I’ve been following with interest the new blog Pixels and Policy but I’ve been a bit, well, reserved about it, primarily because the site was running a photo or promo or Amazon link or whatever to Castranova’s last book, which is a pamphlet really, or a job application, and had me squirming because of a) the false dichotomy it creates between the real and the virtual and b) because he’d have governments and companies program the world to make it…well, to make it more “fun” somehow. So for now I kind of scan the headlines and sort of plug along on the assumption that the author might get rid of his Castranova fixation and maybe figure out that all those Google ads don’t actually pay that much and pull some of them down.
I’m probably being a little snarky. Because the blog does cover good ground, and the focus on policy is right up my alley – it has that kind of wonky take on things that I like, because the intersection of platform governance and personal exploration is where some of the real action is.
But P&P’s latest post picks up on some “research” into why people spend so much money in Second Life, or virtual worlds, and it seems the conclusion is – well, we’re all followers and we wanna just FIT in:
“In an effort to expand our image of who we are through virtual worlds, the same consumerism and cliquishness have followed us into the Metaverse.”
Now, I put the term research in quotes, because clicking through to the actual report, it turns out it isn’t really research at all, but rather commentary on research that’s in progress, which makes me wonder: if the author is coming to conclusions ahead of the actual analysis of the results, then how are they avoiding study bias?
In any case, the rough conclusion of the author is as follows, with the first paragraph stating the, um, patently obvious (if you don’t do it for personal or social reasons, why WOULD you? For your cat?):
A lot of what drives consumption in Second Life appears to be a combination of its personal and social elements [3], such as customizing the body and joining groups, respectively. Perhaps one of the defining features of virtual goods is that while they may not be useful to the avatar or the user in a physical sense, they can provide significant meaning for those who buy them and for other residents within the world. From identity creation through to group membership, the hedonic benefits and social values of virtual goods are significant enough to sustain Second Life’s virtual economy.
However, in addition to these benefits, consumption in Second Life has another element in play. While purchases may be driven by the resident’s desires, they can also be driven by social pressure. Residents may appreciate goods for their aesthetics or functionality, yet this appreciation can exist in tandem with broader social encouragement or even pressure to develop an individual identity or appearance, or to establish membership within particular group.
All right, well, whatever. The whole thing has a slightly moralistic tone to it that I don’t like. Plus, it’s unclear what frame of reference the author is using to come to their conclusions: sociological? Anthropological?
I recommend that someone send both of these folks a copy of Tom Boellstorff’s book and to build from there, rather than trying to append to the tired cliches of consumerism and group think that people seem to migrate to when they come at virtual worlds from external disciplines.
Or watch Metanomics (yay! I spammed!), and consider this beautiful quote by Harper Beresford, which understands that virtual goods are about cultural affordances:
HARPER BERESFORD: Well, we’re at a conference for virtual goods so I don’t really need to speak about the point and the importance of virtual goods and how they add up, how these micro payments that people use for virtual goods add up. But, in a bigger theme, there’s a deep need in our culture for consumers to distinguish and differentiate themselves and display their class and belief systems outwardly. The use of cultural goods is a cultural communication and a cultural discussion, which is the same thing that people do when they choose a special ringtone on their phone.
So you’d asked why people buy our clothes. A lot of people ask me, “How can you be selling virtual clothes?” But it’s a sort of cultural display that people can customize, that’s made for them using the creation tools that Second Life provides. And this cultural display is much more easily afforded in Second Life than our first lives so we can fulfill our fantasies of having beautiful clothes and interesting lifestyles and amazing homes relatively inexpensively, and we can communicate our tastes and values to others. So that’s why customers spend money on our clothing at RFyre, to customize their self representation and their experience and to engage in cultural discussion at a very low cost.
Or hear what she has to say in this clip:
Dusan –
We took down our Castranova-fest WEEKS ago, Dusan! Shame on you!
But thank you for the mention, regardless. In reference to AdSense, though, I’m going to be scaling it back in the near future. Believe me, I know how annoying they can be.
Now, onto the meat of the blog post. I’m glad it got you thinking, criticizing, questioning. I’d be happy to publish a counterargument of yours on the blog if you’d like — I’m by no means trying to be a soapbox for one point of view.
