VIRTUAL VIRTUOSOS: PLAY AND PERFORMANCE AT THE COMPUTER KEYBOARD 1995 Lucia Ruedeberg Brenda Danet Yehudit Rosenbaum-Tamari Part 1. It was a chilly night in Jerusalem, around midnight in early December 1991, when Ruedenberg turned on her computer and logged onto IRC as to see who else might be online. A message from in New York popped up on her screen: *Thunder* hi She messaged him back: /msg thunder rehi /msg thunder you want to talk? "Rehi" is a convention for "hi again" on IRC (Internet Relay Chat), an interactive chat program for communicating in real time, via computer, over the Internet. Ruedenberg, a graduate fellow at the time, at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, had been using this medium for a few months. , a systems operator and student at a university in the United States, had been active on IRC for many years. For him it was early evening in New York, he had plans, and he let her know he could not chat long: *Thunder* I am gonna shower soon /msg thunder first laundrey, then shower. hmmm. clean boy. *Thunder* well did not start wash yet... have 2 days :-) /msg thunder ahah. :-) Initiates into the world of electronic communication quickly learn to explore the expressivity of the medium through creative use of the keyboard, which offers both lower and upper case letters, numbers, typographic symbols, and function keys. One popular example is the use of the "smiley" icon :-). When viewed with the head tilted toward the left shoulder, this symbol-- composed of a colon, a dash, and a left parenthesis--represents a smile. Typographic misfires and misspellings which are a result of writing "on the fly" may also be exploited for expressive effect. Negotiating the Virtual Encounter: Relations between and had become somewhat testy. Ruedenberg, upon realizing the unique communicative nature of this virtual world, had begun to log her chat sessions on IRC. Some of these logs included verbal sexplay and not unexpectedly, a power struggle emerged around issues of privacy and control. even phoned once to smooth over ruffled feelings in "voice." In the chat that follows, returned to this unresolved issue: /msg thunder so tell me. *Thunder* tell you what /msg thunder I have to ask yo if you mind my logging sometimes or ever, if yo're on it. *Thunder* I just watch what I say :-) *Thunder* if there is something I don't want logged that I said.. I merely run program and it disappears /msg thunder I will not log if you do't want me to *Thunder* it does not matter..I will not say anyghint I don't want logged since I assume your log is always on anyway /msg thunder but don't do that if it will kill whatever else I have done before you talk *Thunder* it will do nothing to the rest of your log.. it will merely remove the lines with in them /msg thunder all you have to say is - don't log me. *Thunder* and *Thunder* in them -Thunder- and -Thunder- /msg thunder well...okay /msg thunder you have the power to do what you want In the brief exchange above, informs that he has written a little program to excise out whatever he "says" whenever he does not want to be logged. First tries to establish some "verbal" understanding, but finally acknowledges his technical ability to control the medium, a performative skill on his part. Then unexpectedly, instead of ending the chat to take a shower as he had first announced, launched into a virtual performance on the computer keyboard, inviting to join him in a dance with words: Line 53 *** Thunder invites you to channel 1 *** Thunder invites you to channel 2 55 *** Thunder invites you to channel 3 *** Thunder invites you to channel 4 *** Thunder invites you to channel 5 *** Thunder invites you to channel 6 *** Thunder invites you to channel 0 60 *** Thunder invites you to channel hmmm this is confusing /msg thunder hmm so much to choose from ! hehe *** Thunder invites you to channel -) *** Thunder invites you to channel \ /msg thunder hahahaha 65 *** Thunder invites you to channel -) *** Thunder invites you to channel \ /msg thunder no way! *** Thunder invites you to channel ok..I will stop now *** Thunder invites you to channel +bagelnosh 70 *** Thunder invites you to channel +noshbagel /msg thunder oh yeah? *** Thunder invites you to channel +hsonlegab ***Thunder invites you to channel +kinky sex with riding crops and handcuffs 75 /msg thunder I'll think about it. *** Thunder invites you to channel +weed *** Thunder invites you to channel +weed *** Thunder invites you to channel +weed *** Thunder invites you to channel +weed 80 *Thunder* this one is real /msg thunder oh yeah? *Thunder* do a /whois thunder /whois thunder Thunder is root@xxxxxxxx (-: Raam / Chundeung :-) 87 ***Thunder invites you to channel +weed /j +weed *** lucia joins channel +weed Opening a "channel" on IRC signals "Let's relax and hang out a little while," since it allows people to type messages to each other without constant use of the /msg command. 's playful openings introduce a "party" frame within which participants can enjoy reduced accountability, and action and utterances are often in a playful mode. Giving the channel a name, in this case "weed," introduces a second meta-message: "Let's make-believe and suspend belief" (Handelman, 1976). Among adults, extended pretend-play is usually limited to specialized situations such as the theater, charades, improvisation, masked balls and carnivals. In this case, it is the play-frame of IRC. began by playing with different names for his channel, inserting a reflexive comment on himself, as one of the channel names: "hmmm, this is confusing" (line 60). Then he switched to typographic symbols as channel names (lines 62-63, 65-66). said "no way!" (lines 64, 67), responding to the fact that was changing the names so quickly that she could not join the channels even if she tried (the moment a channel name is changed the former one no longer exists). Next he invited her to a channel called "bagelnosh," an IRC "hang-out" for daily chat created by Ruedenberg and Slovenz-Low (a fellow graduate student at New York University). Playing with the word "bagelnosh" continues to signal "party." First reverses the two components as "noshbagel" (line 71), and then types the word backwards, yielding "hsonlegab" (line 73). If one had any doubts about whether serious conversation was about to take place, they are now dispelled! The next proposal for "kinky sex with riding crops and handcuffs" (line 74) offers the possibility that the "party" could turn into seduction and "dark play" (Schechner, 1988). Finally, settled on the channel name +weed (line 76). He issued an invitation five times--repetition being in itself, of course, playful. After double checking on who and where was, "joined" the channel (line 88: /j +weed is the command that placed her in the channel). Here, they chatted for roughly one and one-half hours, while six other persons joined them. Communication on IRC is a veritable "forest of symbols," to borrow Victor Turner's (1967) metaphor, of typographic symbols, comprised of such humble materials as commas, colons, and backslashes. 's resourcefulness at the computer keyboard is an example of "virtual play" (Aycock, 1993)--a stylized, written form of speech that lies somewhere between playing an instrument and acting a part. We will return to examine it in greater detail below. Experienced in real time as scrolling lines of text on a computer screen, the case material we will examine represents a transitional form in an emergent medium. An Inherently Playful Medium Four interrelated, basic features of computers and computer-mediated communications foster playfulness: ephemerality, speed, interactivity, and freedom from the tyranny of materials. The computer encourages participants to "fiddle" (Schechner, personal communication, August 1993). Thinking primarily of word-processing, Heim (1987) describes the computer as an inherently playful medium: My stream of consciousness can be paralleled by the running flow of the electric element. Words dance on the screen. Sentences slide smoothly into place, make way for one another, while paragraphs ripple down the screen. Words become highlighted, vanish at the push of a button, then reappear instantly at will. Verbal life is fast-paced, easier, with something of the exhilaration of video games. (Heim, 1987: 152). Similarly, Bolter describes playfulness