g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets
  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


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Saturday, December 29, 2001
01:39 - Simulated Worlds
http://www.thislife.org

(top) link
Also on NPR, on the same car trip... "This American Life" had a weirdly introspective, self-referential show about the American tendency to create simulated worlds as a pastime, because it's in keeping with our nature as a people who individually each want to be the rulers of our own little realms. Rugged Individualism and all that. The hour-long program, which can be listened to at the above URL after January 3, doesn't say so in so many words (it focuses on phenomena such as Renaissance Faires, Civil War reenactments, wax museums, and the very media of radio, TV, and film), but I would submit that such pastimes as massive-multiplayer online RPGs like EverQuest and its like, as well as role-playing in general and "Sim" games, are a concept very similar in its precepts to this same kind of desire for individual rule. In America, we have the myth of the Self-Made Man, the myth of the Entrepreneur, the myth of the Kid Gone Rock Star, the myth of the Poor Boy who Grew Up to be President. We've never had a sense of "knowing your place". We've all, to borrow from Fight Club, been raised with the notion that we would all grow up to be movie gods and rock stars, because why not? Nobody in this country has any artificial barriers preventing him from rising above the station to which he was born. We all have a kind of ingrained optimism that overrides the fear of an oppressive social structure.

So on the Internet, Americans especially are drawn to the idea that we can all rule our own little virtual worlds or run world-changing websites. We even hold to the delusion that our individual blogs will be read and cheered by the throngs. We may even know we're fooling ourselves, but we do it anyway. So which is more foolish-- playing to that ideal in a kind of tragic, in-denial futility... or shying away even from the possibility that it might turn out to be valid after all?

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© Brian Tiemann