

Looking into the future, our lives are not going to be like the movie The Matrix where we're in virtual worlds all day long. That's never going to happen, but virtual worlds will be an important part of our lives. They won't dominate every moment or include everyone, but for many people in various ways, virtual worlds are here to stay and will be an important aspect of the human journey. So we need to understand that journey.

▮ The Nexus: Yes. Professor, in your opinion, what other important areas do you believe anthropologists could explore in virtual worlds? And could there be collaborations with researchers from other disciplines?

Tom Boellstorff:  Yes, absolutely. Just as in the physical world, collaboration can be very useful. In virtual worlds, I've collaborated with people in media studies, communication studies, and psychology. There are people doing very interesting work in geography and sociology within virtual worlds. It can also be really interesting and effective to collaborate with computer scientists and engineers who have a really good understanding of the technology behind virtual worlds. That helps us think about how technology is shaping what people are doing. So there are many wonderful ways that we can collaborate with researchers from other disciplines for sure.

▮ The Nexus: Yes. Here is my last question. What are you working on currently?

Tom Boellstorff:  I went away from virtual worlds for a few years, and I wrote a history book with another professor about a video game system from the 1970s and 1980s called Intellivision. Intellivision was a big competitor to Atari and played an important role in the early video game industry, which eventually shaped the emergence of virtual worlds.

This book, Intellivision: How a Videogame System Battled Atari and Almost Bankrupted Barbie®, will be released by MIT Press in November (2024). Now that it is done, I'm going to return to virtual worlds. I'm very interested in exploring the intersection of virtual worlds and climate change. As climate change, in many ways, is the great challenge of our time. I'm interested in looking at how people are using virtual worlds to potentially fight climate change and reduce our carbon footprint. How can we make virtual worlds more climate-friendly? For example, if I were meeting you in person right now, I would need to fly and stay in a hotel, which would result in a lot more carbon emissions and greater climate impact. Even right now, there is some climate impact. We're using some energy. So what are ways that we can make virtual worlds more climate-friendly? What are some new creative ways that we can use to reduce our carbon impact? Also, unfortunately, there are climate refugees — people whose homes are really affected by climate change. How are they using virtual worlds to recreate what they've lost, connect with others or advocate for better awareness of climate change?

I'm not completely sure where this will lead in the future, because I'm still in the early stages. But I want to contribute to the global effort to address climate change. What I can offer is my knowledge of virtual worlds, because that's something I know and I'm interested in. What virtual worlds can offer that Zoom, email, or Facebook cannot? What virtual worlds can specifically do around climate change is something I plan to spend many years into the future exploring, along with collaborating extensively with other researchers.

▮ The Nexus: Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us. It's been a pleasure talking with you.

Tom Boellstorff: It's been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much.


The Nexus



The interview questions are reviewed by Ron Frederick; the interview article is edited by Alex Li.

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