Curtis Gale Weeks has some interesting thoughts on the similarities between massive online multi-player role-playing games like World of Warcraft and blogs. I see them myself, but the differences are massive.

We all, in a sense, play different “roles” for different environments. Many of the blogfriends I met at the 2007 Boyd Conference differed substantially from the mental pictures I had built of them from their writings (as well as our individual private communications). Should I ever (and I do hope) to meet the other writers I’ve had the pleasure of corresponding with, I expect to be similarly surprised. Just because WoW and blogging both involves a process of building an (sometimes elaborate) alternate self doesn’t necessarily make the blog world a MMORPG.

Why? The blogosphere and WoW are at cross-purposes. While the blogsophere (like WoW) is a highly complex and variegated social ecosystem, its currency is opinion. You can’t get anywhere without expressing distinctive, original opinions. Opinions are used to facilitate off-sphere social interaction (on email, facebook, myspace, etc). Opinions are taken as proxies of the author’s personality. And the interaction (and sometimes clash) of opinions produces a greater collective understanding of the issues of the day.

Many pundits have noted that the analog model of the blogosphere is the yellow journalism and political pamphleteering of the industrial age. I reject such analysis as simplistic. High-traffic partisan blogs certainly bring to mind Thomas Paine, but there are many others that work along a more collaborative model–conducting debates and symposiums across a broad political spectrum. Take, for example, WhirledView’s symposium on U.S. nuclear policy. The proper analog model for this is the salon of the 18th century, and to a lesser extent, the cafe society that developed in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries.

As I noted in a essay published in the Bright Lights Film Journal, videogames evolved out of children’s play–toy soldier battles, cops and robbers, etc. The online communities established in WoW are centered around play. It drives the local economy, facilitates social interaction, and in the case of story-driven MMORPGs like The Matrix Online–propels the plot. Play is the reason for WoW’s existence, which is why it is so addictive. It tapes into our own desires to return to a state where we can indulge in the process of play, a human need that is not viewed very favorably by organized societies. A world where play is not only valued by rewarded is a seductive one–no matter your ethnicity gender, age, or nationality.

Finally, a blog involves substantial production–in order to stay relevant in the blogosphere one has to consistently produce quality opinion products in a timely manner. There is no guarantee of reward or readership for these tasks. WoW gamers’ play leads to greater in-game wealth, power, and material supply. It is no wonder that bloggers frequently go on hiatus while some MMORPG gamers grow so addicted to the game that they forget about the world outside their computers.

However, it is worth noting that abstract thought, although more valued than play, meets with equal disdain and indifference. To take a typical example, philosophy majors are stereotyped as United States as unrealistic and indulgent slackers in need of a “real job.” Given the role of great ideas in setting the stage for American prosperity, perhaps a little more respect is in order? Morever, isn’t the portrayal of those unemployed philosophy grads and gamers somewhat similar? The stereotypical image you have of a philosophy major is a (male) black turtleneck-clad, pretentious loser drinking wine and composing essays from his mother’s basement. The typical gamer is portrayed as a (male), overweight, socially awkward loser in his mother’s basement, lost in the glow of his Playstation 3. Both are disdained and seen as abnormal because they choose to engage in activities society doesn’t view as productive.

If WoW is a fantasy world where play is rewarded with material success and recognition, the blogosphere is equally unrealistic. It is a place where people are (more often than not) judged by the content of their ideas, rather than their physical appearance, occupation, and life status. I see both as overwhelmingly positive things, because both play and abstract thought are beautiful and essential things. 

Ari Melber:

When one of America’s largest electronic surveillance systems was launched in Palo Alto a year ago, it sparked an immediate national uproar. The new system tracked roughly 9 million Americans, broadcasting their photographs and personal information on the Internet; 700,000 web-savvy young people organized online protests in just days. Time declared it “Gen Y’s first official revolution,” while a Nation blogger lauded students for taking privacy activism to “a mass scale.” Yet today, the activism has waned, and the surveillance continues largely unabated.

Generation Y’s “revolution” failed partly because young people were getting what they signed up for. All the protesters were members of Facebook, a popular social networking site, which had designed a sweeping “news feed” program to disseminate personal information that users post on their web profiles. Suddenly everything people posted, from photos to their relationship status, was sent to hundreds of other users in a feed of time-stamped updates. People complained that the new system violated their privacy. Facebook argued that it was merely distributing information users had already revealed. The battle–and Facebook’s growing market dominance in the past year–show how social networking sites are rupturing the traditional conception of privacy and priming a new generation for complacency in a surveillance society. Users can complain, but the information keeps flowing.

Melber is being bit too harsh when he says that Facebook is “priming a new generation for complacency in a surveillance society.” He fails to see that Generation Y’s loose standard of privacy is the product of overwhelming exhibitionism. When a girl posts racy pictures of herself to Myspace, it’s because she wants to them to be seen. If today’s social networking sites create an information-age tabloid network (as Melber argues later), its because the users of those sites want their fifteen minutes of fame. The same logic motivates those who appear on “reality” TV shows and act out on Jerry Springer. The mass media era created a culture that equates being well-known (even in a negative light) with success–and everyone is ready for their close-up.

The protest against the update system occurred because it was implemented without the user’s consent. Melber rightly labels this newfound concern for privacy as hypocritical, but it doesn’t prove that Gen Y will be any more likely to spy on their neighbors (or tolerate being spied on themselves) than any previous generation. That being said, its amusing to imagine future NSA agents sorting through black-and-white profile pics of suburban teenage girls in Marc Jacobs making gang signs.