What ARE These People?

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a socially alienated individual. For some reason, life has not gone well. Perhaps, you were mercilessly bullied in Junior High School. Perhaps, you have a physical limitation that prevents you from fitting in as well as you would like. Perhaps you grew up in a majorly dysfunctional family. Perhaps you are driven by compulsions that you cannot fully control and do not fully understand. Most people grow up with some sort of adversity and overwhelmingly most adjust. However, some don't. Some just become increasingly more alienated and increasingly more angry. In real life there are behavior traits that might tip us off to be wary of such a person. They may avoid eye contact. They may have very limited social interaction or poor interaction skills. They may dress or behave in ways that reveal their underlying rage. We cannot totally avoid such people in real life, but we do get warning signs.

What is such a person comes into a virtual world? What if they purchase a very normal looking avatar and dress is in a moderate and acceptable way? What if their entire purpose for being in a virtual world is to get you to lower your guard so they can punish you for all the insults that they have suffered in their life? Or worse, what if they wish to make you miserable just because it is fun?

I was told a story once, by someone who was visiting my Academy. They had gotten to be friends with someone they met in a chat room long before the days of Second Life. At one point the friend appeared to be becoming despondent and talked about committing suicide. Then, the person simply stopped appearing in the chat room. The person who was relating the story was frantic and contacted the chat room administrator. As it turns out, this person 'faked' a suicide to disturb (or 'mess with') the person who was relating the story. And this person, from the chat room, had done this a number of times before.

I don't know whether or not the anecdote is fully true, partially true or made of whole cloth since I did not investigate the incident myself. However, it rings true based upon experiences that I have had. And it certainly represents, if only anecdotally, a malicious form of griefing.

Why would somebody do a thing like this? How could they enjoy such a thing? The problem, of course, is that when you are dealing with anonymous people in a virtual world, you never know, for sure, who is at the keyboard and what there motives might be. And all you need is one bad experience with this sort of thing to put you off of virtual worlds for a long time.

So, anonymity has some major benefit and some major drawbacks. If you prevent anonymity you limit the ability of basically good people to explore who they are and express themselves in ways that they may not be able to express themselves in real life. On the other hand, anonymity can be a hiding place for psychopaths, sociopaths, and all manner of maladjusted individuals. Is there a solution? Yes, there is. And that will be the topic of the next post.