Identity, privacy, and secrecy in WoW and life

As I write this post, it is currently Monday night. Cataclysm is coming out tomorrow, and I know that I'll be spending all of my free time tomorrow playing WoW. I might just forget tomorrow that I even write in a blog about WoW. In anticipation of this sudden urge to play, rather than wait until tomorrow to write this post so I can write about something topical, I have decided to write about a topic whose relevance is not dependent on which expansion pack we are playing. This way, I can play on Tuesday knowing that I have filled my three-post-a-week quota and I won't be leaving my readers high and dry on this, the beginning days of a new era for WoW, and I can give myself until Friday to pull myself away from the game long enough to write something about Cataclysm itself. So here's your nice, timeless, early post for today.

I haven't told very many of my real life friends about this blog; I have told even fewer the actual name and nature of it (for they can probably find it based solely on the latter). The only two friends I have given the URL of this blog to are friends with whom I have very few secrets; were that not the case, they would probably not know this blog exists. I have mentioned blogging in general as an activity that I engage in frequently to a greater number of people, but not many people are privy to that information either, lest they wish to read what I write. You may wonder, why am I so secretive about something I should be proud of, something I should be showing off? The answer has something to do with one of the most basic rules of the internet: don't put anything out there that you'll later regret uploading.

You see this rule all the time in various forms. Adolescents are commonly told to not upload incriminating photos of themselves to social networking sites, lest someone see them. Bloggers are sometimes told to be careful of what they post, lest it be traced back to them. The general vernacular version of this rule goes something along the lines of, "Don't put anything on the internet that you wouldn't want to show to your own mother." It's a good rule to follow, most of the time, but it ignores one of the fundamental concepts of what makes the internet so great: spheres of privacy. I touched the concept of spheres of privacy (a term I did not coin, but I don't know who did, so I can't provide proper credit for it) in my post on Real ID and the necessity of anonymity, which was written during the "posting under real names on the official forums" scare. In that post, I discussed how anonymity is a tool that can be used for good, even though it is quite often used for less-than-good purposes. Anonymity, the state of your identity not being know, is the very thing that brings about these spheres of privacy, which is why they are so prominent on the internet.

But what is a sphere of privacy? Well, allow me to give a practical example. Suppose you had never put anything out on the internet. You had never posted in a forum, commented on a blog post; never has a word you have typed been recorded online for all to see. Now suppose you happen upon a forum; it could be any forum: a forum for fans of a tv show you like, or a forum for people who are members of a specific subculture, what have you. When you join this forum, you have to pick a name to post under, but there's no reason you can't use something other than your own name (and 99.99% of the internet-going populace don't use their own name). So you register with this forum, and in doing so, you pick your new name, your new identity that you will go by. The beauty of this system (or perhaps the ugliness, depending on who you ask) is that this new identity has no connection with your own identity. You have crafted a new identity by registering under this new name, and that opens up a world of possibilities. If you are usually not much of a talker in real life, you can use this new identity to break out of that expectation others have for you and be as wordy as you wish. If you registered with a forum centering around a subculture you belong to that is usually shameful to discuss in real life, you can discuss whatever this subculture is centered around on this forum without fear of ridicule. This latter point is the one I want to discuss today.

Let's take something we all have in common: WoW. If you bring up the fact that you play WoW in real life, depending on who you bring it up with, you could get a wide range of responses. Just today, I told a friend of mine that I was trying to get as much homework done tonight as I could so that I'd have more time for playing the new expansion pack tomorrow, and he flat out told me that he lost a little respect for me, knowing that I play WoW. In the context of our friendship, it wasn't nearly as rude as it must seem to you reading about it now, but it reminded me that WoW and other such video games still haven't been fully accepted by the mainstream culture. That's why I would never bring up WoW at my place of work; I can't risk them potentially thinking less of me for playing, and considering that I am one of the youngest people who work there by about twenty years, that's not an unlikely possibility. More generally, I usually avoid bringing up the fact that I play WoW in most conversations with other people, especially people older than myself, since the probability of them thinking less of me for it is just too high. Yet look at what I'm doing now: I'm writing a blog about the very game I seem ashamed to play.

Why does this happen? It happens because, when I created this blog, when I took up the name of "Ardol", I made sure there was no way to connect my blog to my real-life identity. I do the same thing in all online communities I join, and the blogosphere is no exception, for if it were a widely known fact that I take this game as seriously as I do, it could hurt me in a multitude of ways. Yet because there is no easy way to connect my blogging activities to my real-life identity, I can talk about WoW with no fear of the usual repercussions of being known as a serious gamer. I can even talk about personal issues like my struggle with suicidal thoughts because I know it won't be connected to me. Thus I have created a sphere of privacy around my blog, and within this sphere of privacy, I can be open about my habits as a WoW player.

We see spheres of privacy outside of the internet, as well. When you tell a friend a secret, you do so within a sphere of privacy that encompasses only the two of you. When you are out with a group of friends and you talk about something slightly more person that what you'd divulge to a random stranger, you do so within the sphere of privacy of that certain social group. When you engage in office gossip with the people you work with, you do so within a sphere of privacy that only contains the people who work in that office. And when you go on the internet to discuss a game you play, you do so within the sphere of privacy that contains the WoW-playing internet-going populace. Within each of these spheres of privacy are different expectations and assumptions about what is and isn't appropriate, what is and isn't cool, and what is and isn't acceptable.