as a defining quality of hypertext--electronically composed literature: Electronic literature will remain a game, just as all computer programming is a game. [Hypertext]...grows out of...computer games.....the impermanence of electronic literature cuts both ways: as there is no lasting success, there is also no failure that needs to last. By contrast, there is a solemnity at the center of printed literature--even comedy, romance and satire--because of the immutability of the printed page. (Bolter, 1991: 130). The subjunctive mode of possibility and experimentation invokes the frame of "make-believe" (Bateson, 1972; Goffman, 1974; Handelman, 1976). When this frame is operating, participants understand and accept the meta-message "this is play" (Bateson, 1972; Handelman, 1976). Goffman (1974: 40-41) suggests that activity in the "key" of play is closely patterned after something that already has a meaning in a "serious" key, e.g., a strip of fighting behavior is transformed into a strip of play; participants are not "really" fighting. Richard Schechner suggests that play is being loose with rules and bits of existence that are apparently set. We turn them upside down, use them in unexpected and unplanned-for ways, make them into what they were not at first intended to be (personal communication, August 1993). All play, defined by Johan Huizinga (1955) in his classic study of play and culture, is voluntary, intensely absorbing, done for its own sake, and more or less rule-governed. The seductive flow of words, experienced by Heim as a "stream of consciousness" paralleled by the "running flow of the electric element," resembles both Csikszentmihalyi's notion of play as a "flow experience" in which action and awareness are fused (Csikszentmihalyi, 1977), as well as Callois' notion of "ilinx," a state of "losing oneself" (Callois 1961). The state of being deeply absorbed and engrossed in a computer related, two-way activity is often referred to as interactivity (Rafaeli, 1988; Laurel, 1992). The computer is experienced as a "second self" (Turkle, 1984). When two persons communicate in real time via computers, they often report a heightened sense of involvement. One participant on a discussion list for "virtual culture" explained: I must admit that there *is* a certain "spell" associated with a net-relationship--there's something sensually tantalizing about the slow progression of crafted words across a screen. (posting to irvc-l@byrd.mu.wvnet.edu, October 10, 1993) Pioneering researchers on computer mediated communication (CMC) in the late 1970's and early 1980's were slow to notice playfulness in the new medium, or to regard this as a topic worth investigating in its own right. Concerned primarily with the instrumental, rather than the affective or socio-emotional aspects of communication, early research focused on its effects on organizational functioning. Electronic mail (e-mail) with its possibilities for one-to-one and one-to-many communication, was often referred to as "teleconferencing" or "conferences." Such terms are still quite common among scholars in the research tradition of organizational communication. Because "conference" usually refers to a work-related meeting, designers of the new technologies, researchers, and early participants may also have expected the general frame of messages exchanged to be "serious." Some perceived the medium, by definition, as cold, anonymous, and lacking in "social presence," due to "reduced bandwidth," and the resulting absence of non-verbal cues such as facial expression (Short, et al., 1976 Kiesler, et al., 1984; Kuehn, 1993; Rice and Love, 1987; Walther, 1992). There are signs of a rethinking of these issues. Walther (1992: 66) cites suggestions that "social presence can be 'cultured' among teleconferencing participants, rather than being determined by the medium itself" (Johansen, et al., 1988: 141). One of the surprises for researchers on CMC has been the frequency of features previously thought to characterize oral, as opposed to written, communication, (cf., e.g., Maynor, in press; Ferrara, et al., 1991; Murray, 1991; Yates, 1992a, 1992b; Bolter, 1991; Collot and Belmore, 1992; Leslie, 1993). Electronic text is, like an oral text, "dynamic" (Bolter, 1991: 59). It blurs the boundaries between oral and written forms of communication. Verbal playfulness in computer communications originated with those who created and continue to invent the medium, often referred to as "hackers" (Raymond, 1991: 15-16; Barlow, 1990; Meyer and Thomas, 1990). Dry humor, irony, puns, and a mildly flippant attitude, along with an underlying seriousness and intelligence are cultivated and valued (Raymond, 1991: 20). Electronic mail and messaging are viewed as a new form of human communication, better than the telephone and postal system put together (Steele, 1991); ordinary surface or air mail are playfully dismissed as "snail mail" (Raymond, 1991: 325-6). Conventions of computer programming language (Raymond, 1991), when used in everyday language, challenge the formalities of English writing conventions, for example, the preference for writing all in lower-case, even at the beginning of sentences, as well as the tendency to put periods and commas outside instead of inside quotes. Other forms of verbal playfulness resemble genres of popular writing, the language of advertising, graffiti, and personal letter-writing, particularly that of young people. In electronic communications, capital letters, as in "I REALLY LIKE THAT!" are usually interpreted as shouting. Their use is familiar from the comics (Abbott, 1986; Inge, 1990) as a way to emphasize a word or phrase. Another common example is the use of asterisks to emphasize words, convey that an action is taking place (*grins*), or a sound is being made (*bang*). In addition to play with words, there is play with typographic symbols to express emotion. Emoticons, such as the basic smile noted at the beginning of this study, express humor, laughter, friendliness, and occasionally, sarcasm (Raymond, 1991: 142-143; Mason, 1990). Two other icons are quite common: :-( A 'frowney face' expresses sadness, anger, or upset ;-) A 'half smiley' represents a wink and a smile Although we produce these symbols sequentially, they are experienced almost simultaneously as a gestalt, when reading them. Large collections of "smiley dictionaries" have been circulating around the globe for the last decade or more (Reid, 1991; Blackman and Clevenger, 1990; Danet and Ruedenberg, 1992; Kuehn, 1993; Godin, 1993). During her first exploration of IRC, Ruedenberg encountered a :-P from a user in Chicago who explained that she "stuck out her tongue" at 's efforts to master the new medium both technically and socially. While some initiates to the medium reject emoticons as "in poor taste," or in conflict with standards of "good writing" associated with literate culture, for others, playing with smiley icons may be a way of signaling initiation and familiarity with the medium. It can be disconcerting for "newbies" to learn that old-timers may already be rejecting "smileys" as passe. They may already be out of style on Usenet (Kantor, 1994) and on MUDS and MOOS (personal communication from Lee-Ellen Marvin, 1994). Establishing the Virtual Field: Electronic communications occur in an abstract space of telecommunications technology that challenges ordinary questions like "What time is it?" or "Where are we?" (Gibson, 1984; Barlow, 1990; Benedikt, 1991; Biocca, 1992). Newcomers to the medium often report experiencing a period of disorientation or vertigo that can be either distressing or exhilarating. The conventional boundaries between real and imagined worlds have been blurred. In "real life," isolation in time and space is usually necessary for people to become free of everyday constraints and to lose themselves in play. Huizinga (1955), for example, defines play as a "free activity standing quite consciously outside "ordinary" life....within its own proper boundaries of time and space" (Huizinga, 1955: 13). Similarly, Caillois (1961) describes play as essentially a "separate occupation, carefully isolated from the rest of life" and "engaged in with precise limits of time and place"--the sidewalk marked for hopscotch, the game board for chess, the stadium, racetrack, ring, the stage and the arena (Caillois, 1961: 