As for consumerism-as-game policy, it’s certainly among the most touted and advertised aspects of Second Life, though advertised in euphemism. I’m going to check out Metanomics right now.
Pix – the author’s point wasn’t that it was the most advertised, it was that social pressure was the driving force of consumerism.
How the Lab advertises SL and how the media picks up on it is a whole different thing about which I’ve written in the past, in particular when the new SL Web site was launched.
….. and back to the question of consumerism… there is surely no difference between me buying new hair and a stone age woman painting her face. It is, as Harper says, a cultural discussion.
Reuters and the Flawed Research Value of Virtual Worlds…
Reuters sings the praises of virtual worlds as scientific test-beds for economic and sociology studies. P&P analyzes why this is premature and misguided celebration….
ive read most of the sites posts, almost commented a few times…
I found most of the ideas and comments made were missing much of wnat I have experienced as the reality of virtuality for the last 20 years.
Though the most recent post that “questions” Reuters and the current marketing memes of virtual worlds as “science” and “cultural” petri dishes (as promoted by the terra nova type groups and other “metaconsultants in existance from 2006 or so;) is in fact correct in it’s assertions that as used as a game delivery or social communication media, the 3d rt media , as expressed and offered so far, isnt a tool for much “new” science or revelation sold as economic or human social studies.
c3
I am not happy with an analysis that concludes that controlling one’s image (in the form of one’s avatar) is simply about inter-subjective “signalling” or “symbolizing”, or (dare I say it!) “signifying”. The primary relation in a virtual world is between the subject and its image. The desire to manipulate the image is, therefore, a desire directed toward the self. Second Life is a mirror which not only reflects back to us the desirable image of our potential wholeness (as against the fragmentary data of our day to day intuitions), it also gives us the power to transmute the image of the self as an objective physical whole into the imaginary laden self as an objective physical whole that is also, at the same time, wholly a construct of our desire (in a way in which the physical mirror never does, self-destruvtive delusion aside!)
Now, insofar as desire is ultimately directed toward the realm of the other as the field in which it is forced to operate in order to gain satisfaction, it is fair to say that we dress up pretty in order to attract attention or signal intent but, any analysis that stops with that observation has failed to account for the “Why in General” as well as all the countless little whys that remain after a 12 hour session of staring intently at one’s own (utterly mediated) reflection.
I find a lot of this socialist collectivist claptrap, more and more lately.
People don’t just consume clothing to self-express and fit in with the Jones next door. They buy props to manipulate and create the world and make scenes and stories, their own stories, not the collectivized “community of practice” stories by the Quest people trying to put one over on us about something we’re supposed to think, but their own real stories.
Given the small amounts of money involved, it’s hardly the damage to the pocketbook or the planet someone might imply with their Puritanical condemnation of consumerism in SL.
And what’s wrong with consumerism, anyway? Read Bobos in Paradise. Those condemning the mass culture of consumerism in SL merely have their own more rarified consumerism that is consumerism nonetheless and worse for being less conscious.
With this sort of “narrative,” Harper is just trying to paper over the fact that her dissertation on high-falutin narrative symbol blah blah isn’t finished yet. She calls it a “partial PhD”. But even if finished, it’s only a partial explanation for human acts, as ichabod claims, it’s just jargonistic knowier-than-though posturing.
People don’t just blindly or greedily or predictably-economically fill up on the most beautiful skins and fanciest mansions and dazzling bling jewelry out of a desire for versimilitude with an aspired real life — although that is part of it, too. They do this to tell a story, again, and it’s ok, and it’s their story.
I agree with your point about Castronova’s web-hung resume — it’s a consulting job solicitation tool. “Well known author” is how you get a job as a keynoter on a panel or in a business as a consultant.
The peer pressure thing is one of those elements of SL that seems to loom very large to outsiders but to those inside, recedes into the distance. You might not change your clothes for months and no one will care. There might be cliques, but anybody can just fly up to anybody else while exploring a sim and strike up a conversation. The one rule seems to be that you must have store-bought hair, but following Philip’s example, plenty of people defy even that social norm.
I have no issue with consumerism. Without commerce and buying stuff there’s no Second Life, in my opinion. What I take issue with in this case is that the article in question refers to ‘research’ which isn’t research, it’s a misguided interpretation of what actually happens in SL.
