↑BURKE, TIMOTHY AND KEVIN BURKE. 1999. Saturday morning fever: Growing up with cartoon culture. New York: St. Martin’s.
GOLDSTEIN, JEFFREY. 2001. ↑Does playing violent video games cause aggressive behavior?. Chicago: University of Chicago. Electronic Document. Available online:
http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/goldstein.html
During the recent weeks and months quite some discussion about ↑Wikipedia in general and its academical usage in particular has aroused—especially interesting to the anthropologist are the according entries and replies over at ↑Savage Minds. Among those teaching at my institute the use of Wikipedia by students is an issue, too. In fact just the day before yesterday I gave my students the ‘order’ not to cite Wikipedia-articles in their papers. I did that for two reasons: 1) I have doubts in undergraduates’ abilities to judge the quality of an anthropology-related Wikipedia-article. 2) I take undergraduate-papers to belong to the genre of academic texts. The school I am stemming from has a rule: [special cases excepted] knowledge taken from encyclopaedias [in Germany there is the distinction between Konversationslexikon and Enzyklopädie—the latter being by definition more academic than the former] is taken for being commonly granted and the source has not to be documented in academic papers. An exception would be if a central argument was taken from a Konversationslexikon or the Wikipedia. But then an error has occurred beforehand: Konversationslexika are no appropriate sources for academic texts—primary data and other academic texts are. So take central arguments from the latter ones, and use the Wikipedia et al. for gaining an overview—not for more. And even for that academic works of reference are to be preferred. In case of sociocultural anthropology I fullheartedly recommend ↵Barnard & Spencer 1996—without having any reservations.
Now, my ‘order’ described above may be worthy of discussion, for sure—and even more after having had a glance or two into my very own project-website and blog, as those contain a lot of links to Wikipedia-entries. For example the appendices ↵lingo and ↵listofgames. Why is that? Because: 1) I consider Wikipedia to be a part of my field—at least a part of the realm into which ‘my tribe’s’ realm is embedded. Therefore Wikipedia-entries touching topics like computergames, -mods, and all things g33k constitute primary data in the from of the cyberians’ emic knowledge and/or perspective. 2) I sense Wikipedia-entries on said topics to be of high reliability. Take for example the entries on ↑l33t-5p3ak or the ↑hot coffee mod. Cyberians, those who culturally appropriate ICTs—I am not speaking of passive ‘consumers’ or ‘users’—have a strong sense of history, of background-information, and feel an impulse to not only document but to share all of that. Gamemodding, open source, open content, creative commons, and collaborative efforts like Wikipedia are kin to each other—and they are all aspects of that part of cyberculture which manifests itself online. Norms, values, and ideas of the members of the ‘cyberian tribes’ become visible by means of the named examples.
A slightly different, but related case is my continuous preying on ↑boingboing-entries. A lot of boingboing’s content fills the picture of what online-cyberculture is all about. The subject of my focus—the culture of gamemodders—is embedded therein. But it is also true that I should post less about wonderful things found at boingboing, and more about original things found inside ‘my community’, like e.g. ↵dreamscream. The ↵wandering astray has to be dammed up.
↑Garry’s mod [Gmod], of which ↑version 9.0 was released just today, is a ↵HL2-mod[ification] which allows you to ↑do uncanny things in HL2. ↑Wikipedia says: “Garry’s Mod (Gmod), a successor to the throne of the original JBMod, is a simple modification created by Garry Newman. While it does not have any actual gameplay value, it functions as a huge sandbox, where the player is free to manipulate most of the objects and features of the Source engine. This has allowed an extensive community to build up and creating mini-games with Gmod, therefore creating a “Game in a Game” of sorts.” For a comprehensive, collaborative, and ever-growing documentation—including ↑the mod’s history—see the official ↑wiki accompanying Gmod. Gmod, which is ↑moddable itself allows artists’ creativity to run wild in the realm of HL2. The entries at the ↑official forums are ample proof of that. The range of artefacts is incredible—everything from 8bit pixelart—e.g. a ↑rendition of Nintendo’s Samus accomplished by stacking colored crates [see above]—to ↑war scences [see below] reminiscent of ↑Apocalypse Now, and beyond. ↵Machinima, ↵gamics, everything. Do at no cost miss the matrix-effect-style rotating views of frozen-in-time scenes in the ↑Bowling in gm_construct thread. But be warned: Those forums are addictive and you can easily spend hours there, wondering at original artefacts.