6). In "cyberspace" the suspension of conventional coordinates of time and space provides the perfect insulation to maintain a play frame. In "cyberspace," a sense of place and person are entirely imaginary. Shared interests and communicative style, alone, are used to navigate this space, where, as Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1992) has noted, "topic is place--from _topos_, the Greek word for place": virtual places are defined not just by the designated topic, be it jazz or sourdough, but also by the attitude to topic control. The designated topic may be the address, but the attitude to topic control helps to give the place its distinctive social character (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1992). Rheingold (1992) notes that new technologies provide new "tools for facilitating all the various ways people have discovered to divide and communicate, group and subgroup and regroup, include and exclude, select and elect": The physical world, known variously as "IRL" ("In Real Life"), or "offline," is a place where the identity and position of the people you communicate with are well known, fixed, and highly visual. In cyberspace, everybody is in the dark. We can only exchange words with each other--no glances or shrugs or ironic smiles. Even the nuances of voice and intonation are stripped away. (Rheingold, 1992). With the increasing technical ability to transmit graphic images over the Internet, play with visual as well as verbal representation, as in World Wide Web home pages, is fast becoming a part of electronic communications. How then, do people view this new place "online"? In its present condition, some compare "cyberspace" to the 19th Century West (Barlow, 1990), peopled by "computer cowboys" (Hafner and Markoff, 1991: 10), "console cowboys," or "digital explorers" (Levy, 1984, Preface): It is vast, unmapped, culturally and legally ambiguous, verbally terse..., hard to get around in, and up for grabs. Large institutions already claim to own the place, but most of the actual natives are solitary and independent, sometimes to the point of sociopathy. It is, of course, a perfect breeding ground for both outlaws and new ideas about liberty. (Barlow, 1990). Others envision a congenial place for relaxed conviviality (Oldenburg, 1989; Rheingold, 1993; Coate, 1993; Smith, 1993): If you see a net.user with more than one window open, chances are one of those windows is linked to an electronic cafe....these coffeehouse atmospheres are prime spots for chatting or perhaps a little gaming or roleplaying (Frost, 1993). Similar to a "pub," "cafe," "salon" or "saloon," the electronic cafe resembles a "third place" (Oldenburg, 1989) that lies somewhere between "home" and "work," geographically, psychologically or socially. Its character is determined most of all by its regular clientele and is marked by a playful mood: Within these places, conversation is the primary activity and the major vehicle for the display and appreciation of human personality and individuality....Since the formal institutions of society make stronger claims on the individual, third places are normally open in the off hours, as well as at other times (Oldenburg, 1989: 42). While other media, such as the telephone and telegraph, also enable people to transcend the limitations of time and space, neither of these has been particularly characterized by playfulness. The telephone allows two people to maintain a relationship in meaningful ways; however it never has been a "place" where strangers meet to socialize, or where entire groups of people hang out. Consider, for example that during times of crisis, electronic communications such as IRC, the fax network, Usenet and mailing lists, became powerful methods for the dissemination of information (Rheingold, 1993; Ruedenberg 1994). When telecommunications were cut during the Gulf War, Tiananmen Square, and the Russian Coup, Internet links remained up (Press, 1992). In 1991, Muscovite IRC users reported live at the scene: After [channel +report] was used during the Gulf War, during the LA riots, during the Tiananmen Square incident in China, at least one news reporter dropped by the channel in search of Russian interviewees...giving us a view "from the inside" as CNN could never do. Translating the Russian media, and walking the rubble-strewn streets, they mediated a glimpse into the very heart of the action (Wong, 1993). The term the "net" captures this image of people communicating with each other, in contrast to the term "cyberspace" that evokes an abstract, empty domain consisting of machines, information and electronic pulses (Gibson, 1984; Benedikt, 1991; Biocca, 1992). Similarly, the metaphor of "information highway" or "infobahn" emphasizes the impersonal, highspeed exchange of data. Our experience of the worldwide system of computer networks that has developed over the past decade (Quarterman, 1990; LaQuey, 1993; Rheingold, 1993) is one of a place for both work and play where modes of expressive behavior are created everyday (Myers, 1987). A few of the more familiar ones include bulletin boards, discussion lists, virtual classrooms, and chat programs. In the last five years, researchers have begun to pay close attention to the linguistic features, expressive behavior, and playfulness in these modes of daily communication. IRC: A Global Playground Part pub, part wild west, IRC is an interactive chat program where hundreds of discussions occur in real time, one to one, or in groups on "channels." Similar to Usenet newsgroups, topics range from poetry readings, word games, flirting in an imaginary hottub, computer programming tips, news flashes in times of crises, political discussions of world events, music fans' chitchat, lonely hearts clubs' gropings for company, and religious discussions, to name but a few. Since full interactive access to the Internet is necessary to log on to IRC, the majority of participants are college and university students. The original IRC client was invented in 1986 by Jarkko Oikarinen, a student of computer science at the University of Olutensin in Finland. Inspired by BITNET Relay, a chat program for IBM protocol machines, he wanted to create a similar program for the unix machine that could connect to the Internet, so that local users on his BBS could chat with each other. In looking back on his invention, Jarkko (nicknamed WIZ on IRC) observes that the main problem with IRC is that it "takes so much time from useful studying and work": the bad thing is...irc doesn't take much CPU time, or not even very much network bandwidth. it just takes a lot of people. and people is the resource money really cannot buy. people do not study when they use irc. they do not work either. He commented wryly: I'm known as the ultimate cracker who managed to program a computer virus which makes students graduate later and which isn't stoppable :-) At the time of this interview (on IRC of course) in 1991, he was close to completing his own degree, working at the university hospital on projects related to computer-assisted brain surgery. With a smile, he excused himself: But it's 2AM... which means it's my bedtime... I try not to stay on irc later than 2, because then I wake up too late and don't go to work :-) (citations are from a personal interview Ruedenberg conducted with him on December 20, 1991). As with most shareware programs, IRC "just spread around." Young computer enthusiasts test their skills, experiment with the code and periodically create new, updated versions, most of which are "full of security holes" that allow users to break into each other's accounts. With no real privacy on IRC (or on the Internet in general), almost any unix-skilled hacker who cares to listen, can eavesdrop on any other user's conversation. Channels create the illusion of intimacy, but as one user put it: IRC is fun and sometimes interesting, which is the reverse of campus life in general, but IRC will *never* be a serious [tool] simply because it is not secure and is dominated by kids. In her study of IRC, Elizabeth Reid (1991) observes that participants treat the medium as both a "frontier world" and a "playground" in which they feel free to experiment with forms of communication and self representation. IRC provides a place to act out fantasies, challenge social norms, and exercise aspects of one's