Within these spheres of privacy, we are able to alter our identities to fit the expectations and allowances of that particular sphere. Within the sphere of privacy of the WoW blogosphere, I am someone who focuses most of his attention on World of Warcraft and discusses the game seriously. I am also someone who is more eloquent than he is in real life, as typing things out ahead of time allows me to be. But it's the former point that is more important to our discussion. Within the sphere of privacy of the online WoW-playing community, I am completely open about my WoW-play habits (obviously), which can't be said about how I am in certain other spheres of privacy. That particular part of who I am shines through brightly in this particular sphere, while it is something I keep under wraps in other spheres. This is an example of the ways we are able to shape our identity within these spheres, which is one of their greatest strengths. In the sphere of privacy of that hypothetical forum earlier, your membership in that subculture is one of the defining aspects of who you are (it is what brought you there, after all), but in real life, the same is not so.

Now, there's a chance some of you reading this might object to my usage of the word "identity" to describe the various selves we show to our different spheres of privacy. After all, who we are fundamentally as people doesn't change with the crowd we are currently in. That may be true, but the fact is that the idea of identity is meaningless outside of a social setting; a lone man has no identity. It is only when we are around other people that the idea of identity actually means something, since identity is, by its very definition, how other people know and recognize us. As such, our identity is not a solid, unchanging thing; it is something that differs with who we are spending our time around, for no one, save for the most boring person imaginable, acts the same way and is open about the same thing around everyone, no matter how open they are about themselves. I am a different person around my parents from how I am around my friends, and I am a very different person around my coworkers from how I am when I write in this blog. This isn't deceit, it isn't dishonestly; it is a simple, basic fact of socializing that we act differently around different people, and thus our identity does, in fact, change with the sphere of privacy we find ourselves within.

You might also be wondering why I keep using the phrase "sphere of privacy", when something like "crowd" or "social circle" might better describe what I am talking about. My incessant usage of the term relates to why I am so hesitant to tell the people I know in real life about this blog. You see, within the sphere of this blog, I have crafted a certain identity that would be incompatible with most other areas of my life, an identity where I am open about my WoW-playing habits. In other spheres of privacy, I am open about things I wouldn't be open about in any other sphere of privacy, as evidenced by the fact that I am not giving any specific examples. You can probably think of examples of your own of ways that one of your identities might not be compatible with a different sphere of privacy from the one it was conceived in. Maybe you're very cutthroat and efficient at your job, a personality which has helped you get ahead in the workplace but would be off-putting to most people in social situations, thus it is one you don't adopt outside of your 9-to-5. Maybe you are romantic and passionate when you are around your significant other, a personality which would be off-putting to anyone who didn't feel that way about you, and thus one you don't adopt when you are with anyone else. As should be obvious by now, spheres of privacy appear in all parts of our life, inside and outside of the internet.

So what happens when those spheres cross? When happens when your close friend brings up a secret you told him/her in confidence in a work-place discussion? What happens when your significant other tells your own friends about the romantic, if a bit cheesy thing to you said to them last night? What happens when your friends and coworkers find out that you play WoW and discuss the game seriously on a blog? You feel embarrassed, because the spheres of privacy have merged in a way they were not supposed to, and thus one of your identities has entered into a sphere it was never meant for. These spheres only work when what is said and done within them is done in privacy, with the understanding that it will stay within the sphere. That is why I keep referring to them as spheres of privacy, because it is that privacy that allows us to change who we are within them.

Which brings me back to my original point: the reason I don't tell most people about this blog is that, when I made the decision to write about WoW and join the WoW blogosphere, I was setting this blog up as a sphere of privacy where it was ok for me to be open about my WoW-playing habits. By doing that, however, I was crafting an identity which wouldn't be compatible with most of the other spheres of privacy of my life, so I ran with it. I talk about people I know in real life (I'm usually not one to talk about other people behind their backs) and things I wouldn't bring up with most people in face to face conversation, because this identity I have constructed isn't compatible with most of my other spheres of privacy, especially the spheres in the real world, so there's no need for me to take real-world considerations of what is socially right and wrong into consideration when writing; the considerations of the blogosphere are all that matter. Sure, both spheres share many of those considerations of what is right and wrong, but they differ on some key ones, which is why I have crafted this identity with no regard for keeping it compatible with my other spheres of privacy.

What this leaves me with is a blog which I can't show to most people I know because the identity I have taken on in writing it isn't compatible with the spheres of privacy through which I know those people. Now, if I were perhaps a bit more discerning in what I put up here, I could show it to my WoW playing friends, but because I use the anonymity of this blog to great advantage while writing in it, the identity I have crafted is incompatible with just about any sphere other than the blogosphere. That's why I have only shared this blog with friends with whom I have very few secrets; the fact that there is so much openness in the spheres of privacy of our friendship means that they are the few spheres where the identity I take upon when I write in this blog is acceptable. With my other friends, that's identity just isn't compatible with our sphere of privacy.