initially via entry at boingboing
As I am an advocate for learning from ‘Writing Culture’ [and everything in its wake] and from visual anthropology, when using ICTs as a tool for sociocultural anthropology, it is my duty to hint you to the website of the ↑AG Visuelle Anthropologie [in German] which went online just recently.
↑All your base are belong to us (AYBABTU)—although many times declared dead for good—still is one of the most widespread Internet topoi. As an ↵easter egg AYBABTU made its way into countless artefacts. Already in the tutorial level [containing even another ↑secret] of ↵Max Payne it can be read on a coffee-shop sign [see above]. Now there is one more wonderfully creative example of artistical expression of gamer culture—↑Zero Wing Rhapsody [↑mirror] is “an anime-style musical remake of the infamous ‘All Your Base’/Zero Wing intro, with the words set to a well-known piece of music by Queen… with a few extra references thrown in for good measure, and completely redrawn graphics.”
Some time ago I already brought up the issue of ↵benchmarks for anthropological knowledge. Succesful social interaction is not the only possible one—being able to cognitively and emotionally embrace artefacts is another one. Knowing about “All your base” is the prerequisite for understanding Zero Wing Rhapsody. However, being able to decipher references is not enough. But if the rhapsody’s 16bit sound triggers memories and associations, if the whole animation paints a smile on your face, evokes an ambience, a feeling of being in sync with the creators and other recipients who embrace the rhapsody—then you have tapped yourself into a part of cyberculture.
And just for the flavor [via ↑bash.org ↑#205633 and ↑#213425]:
roses are #FF0000
violets #0000FF
all of my base
are belong to you
Pitfalls of virtual property (↵Bartle 2004)
The power of gifts: organizing social relationships in open source communities (↵Bergquist & Ljungberg 2001)
Anthropological perspectives on technology (↵Schiffer 2001)
Technology as the anthropology of cultural practice (↵Aunger 2003)
Ethnologie des joueurs d’échecs (↵Wendling 2002)
Pushing the wood: Chess playing as an anthropological subject (↵Lavenda 2003)
Nexus: Small worlds and the groundbreaking science of networks (↵Buchanan 2002)
Six degrees: The science of a connected age (↵Watts 2003)
A new science for a connected world (↵Valverde 2004)
Self-organization and identification of web communities (↵Flake et al. 2002)
A highly efficient waste of effort: Open source software development as a specific system of collective production. (↵Gläser 2003)
The new superorganic (↵Hanson 2004)
Further inflections: Toward ethnographies of the future (↵Harding 1994)
Real fictional society: Agonic relations in online gaming communities (↵Kline 2004)
The anthropology of cities: Imagining and theorizing the city (↵Low 1996)
Roles and knowledge management in online technology communities: An ethnography study (↵Madanmohan & Navelkar 2004)
Social networks and cooperation in electronic communities: A theoretical-empirical analysis of academic communication and Internet discussion groups (↵Matzat 2001)
Academic communication and Internet discussion groups: Transfer of information or creation of social contacts? (↵Matzat 2004)
History and play: Johan Huizinga and his critics (↵Anchor 1978)
A sociological perspective of sport (↵Leonard 1980)
Leisure and sport (↵Brezina 1983)
Can culture be copyrighted? (↵Brown 1998)
Art, behavior, and the anthropologists (↵Dutton 1977)
Although I have read “Techgnosis” (↵Davis 1998) and still am deeply impressed and quite influenced by William Gibson’s rendition of a voodoo-haunted cyberspace in “Count Zero” (↵Gibson 1986), and although I have been into the anthropology of religion, magic, and all other things that go bump in the night for the longer time of my being at the university, I am not on a quest for finding salvation in cyberspace [really?]. But spirituality [in the broadest sense possible] of course always has to be an issue when trying to understand cultures. That’s the background of my using according metaphors in e.g. ↵creation myth. Just today I discovered the very interesting research-project ↑Cyberspace salvations: Computer technology, simulation and modern gnosis:
I am especially attracted to project 2 ↑The gnostic dimension of gaming:
via entry at interprete [where the sato now roams]
My cyberian tribe’s limbo has been enlarged by the emergence of the new website ↑AlanWAKECentral.com … Style and usability looks very much like ↑AlanWAKE.Net [wtf?] Anyway, I immediately registered and am one of the earliest members now ;-)
via entry at AlanWAKE.Net
↑Edward Castronova, who rose to fame with his ↑Virtual worlds: A first hand account of market and society on the cyberian frontier (↵Castronova 2001—see also ↵Castronova 2003 and ↑terra nova) has written his first full-length monograph [↑Overview]:
via entry at digital genres
↑Mizuko Ito [↵keitai-scholar and sister of blogosphere-legend ↑Joi Ito] introduces us to ↑Otaku Media Literacy—if one would replace ‘anime otaku’ by ‘gamemodders’ and add one or two adjustments, her text still would be ‘the truth’. Here’s an excerpt:
↑[…] Overseas anime otaku—fans of Japanese anime—represent an emergent form of media literacy that, though still marginal, is becoming increasingly pervasive among a rising generation. Anime otaku are media connoisseurs, activist prosumers who seek out esoteric content from a far away land and organize their social lives around viewing, interpreting, and remixing these media works. Otaku translate and subtitle all major anime works, they create web sites with hundreds and thousands of members, stay in touch 24/7 on hundreds of IRC channels, and create fan fiction, fan art, and anime music videos that rework the original works into sometimes brilliantly creative and often subversive alternative frames of reference. Curious? Check out sites such as ↑animemusicvideos.com, ↑cosplay.com, or ↑animesuki.com. to get a sense of this burgeoning subculture.
Although fan cultural production is denigrated by media professionals as “merely” derivative and lacking in originality, it is worth considering what forms of knowledge, literacy, and social organization are being fed by these activities. To support their media obsessions otaku acquire challenging language skills and media production crafts of scripting, editing, animating, drawing, and writing. And they mobilize socially to create their own communities of interest and working groups to engage in collaborative media production and distribution. Otaku use visual media as their source material for crafting their own identities, and as the coin of the realm for their social networks. Engaging with and reinterpreting professionally produced media is one stepping stone towards critical media analysis and alternative media production. ↑[…]
Another related phenomenon—I do not dare to say the above’s historical forerunner, but the association seems plausible—from Japan also has strong resemblances to gamemodding. Here’s a description by ↑Lawrence Lessig [this time replace ‘doujinshi’ by ‘gamemods’]:
But my purpose here is not to understand manga. It is to describe a variant on manga that from a lawyer’s perspective is quite odd, but from a Disney perspective is quite familiar.
This is the phenomenon of doujinshi. Doujinshi are also comics, but they are a kind of copycat comic. A rich ethic governs the creation of doujinshi. It is not doujinshi if it is just a copy; the artist must make a contribution to the art he copies, by transforming it either subtly or significantly. A doujinshi comic can thus take a mainstream comic and develop it differently—with a different story line. Or the comic can keep the character in character but change its look slightly. There is no formula for what makes the doujinshi sufficiently “different.” But they must be different if they are to be considered true doujinshi. Indeed, there are committees that review doujinshi for inclusion within shows and reject any copycat comic that is merely a copy. (↵Lessig 2004: 25-26)