personality that would under normal circumstances be inhibited (Reid, 1991). Institutions, on the other hand, often maintain that IRC is a drain on limited computer resources. It is banned at Amherst College in the United States (Rheingold, 1993; Kelly and Rheingold, 1993). In Israel, only four of the seven academic institutions allow unrestricted access. We gained access from Hebrew University only after submitting a request to use it for research and teaching purposes only. In the three years since we gathered the material for this study in 1991, participation on IRC has grown tremedously. A 1993 study notes that the number of users at any given time increased from 606 in March 1992 to 2316 in April 1993, with low usage during college breaks in the United States (Nystroem, 1993). In April 1994, Laurent Demailly posted an enthusiastic announcement to the discussion list for IRC operators that more than 5000 users were logged on that night: I'm pleased to make you notice that the current net has successfully reached more than 5000 users this night !!! The 5000th USER was seen from here at 04:28 MET (GMT+2) on Apr 21st And, miracle ! It was *not* a bot !!! (at least, not a bot 'look') : It was weinrib!weinrib@pilot.njin.net (Eileen Weinrib) on server pilot.njin.net :Rutgers Univeristy New Brunswick, NJ I'll suggest that everybody greet this symbolic customer !! The current record is now : Max 5105, Apr 21 05:53 MET (again seen from here (service.obspm.fr)) How much this ircd can stand ? 7000? 10000 ? {i doubt we'll see the 10000th with current protocol, anyway, if it happens, i'll tell you :)} more ? (operlist@kei.com April 12, 1994). Since not everyone logs on every day, and presumably different people log on at different times around the globe, the total number of IRC users at the time of completion of this paper is obviously higher than 5000, though very difficult to estimate. To complicate matters, many "users" are "bots," as noted in the above quote; that is, robot programs that interact on IRC in various capacities. Many young people find IRC addictive, so much so that they have formed a news group called alt.irc.recovery to help wean themselves from the medium. Players report losing all sense of time once they get involved in a chat, leading to marathons that can last anywhere from 5 to 25 hours! One former user reported: I came *this* close to ruining my whole future because of irc. It got to the point where that was all I could think about... and every minute off irc was a minute closer to the next time I could sign onto irc. Every, and I do mean *every* one of my friends at that time was from irc, and what's sad is I never even met more than half of them face to face. I totally lost interest in everything else, and would often lose precious sleep because I'd be on irc til 4 am. God, I still shudder when I think about how I let my life become so pathetic (posting to alt.irc.covery 1993). A descriptive file on IRC warns that "the program can be very addictive once you begin to make friends and contacts on IRC ;-) especially when you learn how to cuss in 14 languages" (Trim and Lindahl, 1990). Another user ascribed her addiction to the anonymity of electronic communications: as I found myself further and further into irc and other similar things, I found that I didn't have to do some of the things which I *did* have to do in real life in order to be accepted. I didn't have to dress up. I could claim to be anyone I wanted to be (something which I didn't abuse as much as many people do) and suddenly, people found me "beautiful" because of my way with words. I am not physically beautiful, and never could be described that way. I was a little intoxicated, if that's a good word (posting to alt.irc.recovery 1993). On IRC, as in all play, there is reduced accountability for action (Handelman, 1976; Honigmann, 1977; Turner, 1986b). The potential for subversiveness on IRC and other chat modes is similar to other forms of adolescent play such as comics, graffiti, and jazz, both in the diversion of the medium to other uses, and in the actual content produced (Estren, 1974; Abel and Buckley, 1977; Castleman, 1982; Berliner, 1994). By conventional criteria, all forms of playfulness are amoral and can be viewed as threatening to the social order. Play communicates "what can be" (Handelman 1976: 186) and is defined as "unserious," "untrue," "pretend," "make-believe," and "unreal" precisely because it is a "fount of unorder against which the social order must be buffered." Play is not permitted to define a moral community, since the "directions of its transformative capacity are uncharted" (Handelman, 1976: 189). In computer-mediated communications, the juxtaposition of fantasy with high-tech reality has created a post-modern form of communication, distinguished by a style of playful rebellion and irreverent subversion (Meyer and Thomas, 1990). In his study of virtual communities, Rheingold (1993) views "IRCland" is a cross cultural grab bag of written conversations, a "global subculture" composed of artificial identities, quick wit, the use of words to construct an imagined, shared context for conversation where "writing is performance" (Rheingold, 1993: 176-178, ). The analysis to be preseented in this paper leads us to reject positions of technological determinism (Ong, 1982; Heim, 1987), and to view "regulars" on IRC as pioneers experimenting with new forms of human expression, domesticating and transforming technology in creative, unanticipated ways. Part 2. In the next section of this paper we will return to the case material presented in our introduction. We will explore three interrelated aspects of play and performance on IRC: play with identity, play with frames of interaction, and play with language. A complete transcript of the chat session, captured through Kermit by Ruedenberg in December 1991, is available from Ruedenberg or Danet. Playing with Identity Playing with identity in computer-mediated communications originates from the need for a "userid" in order "log in" to a computer system. You need to "tell the computer who you are" (Steele, 1991: xiii). Nicknames are de rigueur in network chat programs and "talkers" such as IRC (Reid, 1991), Compuserve's CB Simulator Channels, or MUDs and MOOs (Multi-user Domains or Dungeons) (object-oriented MUDs; cf. Curtis, 1991; Bruckman, 1992; 1993; Kelly and Rheingold, 1993; Rheingold, 1993; Leslie, 1993). The use of nicknames resembles oral forms of communication, such as the Citizen's Band radio where participants are known by their "handle" (Powell, 1983; Kalcik, 1985). Thus, a player on IRC will have several electronic identities. The electronic address contains a userid that they used to logged onto the Internet. From there, they log onto IRC with any nickname they choose. "Nicks" must be unique in order to log on but can be easily changed once on IRC. The nicknames of the eight players in our log are listed below in Table 1. We have deleted any information that reveals details about the mainframe computers through which all participants except logged on. Note that nicknames are displayed in angle brackets, as they appear on IRC: ================================================================= Figure 1. Nicknames of participants. soulr@vm1.huji.ac.il root@xxxxx (-: Raam / Chundeung :-) GENGHISCON@xxxxxx () rpa3@xxxxxx dlahti@xxxxxx miksma3@xxxxxx (Baba) lizardo@xxxxxx (Doctor Lizardo) ssac@xxxxxx ================================================================= The use of nicknames illustrates one of the most common forms of play on IRC. Like material masks at carnivals and masked balls (Turner, 1986b), nicknames (and sometimes the userid, or other optional components of an electronic address) not only hide the players' real identity; they call attention to the person through the expressive power and imaginativeness of the mask. Not unlike a "calling card," our players choose their nicks and customize their addresses as textual plumage and markings that they invite us to appreciate (Gombrich, 1984). Nicks on IRC, and other synchronous modes, tend to appeal to fantasy, borrowing words from nature, mythology, technology, the occult, comics, children's literature, science fiction, and films. On many grounds there is no need to disguise the identity of participants, any more than they have done so on