Roles of an online community

It’s hard to pinpoint how most online communities work and that’s because there are so many different subcultures and so many different communities on the Internet. Like we discussed last class, online communities differ in each medium, website, game, or virtual space because there are different online cultures in each space. Whether it be a basketball MMORPG, SecondLife, or a forum for fashionistas, there will always be one part of the community that they all have in common. And that is “griefers”.

Just as the wired.com article states, there are these “griefers” who like to cause havoc wherever they go and it is very apparent in many of the games I have played (TF2, Counterstrike, Diablo, Freestyle). These griefers are really entwined into online communities because of anonymity in the online world. They are a part of the online culture of games and regular online communities and we will probably see them become even more apparent as new mediums and new games come out for the Internet.

The fact that I’m bringing up griefers is because they highlight the anonymity aspect of online communities. Are we actually expressing who we truly are in the real world? I believe I touched upon this in my presentation last class, but there was a research study for the WOW users and the researchers concluded that most players do act like how they are perceived in real life. However, the fact of the matter is, we may really never know who that level 72 Necromancer or level 30 Center is in Diablo or Freestyle. Thus, when we are integrated into an online community, are we actually a part of that community or are we just pretending to be someone who we’re not by conforming to that particular online community’s standards?

Sometimes, griefing is almost an online community itself. Griefers tend to help other griefers and the fact that there are griefers (and griefing videos for people’s entertainment) only attract more of them to their own online community. Maybe it’s possible that if there is a common activity or culture within all online mediums (games, MMO’s, forums) like griefing, then a new community/culture can be birthed just how griefing was.