So there's your timeless, non-expansion dependent post for the middle of the week. Happy Cataclysm, everyone; we shall talk again on Friday, when I will hopefully have something to say about the expansion itself.

Real ID and the necessity of anonymity

Edit: We did it, folks; the change isn't going to happen. Rejoice!

I am publishing this post early because I feel the significance of the events in question warrants it.

Sometimes, the best way to summarize your feelings about recent events is with a loldog.

Boy, have the proverbial feces ever hit the fan on this one! In case you missed it, Blizzard announced that starting some time in July, if you post on the official forums, your real name will be displayed, rather than your character's name. It's a shocker, I know. They are apparently doing this in the hopes of curtailing trolling on the official forums, but it's going to have a lot of negative consequences for decent posters, as well. If this is your first time hearing about this and you haven't had time for the news to sink in yet, I suggest you give it time before you continue reading this post.

Back? Calmer? Good, let's begin.

Blizzard's decision reflects a general trend in the evolution of the internet: privacy is getting harder and harder to have. The ease with which someone with your full name and your general location can look up your address and phone number and--if they are willing to shell out a bit of money--so, so much more, is alarming. In a world that is becoming increasingly connected, staying comfortably and safely detached is getting more difficult. These aren't abstract concerns I'm saying here, either. When community manager Bashiok posted his real name, the community responded by finding out his address, phone number, and the names and ages of his family members using simple Google searches, and using that information to harass him. (though apparently, they may have mistaken a random California resident for Bashiok, for Bashiok may have an unlisted number, but that doesn't make it any less sobering) While I don't agree with their methods, I do agree with the message these rogue googlers are try to send; when people have access to your full name, it can lead to all manor of bad things.

Now, if I were to write this post the way I have written many other posts, I would here propose a hypothetical question contrary to the point I wish to eventually prove, something along the lines of, "Could the lack of anonymity do more good than harm?". I would then examine this question, attempt to answer in the affirmative, and then show all of the problems inherent in an affirmative answer. This time, however, I just can't bring myself to do it. I certainly could do it if I were so inclined. I could talk about how anonymity on the internet has lead to a lack of ownership of one's behavior and perhaps postulate on how seeing people as avatars with user names, rather than real people with real names, leads us to have less empathy for others. (If you are looking for a good article on the subject, I highly recommend Jason McCabe Calacanis's "We Live In Public (and the end of empathy)".) But this is an issue I feel so strongly about that I just can't bring myself to feign an understanding of the other side of the argument, so I'll just have to skip that part.

Put simply, anonymity is not only something we denizens of the internet are accustomed to, it's a necessity. There are just certain parts of our lives, parts frequently made possible by the internet itself, that we don't want the people we meet in our daily lives to know about. For the sake of relevance, I'll go over the one most relevant to us, the WoW community; outside of the gaming community (and the few non-gamers who still support the gaming community) it's still not cool to admit that you are a gamer. Though we, like many sub-cultures, are gaining more respect as the years go on, many still think of the stereotypical pasty, basement-dwelling, no-life stereotype when they think of video gamers. The image of the casual gamer (a category which the majority of gamers fit in to) just hasn't seemed to have caught on, so if an employer Google's your name and sees that you have posted on the WoW forums, he will judge you for that, even if he can't be sure it's really you.

This applies more generally, as well. I can only speak for myself, but as a member of multiple online communities, there are things I may say and do online only because I know I am among like-minded individuals. On this blog, I can talk about WoW as seriously and as critically as I do because I know I'm not likely to be shot down by someone saying, "You take this way to seriously." (which has happened to me before in face-to-face conversations) In the WoW.com comments section, I can be similarly passionate about this game with the comfort of knowing that those who read what I post will not consider it odd that I care about WoW as much as I do. I'm sure you can think of ways this phenomenon applies to you in whatever internet communities you are a part of, WoW-related or otherwise.

What I mean to say by bringing this up is that anonymity is not a bad thing; it is a tool, a tool that has, unfortunately, been used by many as an excuse for bad behavior. But anonymity can be used for good. Someone who is a member of the GLBT community who is not open about their sexuality to the people they know can take advantage of the anonymity of the internet to join an online GLBT group for support in the process of coming out. Someone who is a member of the furry community who may never meet another furry in his life can go online to a furry group and realize that he is not as unusual as he may have thought. A man who is a fan of a show typically aimed at women can go online to find fan groups and use his anonymity to discuss and praise the work without the risk of ridicule. Someone who is a gamer but also has a life outside of gaming can use the fact that online gaming forums are anonymous to discuss his game of choice without the risk of ridicule from those who don't understand the gaming community... oh wait.

But really, the issue of the potential for real-world harassment (a potential we have already seen come to fruition) should be enough to prove that us being forced to use our real names on the forums is a horrible idea. It may curtail trolling (truth be told, it probably won't; I know some trolls in real life, and believe me when I say, trolls will be trolls, no matter what we may do), but it will only encourage trolling's real-world counterparts: harassment and stalking. This is a dangerous path to tread down, Blizzard, both for you and your players; I am begging you to turn back now.