Do you really buy a new shirt because of social pressure? Or a beach house? The opinion is misguided and feels like “finding what you’re looking for”.
At least cultural affordances or personal expression feels closer to what actually happens in SL than “we buy because people pressure us to”.
Dusan,
What you’re missing is that it’s social pressures that make us feel purchasing a t-shirt is a form of self-expression. The point I’m trying to make in my piece is that these social pressures/consumer pressures are so ingrained that we don’t feel it.
The pressures don’t come off as being pressure, but instead manifest as purchases being a means to show self-expression. We’re so used to this worldview that it translates near-seamlessly into the virtual world.
c3 – Glad you liked the Reuters post. As I’ve said, though I am a techno-optimist, I do genuinely try not to cheerlead for any one team.
its not that i liked it, its that i agreed that so much of the “new virtual worlds is teaching us to look at ourselves” type punditry is not really offering any science or economic forecasts and more often just hilights the speakers/writers lacking of knowledge in areas of media, design, technology and human history in regards to the “human mediated world” vs the “natural one”.
BTW- my take is that we do “feel” the pressures placed on us by mediated society, the fact that we are lessening our ability to “think’ about them, and solve them as humans, and “feel- think” that technology will solve them for us, is now the problem expressing itself as an expensive cultural meme.
I think this is the outcome of a century of mediated virtuality that began with radio and film, moved to TV and now is networked for distribution like never before-the web- and has also added much more naturalistic forms of illusion and immersion. ( 3d realtime media)
anyhow, keep writing, more important keep thinking, but I really dont think many of your conclusions offered from your blog posts are ringing as true, coming from my perspective history..:)
pixel,
FYI- http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10366961-71.html?tag=newsLatestHeadlinesArea.0
notice how the use of a very non digital tool, the “hacksaw” becomes re contextualized by the “reporter”-yes a tech blogger- as “hacking”
it’s a small item, but it’s part of the mediation of meaning, suggesting that the computerized system is of most importance.
the irony is that a computer would have no reason to “hack” her keyhole, vs another. Only “a” human would value her nude image more than the overwieght non celebrity hotel patron across the hall.
PixPol –
Um, OK…so, you’re saying “Oh, but Dusan, you don’t get it because this stuff is INVISIBLE to us and is therefore true”. But what’s your claim based on again?
There’s also a contradiction between ‘social pressure which comes off as self-expression’. I suppose I’m willing to buy the idea that virtual worlds contain a paradox, as they contain many, but when the end result is self-expression rather than group conformity, it seems like a very odd form of social pressure.
What you’re saying, in other words is:
“There are invisible pressures at work which make us express ourselves and our individuality. These pressures are social and conformist and the net result is, well, we buy stuff to express our individuality because of group think.”
Um. Which is OK. I suppose it’s like saying something like “capitalism allows us each to earn our own living and buy what we want, to act as individual, self-expressive agents. However, capitalism only works because we have a herd mentality in believing it in the first place, and so is a kind of groupthink/conformist buy-in regardless of it being the vehicle that allows us to act as individual agents.”
I’m just glad this is getting people to discuss and debate whether virtual worlds are changing the way we view the world, or merely serving as a vehicle for transporting our real-world views to another sphere.
Cube3 – You and I are more in agreement than you might think, though I do believe in time virtual worlds will become a legitimate source for changing the current models of work, communication, and civic interaction. Some of my work may ring as too optimistic, but I stand behind my work.
PixPol – was THAT what we were talking about? I thought we were talking about whether SL was a culture in which social pressure leads to consumerism.
I’m not sure you’d get much more than a lot of head nodding if your claim was, as you say:
“Virtual worlds will become a legitimate source for changing the current models of work, communication, and civic interaction”
No, there isn’t any social pressure. Socializing and wanting to be like others isn’t necessarily a pressure but a celebration. Sometimes I buy something just to support the creator. There is more solidarity-buying like that in Second Life than anywhere else I know, even going beyond one’s neighbourhood flea market. It’s like a 1,000 kids’ lemonades stands, only more complex because you are supporting artistry and self-expression.
I simply refuse to climb into the Marxist harness here and see human acts as all dictated by economic necessary, or by social pressure, as if human beings only functions as a result of groups. Shopping is a profoundly individual act and it defies all the collectivist ideologies thrown at it.