IRC, which is by definition a "public" space. Anyone can check on the address of another user with a simple /whois command. Those with a little skill can customize the information that is displayed about themselves, other than the address itself. Thus, several of the participants listed above have additional information in parentheses (where normally their real name appears). These serve as comments upon their IRC identity. In addition, participants can change their nicknames at any time while they are on IRC. Finally, anyone can make a log of a chat session, either through a log feature on the IRC client, or by capturing it through their communications software. All these conditions argue for treating material gathered in a log from IRC as public and therefore not ethically problematic for researchers. Nonetheless, as noted in our introduction, what is perceived by participants as private or public, on IRC and on the Internet in general, is another matter. By deleting that part of the address that links a user with a login site, we are respecting the desire of our participants to remain anonymous. Of the eight players identified above, we will examine the nicknames of five of them which appear in the excerpts of the log that we will analyze below: soulr@vm1.huji.ac.il (Lucia Ruedenberg) Any user on IRC could type /whois in order to see who she is. The address reveals that she was logging on via an IBM mainframe (vm1), at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (huji), academic computing department (ac), in Israel (il). One might try to ascribe meaning to "soulr" (e.g., "Ruedenberg's soul") but in this case, the code was simply an abbreviation assigned to all students from overseas universities. root@xxxxxx (-: Raam/Chundeung :-) According to , he stole his nickname from his dog whom he had named after the character "Thunder" in the comic strip "Underdog." The name evokes associations to power, control, loud noise, even fear. By using "root" as the account from which to logon to IRC, not only hides his real life name, but displays the fact that he is a system administrator. "Root" is the original "superuser" account included in the initial set-up on any unix machine, from which a user can supervise and control the system. At the end of his address, has inserted an additional name composed of typographic symbols (-: Raam/Chundeung :-). Two "smiley" icons, mirroring each other, embrace two foreign words. "Ra'am" is "thunder" in Hebrew and "chundeung" means the same in Korean. The symmetry of the two facing smileys echoes the pairing of the two words for "thunder," which evokes a couple or a relationship. Thus, one of the forms of playfulness here is with language as code. In addition, 's use of "smiley" icons is a visual or graphic pun: the end-brackets serve both as the smileys _and_ as conventional brackets for the text enclosed within them. He thus recycles the "smiley" back to its originally functional character as an abstract typographic symbol, while retaining its playful use as emoticon. genghiscon@xxxxxx () has three kinds of nicknames that appear in his/her electronic address. The IRC nick is the name of a Klingon character from the television series _Star Trek_. The userid "genghiscon" is obviously a play upon the name Genghis Khan. "Khan" and "con" are homonyms in American pronunciation--words that sound the same though spelled differently. Thus, is playing with the relationship between spoken and written language. "Con" is a computer term that stands for "console" (keyboard) as in the "copy con" command in DOS. The "con" suffix can also be read as "convention," i.e. a conference meeting, as science fiction, star trek, dungeons and dragons, and computer culture conventions are often referred to as "cons." In English, the term evokes the term "con man"--one who swindles, tricks or deceives-- derived from the word "ex-con" or "convict." , appended to 's address, may be a reference to a character in Dragons and Dungeons--imagery that is popular in interactive genres such as MUDS (Bruckman, 1992, 1993; Curtis, 1992; Kelly and Rheingold, 1993). Since the nick is placed between angle brackets, it is logical to assume that uses as an alternate nick in some interactive mode. rpa3@xxxxxx Little is known about 's nickname. One association to it is Rikki-tikki-tavi, a character in Rudyard Kipling's _Jungle Books_ (Kipling, 1961), who is a mongoose: ...rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he pleased with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; he could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle-brush, and his war-cry as he scuttled through the long grass was: rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk! (Kipling, 1961). Another association is to Tom Lehrer's song, "Rickity-Tickity-Tin," popular with college students in the late 1950's and early 1960's. A third is to George Bernard Shaw's play "Man and Superman," in which the heroine, Ann, disparagingly calls a character called Octavius "Ricky Ticky Tavy." Today's college students may no longer be familiar with Tom Lehrer's cynical songs; Kipling, on the other hand, may still be favorite childhood reading. dlahti@xxxxxx _Blue Adept_ is the name of a novel by science fiction writer Piers Anthony. The author is immensely popular with young adults, mostly men, in the United States, and well known for extended puns and word play. The nickname plays with typographic conventions. It elides two adjectives that are normally written a space apart (a nick must be one word), and capitalizes them when normally they would not be capitalized. The name invites associations to a phrase like "Blue Angel" or to some comic strip character similar to "the Green Hornet." Perhaps the most interesting thing to note is that it is impossible to know if a player is male or female. Retaining her real name, is the only obviously gendered nickname in the group. Others might doubt if that is her real name, or that she is female, but they have no way to check this. Ruedenberg had spoken once with over the telephone so we know that he is male. Knowing that more men than women participate in IRC leads us to conclude that most of the other players are male. There is no overt clue to the age of our participants, though based on their conversation, it is easy to assume they are college students, or at most in their early thirties. Except for and , the other six participants were all geographically dispersed and, to the best of our knowledge, strangers, not only in real life, but electronically as well. We know that six of the participants logged on from the United States. One person was in Finland, and was an American in Israel at the time of this log. It is usually a matter of chance who is already on IRC when an individual joins the crowd. For example, did not know that would be online when she logged on. Similarly, they had no advance knowledge of who would join their channel. While individuals may encounter a few familiar "faces," most people on IRC are strangers. Thus, IRC and other synchronous modes of digital communication have something in common with face-to-face encounters where chance comes into play (Callois, 1961): card games or lotteries, singles bars, pubs, and large private parties. The disinhibiting effect of such anonymity can release strong positive as well as negative emotions. Sudden episodes of conflict can erupt, referred to as "flaming" (Raymond, 1991; Reid, 1991; Lea et al., 1992). Participants are free to be other than "themselves," or they can be more of themselves than they normally express, especially when they adopt nicknames (Reid, 1991; Bruckman, 1992, 1993; Rheingold, 1993, chap. 5; Leslie, 1993). Huizinga (1955) has suggested that play promotes the formation of social groupings that surround themselves with secrecy and stress their difference by disguise or other means (Huizinga, 1955: 13). In real life, the effect of masks and costumes at carnival time would be the paradigmatic example of such anonymity and freedom (Turner, 1986c). In the sample presented in this study, it is the ephemeral, non-material medium of CMC and the dependence on words alone that provide the mask. Playing with Frames When players log onto IRC, they are moving into multiple meta- communicational frames of reference (Bateson, 1963; Handelman, 1976). The human ability to