My expereince with Online and Offline

Now on the topic of online community's etc.

I have been in the mix of online experiences i think Sherry Turkle's idea of 'windows' is a good concept with what i have lined up in the blog post.

This notion of online having many windows that vary through online community's, email, chat or video's all defining different areas of capacity to ourselves of course. As in the offline world the concept of windows is largely the same according to Sherry Turkle. Where roles played out in our day to day lives are just another window.

Now i play this game called Counter Strike Source online. I am in a group "clan" i spent many nights talking to them online using a microphone and everything. Shared pictures of each other. Along with chatting away at these people is this whole online community of gamers. Its weird but you would be in your room chatting out loud to these guys and for anyone that is not familiar with gaming it would seem really bizarre. It came to the point when our team got pretty serious and we decided to enter into a video gaming tournament. Suddenly the concept of knowing these guys online would shift to meeting them in the flesh. And hundreds of others around the Counter Strike community. The windows of online self and offline self were going to collide at an event called xlan.

Xlan is New Zealands largest video gaming tournament also termed "lan". It houses all of the popular games in the New Zealand scene and you can qualify for the "WCG" (World cyber games championship) in Seattle. Now knowing that i would be seeing these guys that i have chatted with for many nights at this convention was quite daunting for me.

[IMG]http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/8163/panaramicku0.jpg[/IMG]
Picture of the "LAN"

It carried its advantages and disadvantages. I didn't really want to take my gaming very seriously at all. But many people see this as a huge stepping stone for gaming. I had to tell my friends that i will be spending the weekend playing games and downloading movies etc off people. I wont be out and about consuming alcohol and partying like your average night.

Sure there was a bit of laughs and name calling. But it really was not serious. My friends seemed to accept it. What confused them is how an online activity can actually cause me to change my social plans. They could not comprehend why i would bother. It was a combination of experiencing something different. I thought i would get bored i feared that i wouldn't enjoy it, i mean Friday to Sunday of gaming seemed pretty intense. Also wondering whether or not i could mix in well with these guys i have been chatting and gaming with for most part of the year.

I went to xlan. The experience was actually very satisfying. It was overwhelming to see so many gamers, so many screens. There was no real paranoia about social persona it simply did not exist. Seeing these guys in the flesh was really bizarre as well. Online you would have to almost imagine them through voice and speech. To my surprise they came in all different shapes and sizes and after shaking hands it really puts a grin on the face. The amazing feeling of dodging all the computer hardware, coding to see this person on the other side of the wire. It all comes to make sense there is an instant click really. It was not strange at all. Team based Counter strike almost forms a bondage over the Internet and to see them in real life was the same really.

An aspect that i noticed was this cross between online gaming and real life at xlan. People addressed each other by the gamer tag. Meaning your name you use when playing the game. Quite often i will have my gamer tag called out instead of my real name. It gave the environment quite a matrix feel.

Sherry Turkle's idea of windows applying to online and real life played a huge part in my experience in a largely online based community. Sitting at my computer contacting people through online shifting to a LAN and speaking to them in person, playing as a team with your online mate right next to you is something special really. How these windows can actually bring people together is quite amazing. The thing about online gaming is that we often keep it separate and hidden from everyday life out in society. Its a hidden type of activity not flaunted but brought out in times of leisure. That goes with online community's we do not actively personify our activity's over the Internet when first engaging in social activity's. The Internet is almost hidden away in some ways because by cherishing the Internet and actively embracing online gaming you often get socially stigmatized. So it is a personal and rear to infuse into the real world. Xlan broke this barrier but strangely i felt extremely comfortable. It was this weird feeling that xlan was like the Internet. A large connection of computers, people and interests. I mean the Internet provides these types of categories and in a sense programs and technology is so developed that we are made to feel comfortable in an online based world.

So i want to conclude that online has fused into our day to day lives. And meeting people in real life that you spend online time with is not daunting at all but quite liberating. Online activities however do conflict with social activities. And quite often it is not understood and taken from a social stigmatization point of view.