My name is Artemesia. I’m an avatar. For the past six years,
I have lived, played and worked in the virtual world There.com. When I say
“worked” I mean that quite literally. I did my Ph.D. “in” There.com, studying a
group of refugees from the defunct MMOG Uru. I defended that Ph.D. in
There.com, with the person who operates me, Celia Pearce, at my side. I am
cited as co-author of her book, Communities of Play, and appear on its cover. I have given keynotes
to hundreds of people on her behalf in foreign countries when she could not
physically attend. If you go to her facebook page, or have her on your chat
buddy list, you will see me. Less than three hours from now, I will be gone.
And a piece of her will be lost forever.
One of the things I love about anthropology is that if you
study cultures, what you find is that very few things that happen online do not
have a real world precedent. The destruction of cultures is nothing new. For an
ethnographer to suddenly find herself a historian is an-all-too common fallout
of Colonialism. But this is a strange reversal: in a sense my friends and
research colonized this world and made it their own. Over seven years,
There.com’s incredibly creative players brought life to this place, and now
that life is being taken away.
Over the past few days and nights we have been convening in
groups large and small, having parties, exploring places we will miss,
appreciating each other’s handiwork, sharing memories and feelings, and
discussing where to go next. These moments feel less like a grieving than a
celebration…we are celebrating all that we’ve accomplished together, the new
cultures and artifacts we created, and the magical experience we all had in
this cartoon world. For most of us, being an avatar allowed us to learn more
about ourselves, to play, to exercise some freedom outside of our everyday
lives, to explore new aspects of ourselves. One of my research subjects once
said, “We make our avatars, and thereafter, our avatars make us,” borrowing
from Marshall McLuhan’s famous comment about tools. This is perhaps one of the
most profound statements about life as an avatar. She made me, and I made her,
in an iterative feedback loop. While this is true of all of us, probably no
moreso in our case: It was through me her real-world avatar became a Ph.D. and
began her adventure as a college professor.
In the average MMOG, an avatar dies a thousand deaths, is
resurrected, only to go into battle and die again. We were always told that our
There.com avatars were immortal. We could fall from tall trees, shoot each
other with paint guns, or jump off of “Avie Sacrifice” without no particular
consequence except a few contorted animations. But it turns out we were not
immortal at all. And this will be permadeath. In a few short hours, I will be
nothing more than a pile of bits on a hard drive, asleep forever…unless there
is a miracle.
And miracles do happen. The group of refugees I first
studied have seen their “homeland” reopen not one, not two, but three times,
the most recent of which was only a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, we are all
looking for new places to settle, comparing the strengths and weaknesses of the
alternatives: this one has nice avatars but is to buggy, that one is
unplayable, this one looks the closest to There.com but appeals mostly to kids.
Some of the creators have bought their own serves on a free virtual world
development platform, and have taken things into their own hands, eschewing the
slings and arrows of the outrageous fortune of virtual world companies, perhaps
tired of being tossed willy nilly from place to place.
I am continually amazed by the resilience of my people; the
Uruvians especially, they have been through this before. Their response, as always, is, well
this sucks, what next? But it’s hard to say goodbye. To our avatars, to our
history, to our culture, to all the things we’ve created. My friend and I built
a massive and highly complicated treehouse classroom complex for our university.
I only used it once—only a few hours before the announcement that our world was
coming to an end. I was happy to have the chance to have used it if only that
one time.
What will happen next? Who knows? I do know that my operator
will miss me; I have become such an integral part of her life and her
identity…even now, she finds it hard to imagine life without me. We will go
into another world, inhabit other avatars, but Artemesia in There will always
be “home,” even when she is nothing more than a ghost.
But like I said. Who knows? Perhaps a miracle could happen.
In the words of Yeesha, the heroine of Uru: “The ending is not yet written.”
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