activate different frames of concentration and focus is reflected in the invention of "windows" and "multitasking" on the computer. Multitasking means to work on several tasks simultaneously, to switch back and forth between them, "loading and running several applications at the same time" (Sheldon, 1992: 13). In ordinary life we do this without thinking; we may write while listening to music, or cook a meal while carrying on a conversation with someone. Similarly, but somewhat less obviously, we may create and maintain two or more definitions of reality over a stretch of time. The notion of multitasking is useful in examining communication on IRC, with one important difference. While computer windows can be kept running simultaneously, they remain independent of one another. Technically, one can "be" in only one frame at a time, which is "foregrounded" while the others are "running in the background." IRC may be only one of many windows open on a player's workstation. In contrast, human beings can function in more than one frame at the same time. The nesting of experiential frames of existence is such that an action within one frame can also have meaning within the larger frame that incorporates it (Turner, 1986c). We should be careful of reifying the frame, or the definition of a situation as "established" in any final sense. On the contrary, frames are fluid, dynamic, highly contingent, and need constantly to be ratified. We have identified five frames of experience in our case material: 1) real life, 2) the IRC game, 3) a party frame, 4) the pretend frame, and 5) the stage frame. A hierarchical relation among these frames is shown graphically in Figure 2. ================================================================= Figure 2. Five frames of interaction. ************************************************************ * 1. REAL LIFE * * ************************************************ * * * 2. THE IRC GAME * * * * ************************************* * * * * | 3. THE PARTY CHANNEL | * * * * * **************************** * * * * * | | 4. PRETEND-PLAY | | * * * * | | ******************** | | * * * * * | | 5. THE STAGE | | * * * * * | | *------------------* | | * * * * | | | | * * * * * *--------------------------* * * * * * | | * * * * *------------------------------------* * * * * * * * *----------------------------------------------* * * * *----------------------------------------------------------* ================================================================= The five frames of interaction on IRC are nested within one another. From within the "party" frame, participants can join more than one channel simultaneously and conduct parallel yet separate frames of conversations. >From within any of the four inner frames, participants can step "out of frame," and into "real life," while still logged on and interacting on IRC. "Real Life" outside IRC is everyday life, grounded in physical space and time. In this frame, players are accountable for their physical and verbal actions, for the well-being of their bodies, and for their social commitments. By dint of being alive and functioning, the participants in our log are in the "real life" frame of the workaday world (Schechner, 1988). Participants can step "out of frame" and into real life at any time, while still logged on and interacting with others on IRC. Our log is filled with references to "real life," as the participants discuss the voice mail system at their university (line 271-349), their love life, the price of hamburgers at Burger King (line 360), or politics in the Middle East (lines 686-696). The "game" begins when participants log on to IRC. Certain skills and rules must be followed in order to participate. "Real life" is moved to the background and at this point participants don their nicknames. There is no pretense or "fooling around" at this level, just as there is no need to fool around when people play chess. Any interaction made possible by the constitutive rules and commands of IRC, occurs by definition within the frame of "playing the game." IRC provides a set of tools for many different kinds of writing-based language or symbolic language games (Wittgenstein, 1968). The "talk" on IRC can be serious or playful, in the frame of make-believe or the frame of the real world. Thus, when and met, having just logged on, he let her know that he may have to log off soon to shower or do laundry, a reference to "real life," to which responded in a play frame, calling him a "clean boy." introduced the party frame when he opened a channel named "weed" and set a topic: Line 90 *** The topic is: sssssssssssssss hmmm wheres all that smoke from? +weed Setting a topic is in the hands of the channel "operator" (chanop) and he or she can choose to share such powers with others on the channel. In this case, both the channel name and the topic signal relaxing and having a good time together. In addition, 's use of language opened the play frame. At first glance one sees only the letter "s" repeated many times and invites us to guess at his intentions, by asking, rhetorically, "hmmm, wheres all that smoke from?" The "sssssssssssssssss" conveys the hissing sound of inhaling and exhaling smoke with a roach in one's mouth. The strategy of writing out sequences of letters to convey sounds, as in "grrrr," "oof," "bam!," is a well known convention in comic art where three main types of language convey narration, dialogue and sound effect (Inge, 1990, chap. 2; Abbott, 1986: 156). In addition, the graphic contours of the "s" conveys the visual look of spiralling smoke. Finally, /s/ is the initial letter of the word "smoke!" Mention of the word "smoke" of course helps make clearer what has in mind. Still, didn't "get it" at first. Upon joining the channel, she used metaphors of water and thought "weed" referred to a "garden": Line 92 hi >dip my toes in >the water is warm water? >smoke? smoke yes 98 look at the channel name >silly me >I imagined an overgrown garden >haha well hang out in this channel and you will get silly ;0) I was thinking more of grass, herb, pot, marijuana :-) >I see >I got it >second time around is puzzled. He prompted her to look at the channelname for a clue (line 98), and then made his intentions explicit: Line 107 sssssssssssssss *passes joint to lucia* The third-person description of one's own action, marked by a pair of asterisks, is a striking and very common feature of synchronous, and some non-synchronous, electronic modes (Godin, 1993; Blackman and Clevenger, 1990). It echoes a convention in the comics, where the narrative portion of the individual frame of action is usually graphically marked off, appearing at the top or the bottom of the frame in a separately demarcated space. Here, the narration is inserted in the dialogue. It appears that third-person descriptions by speakers, of their own actions, within their own contribution to a dialogue, are a unique characteristic of computer-mediated communications, and a first in the history of synchronous interpersonal communication. We have previously encountered such forms only in playwrights' directions to actors, or directors in the scripts of plays, and in comics as a means to add a dynamic quality to the representation of action. By opening a channel, set a "scene" that others could join. A public channel on IRC is visible and open to all, whereas private channels are accessible by invitation-only or hidden from view. Soon after and settled into their "channel" and "topic," dropped in (line 123) and played the host. He makes virtual "moves," not unlike charades or mime (Hamblin, 1978) that others must decode in order to join. quickly figures out the game: Line 126 ssssssssssssss *passes joint to Kang* thanx dude *puff* *hold*........... >:-) ... Line 138 kang exhale.. you will die :-) *exhale* ;-) ... 145 *as smoke fills the channel again* *** Thunder sets the topic to: sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss :) yes >that was cute >I liked that >it was very funny :) we had better be careful kang.. it is getting into the topic.. it will soon spread to other channels.. they will see the smoke 156 they might be sushpishus mobilizes third-person descriptions of his own actions. He adds a row of periods........ to hint at the slowly developing effect of the marihuana on him. *Puff* and *hold* may be either nominalizations or infinitives, the names of the actions, or even first-person verbs with the pronoun "I" deleted. One of the signs of performance is the presence of an audience. "smiles" in appreciation of 's and 's simulations. "winks" to indicate his pleasure at the effect, his pleasure at his own performance, and at the terrific game they are playing. comments that smoke "fills the channel" (line 145) and sets the topic to "ssssssssssssssssss," adding even more s's than before--an invitation for all to become more deeply involved in the game, or else a way to express the meta-comment that they are "really getting into it." responds appreciatively with a midget "smiley" :) (the nose is omitted). remarks that they had better be careful--the smoke will "spread to other channels" and further simulates the effect of the drug by intentionally misspelling "suspicious" (line 156). About an hour into the chat, and join the party. Again, plays the host and they settle comfortably into the conventions of this pretend play: *** Rikitiki joins channel +weed Hi. ssssss hands joint to rikitiki Line 204 *inhales deeply* wooooooah.. *** Thunder sets the topic to: ssssssssssssssssssssssss here we go again 214 *exhales slowly* hey rikitiki it is back into the topic Hey Kang! good to know ya hey lucia hey thunder reasserts the topic for the newcomers. greets them with "hey" which picks up and repeats playfully to include . joins the channel and delivers a greeting familiar from children's television programming: *** BlueAdept joins channel +weed howdy doody... ssssssssss gives joint to blueadept howdy doody doobage ya mean thanks... ... ... *inhales* *exhales* ssssssssssssssssssssss ... 296 Nothing like a fat ganja spleef to brighten one's day :) hey pass it my way 300 And after last nite, I really needed it.. 302 (got dumped last nite.. a drag... and not the good kind of drag) heh that sucks BA 310 yep... she couldn't relate to my usage of vegetables... 's girlfriend may have "dumped" him the previous night, or not, and there may or may not have been some sexual play with vegetables. The point is not whether he is telling the truth, but that the material is presented as if it represents some event in the physical world of "real life." switches back to the pretend-play at hand, using the gerund to represent his actions: woah Line 335 (packing a fat bongload) 336 icewater or rum blue? 342 in the bong .. or wine? or coka cola? beer.. ach! isee A "bong" is a bottle with water in it, something like an improvised nargila pipe for smoking marihuana. jumps into the action and offers drinks. Not receiving any clear acknowledgement of the offer, he expands the range of choices to include wine and coca cola (line 342). asks for beer (line 344), but then changes his mind and asks instead for "peppermint schnapps" (line 336), saying that it has a better taste (line 350). Like most real life parties, this one now includes a range of fashionable drinks. There is a clear social dynamic to this virtual party, that develops over time, not unlike real-life parties. People don't all arrive at once. Informal chatting slowly builds to an engaging interchange between a few individuals. Playing with Language: After one masters the constitutive rules of the basic IRC game, as well as the conventions of expression, a contest may emerge, where skill is important on both a technical and aesthetic level. In any given encounter on IRC, it is a matter of chance how skilled the various participants will be in manipulating symbols in cyberspace. In our case material, and are particularly well matched, and stimulate each other to invent increasingly imaginative representations. begins by elaborating upon his topic, until the "sssssssssssss" evolves into a graphic representation of dissipating smoke: takes bong from Thunder and hands it to Kang Line 365 *gurble gurble gurble* sssssssssssss yea! I was not done with it sorry . here ... sssssssssssssssss 370 sssssssssssssssss ssss ss s 375 wow The verbal simulation of action continues with new material, as participants begin to blur the boundaries between frames in playful ways: beback , gotta locate some coffee keep an eye on that bong for me... will don't let it leave the room, and keep it packed definitely Line 386 387 *throw seeds into channel +hottub* *** Signoff: BlueAdept ha! heheh 391 look they are floting in the tub hehe hehe 393 maybe they will root :-) The imaginary place, "hottub," is a longstanding, popular channel on IRC. By mentioning a channelname, is overtly referring to constitutive elements of the virtual IRC game as if they are physical places within the frame of "pretend-play." Alternatively, we might say that the "party" and the "pretend- play" frames are being blended with the "game" frame. Line 393 introduces a little word play with the double meaning of "root"--as in seeds sprouting and as in 's userid, explored above in the section on nicknames. This is followed by an unexpected, serendipitous pun: gives bong to kang ;) Line 397 need to pack a new bowel heheheheh ehhehehehe what a typo not bowel!!!! >bowel? need to pack a new bowl hehhehehe okay ... *pack pack* that is shitty pot I would say if it was packing a bowel ha! had a slip-of-the-finger: instead of "bowl" he typed "bowel." "What a typo!" he chortled, in line 400. Kang was quick to pick up on his mistake. did a double take and corrected himself, "laughing." "packed" the bowl for him. Then Thunder elaborated on the pun, introducing "shitty" as a negative adjective to go with "bowel" and "pot." This word play, unlike other examples discussed so far, is the spontaneous byproduct of a "typo," a typing error. Mistakes in the mad rush of adding one's contribution to the ongoing dialogue are an important source of humor on IRC. Tumult, agitation, improvisation, joy, and immoderate laughter, are the spontaneous manifestation of "letting oneself go" (Callois, 1961: 28), a result of the moment-to-moment quality of this textual happening. Improvising with the resources of the keyboard, the players in our log respond with ingenuity and spontaneity to the unfolding of "unexpected situations" (Hodgson and Richards, 1967: 2). In this case, contest is neither totally unregulated nor totally stylized or dictated by the rules. It is an improvised progression that moves from verbal to increasingly graphic representations. and alternate taking the "stage," showing off, and expressing pleasure and admiration for each others', as well as their own, performative skills: Line 416 *inhale* *hold* ...................... :-) :| :\ heheheh heheheheheh that was great 425 :/ :) hehehehehhe *exhale* :0 430 :| :| :\sssss :) hheeeheee :-Q :| :| :\sssss :) heheheh ever ... mmmmmmm.... heard of Gainesville Green? 435 :-) cute my hometown! never heard of it *** Thunder sets the topic to: \:-Q :-| :-| :\sssss :-) ha! 440 uggg *** Thunder sets the topic to: \ :-Q :-| :-| :\sssss :-) there we go the : was a problem I needed a \ As in sports and other "real world" forms of competitive play such as verbal dueling (Huizinga, 1955; Caillois, 1961; Labov, 1972; Gossen, 1976), a "taste for gratuitous difficulty" (Caillois, 1961: 27) emerges as and take the stage. The meta-message is: "Look at me!" or "Look at us, and at what we can do!" Accountability is reduced and subordinated to agonistic and aesthetic considerations. In the case of our log, the activity is a collective, interactive, enterprise that has much in common with Bauman's notion of oral performance: Performance involves on the part of the performer an assumption of accountability to an audience for the way in which communication is carried out, above and beyond its referential content....the act of expression on the part of the performer is thus marked as subject to evaluation for the way it is done, for the relative skill and effectiveness of the performer's display of competence. Additionally, it is marked as available for the enhancement of experience, though the present enjoyment of the intrinsic qualities of the act of expression itself. Performance thus calls forth special attention to and heightened awareness of the act of expression and gives license to the audience to regard the act of expression and the performer with special intensity (Bauman, 1977: 11). The contest began in earnest when drew from his repertoire an icon not widely used in ordinary