A Virtual Suicide Brings Up Discussion On Virtual Obsessions
from the come-back-to-reality dept
Salon has a long article discussing a recent fake suicide in online game Everquest. The story is pretty interesting in that someone created an entire person behind a character, who never really existed. However, from there, the article begins to discuss obsessions among online gamers. It's not exactly clear where the leap begins. The "fake suicide" wasn't necessarily someone who was obsessed with the game (though, they did play a lot). Instead, it happened due to a bizarre thought that the "dead virtual person" would help during a real life divorce trial (yeah, it's a twisted story). The whole question of obsessive behavior within an online game is a completely different issue.
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Disturbing
I thought that the story of the guy whose relationship fell apart even more when his girlfriend started developing a virtual boyfriend was one of the best examples. I'd like to draw a small line between this and shows like Survivor - people are interested in living, or at least seeing into, others' lives than their own today, and so that is what's being facilitated. However, in the end, you are yourself, and you have to deal with it at some point.
As a sidebar, I do have one friend who plays pretty often who has started complaining that the game does seem like it's being taken over by the people who do obsess (spend hours and hours a week playing), and will sometimes attack without an apparent reason. The relationships built can be strong - I don't contest that, I've met some great people on-line, but I personally believe it is still no contest with a 'real' relationship and dealing with a 'real' person.
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