Anonymity and “the Real”

To begin her discussion of online anonymity, Lau points to the 1993 New Yorker cartoon captioned “on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” In the early days of the internet, many scholars claimed that online anonymity offered utopian possibilities. For example, Sherry Turkle argued that anonymity would erase identity markers—such as age, race, gender, class, and ability—and create a world free of hierarchy, judgement, and exclusion (373). However, many scholars have since argued that the online world reproduces hegemonic social orders, particularly in terms race, gender, sexuality, and beauty. Nakamura, for instance, argues that the Internet “draws on and perpetuates hegemonic identity formations,” creating online stereotypes known as “cybertypes” (374). In other words, online anonymity perpetuates dominant ideologies concerning identity rather than erasing them. 

As many of our readings (specifically Noble) demonstrate, digital technology often reproduces the ways in which power operates in the “real” world. The line between the “virtual” and “real” is porous, meaning that they should not be viewed as two separate “spaces.” To describe this phenomenon, Lau uses Boellstorff’s concept of “bleed through,” which argues virtual and actual worlds influence each other in material, corporeal, and imaginative ways (377). Many scholars have made this observation. For example, Dibbell observes that the items players earn in a virtual world can be sold on eBay for real-world currency, making virtual and real economies interconnected (378). Ultimately, World of Warcraft (WOW) players experience their virtual and actual subjectivities together in the same moment, posing many theoretical questions about time and space (though getting into those would send me down a rabbit hole). 

Lau argues that players experience this collapse in subjectivity through their avatar in embodied ways. For example, some players physically move their head when their avatar is about to hit a tree branch. Others respond to the unconscious instinct to make their avatar run by instinctively moving their fingers (381). Either way, the experience of the avatar has a corporeal affect on the player. Similarly, the appearance of an avatar is likely to determine a player’s actions. One study found players who had “attractive” avatars were more aggressive and were more likely to disclose personal information than players who had “unattractive” avatars (382). Therefore, the appearance of the player in the virtual world impacts the player’s confidence in the “real” world. 

The emotional and corporeal experience individuals have with their avatar allows them to see themselves as social actors in the WOW world. Rather than an anonymous version of self, avatars act as a counterpart to our real-world identities. Players must protect their avatar’s reputation in the WOW world, just as we must protect our reputations in the real world. Lau argues that an additional level of anonymity is required in the WOW world for political debate to flourish, virtual disembodiment. To me, Lau seems to echo Turkle’s utopian claims of anonymity. Although the lines between the virtual and the actual world are blurry and players have an embodied experience with their avatar, virtual disembodiment offers up the possibility of true anonymity and creates an alternative space for democracy. To bring it full circle, I think the New Yorker cartoon could be updated to say something like “On the internet (specifically the WOW Trade Channel) nobody knows your avatar is a dog,” but that’s not very clever or memorable.