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History Repeating
Aug. 6th, 2007 12:38 amSeveral times in the past, I have seen parallels between online gaming subculture and fandom. As I've watched this whole Strikethrough 2.0 thing unfold, I randomly remembered something from very early on in my online gaming days: The Mystere Incident. If you don't feel like reading the entire Wikipedia article, the long and short of it is that back in 2000, an EverQuest player was banned for posting a story, on a message board not at all affiliated with EQ's company, depicting the rape of an underage character. Someone reported it, the player was banned, and gamers, web comic artists, and free speech appreciators far and wide got pissed. Just for the sake of thought, I feel like comparing these two incidents.
Similarities:
1) Both involve content with fictional underage characters in sexual situations.
2) Both involve companies that deal with massive amounts of customers from around the world, with lots of differing laws and viewpoints on legal age and free speech.
3) In both cases, the apparent majority of users/players who knew of the bannings did not necessarily like or condone the content of the pieces themselves, but still believed that others were within their rights to post such content.
4) Both are related to fantasy worlds. (EverQuest and its spin-offs have rich lore that easily stacks up to the Harry Potter universe in terms of size and detail.)
5) Both subcultures have had me lurking at their fringes. Heh.
Differences:
1) EQ banned one specific player. LJ banned many more people (several hundred, I have read in various places).
2) In EQ, the ban-causing piece in question was fanfic. LJ banned for various content, and did so in two rounds. The first seemed to be based on what users listed as "interests" (and woe to the occasional stray community devoted to abuse survivors or analyzing Lolita that happened to get in the way). The second round was smaller and focused on fanart from one HP fanart community, specifically.
3) The age of characters in the supposedly ban-worthy art of the second round of bans on LJ has been widely disputed, specifically by the artists.
4) LJ banned people on its own turf. EQ's ban happened in result of a post on an unrelated message board (although it has later been noted that there was more to the banning of this player than the story alone).
5) EQ's spokesperson (unlike LJ's) actually gave a rat's ass about behaving professionally.
I'm sure I'll add to this as I think on it more. In any case, comparing these two incidents adds an interesting layer of perspective to the present.
Similarities:
1) Both involve content with fictional underage characters in sexual situations.
2) Both involve companies that deal with massive amounts of customers from around the world, with lots of differing laws and viewpoints on legal age and free speech.
3) In both cases, the apparent majority of users/players who knew of the bannings did not necessarily like or condone the content of the pieces themselves, but still believed that others were within their rights to post such content.
4) Both are related to fantasy worlds. (EverQuest and its spin-offs have rich lore that easily stacks up to the Harry Potter universe in terms of size and detail.)
5) Both subcultures have had me lurking at their fringes. Heh.
Differences:
1) EQ banned one specific player. LJ banned many more people (several hundred, I have read in various places).
2) In EQ, the ban-causing piece in question was fanfic. LJ banned for various content, and did so in two rounds. The first seemed to be based on what users listed as "interests" (and woe to the occasional stray community devoted to abuse survivors or analyzing Lolita that happened to get in the way). The second round was smaller and focused on fanart from one HP fanart community, specifically.
3) The age of characters in the supposedly ban-worthy art of the second round of bans on LJ has been widely disputed, specifically by the artists.
4) LJ banned people on its own turf. EQ's ban happened in result of a post on an unrelated message board (although it has later been noted that there was more to the banning of this player than the story alone).
5) EQ's spokesperson (unlike LJ's) actually gave a rat's ass about behaving professionally.
I'm sure I'll add to this as I think on it more. In any case, comparing these two incidents adds an interesting layer of perspective to the present.