e-mail, the colon and a pipe :|. He performed it twice, added a backward slash, and chuckled in appreciation: Line 419 :| :| :\ heheheh heheheheheh that was great Neither nor needed to say explicitly what the icons mean or why laughed and complimented him. The sequence means something like "puff, puff, and grimace while you hold the smoke inside." Inspired to continue, improvised further: Line 425 :/ :) hehehehehehe *exhale* :0 Again, one can follow quite easily what is happening: smiled after inhaling. He reverted momentarily to the verbal *exhale*, but then he tried to improve on the improvisation. He zipped out from his repertoire of icons the figure zero for an open mouth. The entire sequence now was expressed pictorially. Inspired, mimicked by putting the whole sequence together on one line: Line 430 :| :| :\sssss :) laughed and improvised further: Line 432 :-Q :| :| :\sssss :) He retrieved a seldom-used icon from the collections circulating around the globe. The meaning for :-Q is usually given as "man smoking a cigarette," the cigarette being the tail in the letter Q. Now one can read the sequence as: "I put a joint into my mouth; I inhale twice, exhale the smoke, and experience pleasure." Next, put this sequence into the "topic" of his channel (line 438), as if fiddling with the props or resetting a "scene." The topic change is broadcast to all the members of the channel (line 438): *** Thunder sets the topic to: \:-Q :-| :-| :\sssss :-) He put one final touch on the sequence (in line 441), separating the first \ from the rest of the line: *** Thunder sets the topic to: \ :-Q :-| :-| :\sssss :-) there we go By resetting the topic, summarized their improvisation into a one line coda that served as a conclusion, a meta-comment upon their performance. Following this, the interaction reverted slowly back to verbal exchanges with references to the "real life" frame. , aware of watching and perhaps logging the session, wanted to know what she thinks. He sent private messages and she responded privately. , who could not see the private messages, continued in the pretend-play frame: Line 511 *Thunder* so have you been loggin all this? *puff* *hold* ..................... 514 *Thunder* I have been trying to make your log very colorful ouch! *koff* *koff* /msg thunder well you have been very cute 's questions were in the real life frame. 's answer appeared to be in both the real life and performance frame. When attempted to draw into the action, he also blurred frames: Line 538 here lucia *hands bong* *long reach (over ocean)* took explicit account of where is in the world geographically--both in the imaginary play frame where they were having the "party" and somewhere "over the ocean" in real life at a computer screen. became curious about and made a "reality" check: Line 592 lucia=female as i suspect? ... 637 so lucia single long? Not getting any answer, he said it a little "louder," a few lines later: Line 656 SO LUCIA SINGLE LONG? Still not getting anywhere as far as 's age is concerned, he addressed his question to the group, in the hope of eliciting "real world" information from her too: Line 695 how old are y'all? When no reply was forthcoming, the party wound down, and made one last stab: Line 810 are we engaged? >huh? ... >I don't think so just kidding never did get your age lucia Many times, people logging on to IRC grope unsuccessfully for contact with others in the eternal "night" that is textual cyberspace. Participants are usually quick to greet newcomers, immediately using their nicknames, but do not necessarily manage to establish rapport. There is not always an interactional "click" of the kind that occurred in this log. In the absence of physical cues, it is harder to gauge the response of one's audience. One is forced into a posture of rhetorical persuasiveness, to focus on what one says and how one says it. To "speak in writing" calls attention to communicative competence (Bauman, 1975; Bauman and Briggs, 1990). Our analysis shows that, bereft of props, players elaborate on textual and typographic art (Reid, 1991), stress the poetic function of communication, and foreground the formal aspects of language (Jakobson, 1960; Cazden, 1976). Our case material shows that reduced transparency of language heightens meta-linguistic awareness and leads us to treat words as objects of play in a new way. Although simplistic notions of the differences between speech and writing have generally been dismissed in the last decade (e.g., Tannen, 1982a, 1982b), literate culture of the last five hundred years, has thought in terms of two contrasting models of communication: the performed, ephemeral oral conversation, which may be deeply personalized, concrete and contextualized, versus the decontextualized, author-absent written text, frozen in print and sent out into the world as an entity of physical and symbolic integrity (Ong, 1982). Many heretofore unquestioned assumptions about the nature of speech and writing must be revised in light of the many genres of CMC that call into question this dichotomy (cf., e.g., Maynor, in press; Ferrara, et al., 1991; Murray, 1991; Yates, 1992a, 1992b; Bolter, 1991; Collot and Belmore, 1992). The textual party analyzed above reveals a remarkable degree of structure and coherence, similar to "real world" parties, narrative structures, improvisations, and performative events. It has a clear beginning, middle and end. No doubt, 's ability to perform well on IRC provided this structure. His desire to impress spurred him to create a colorful improvisation on the keyboard, and the previous contact between and provided social rapport. Yet, unlike real life parties, and have never met in person. has moved on to other things in his life and has not been on IRC in a long time. The nickname, however, lingers on and is often used by others on IRC. If we stand back from the details of the textual analysis at the heart of this paper, we see that conviviality is not dependent on face-to-face contact. On IRC, and other forms of computer mediated communications, conviviality is established electronically. Only sometimes are net relationships followed up by "fleshmeets" at real life gatherings (Figallo, 1993; Rheingold, 1993). The longevity of many channels on IRC such as #hottub and #initgame, which have become popular hangouts for newcomers, are not institutionalized in any sense except insofar as participants recreate them daily. This suggests that this medium is indeed an emergent cultural form. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Acknowledgements: This paper incorporates portions of a chapter by Brenda Danet, Lucia Ruedenberg and Yehudit Rosenbaum-Tamari, titled "Hmmm...Wheres all that Smoke From?: Writing, Play and Performance on Internet Relay Chat" in _Network and Netplay: Virtual Groups on the Internet_, edited by Sheizaf Rafaeli, Fay Sudweeks, and Margaret McLaughlin, AAAI/MIT Press, (in press). This research was presented at the annual meetings of the International Communication Association, Sydney, Australia, July 1994, the American Folklore Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 1994, and the Israel Anthropological Association, Ein Gedi, Israel, January 1995. We would like to thank the following persons for help and encouragement of many kinds: Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Eldad Yahel, Madeline Slovenz-Low, Ken Kurpiewski, Ron Zweig, Noach Shadmi, Moshe Solow, Schachar Levin, Jacques Leslie, Nahman Ben Yehuda, Noit Meshorer, Sheizaf Rafaeli, Fay Sudweeks, Margaret MacLaughlin, Lori Kendall, Lee-Ellen Marvin, Tamar Katriel, Hagai Katriel, Irit Katriel, Tsameret Wachenhauser, Haya Bechar-Israeli, Amos Cividalli, and Daniel Golan. In particular, we are indebted to who plays such a prominent role in our study, and who helped us get to know and enjoy IRC. ---------------------------------------- References Abel, Ernest L., and Barbara E. 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Unpublished paper, Centre for Information Technology in Education, The Open University, Milton Keynes, U.K. -------------------------------------------------------------- Authors info: Lucia Ruedenberg, Dept. of Behavioral Sciences, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Dept. of Communication & Journalism, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. lucia@bgumail.bgu.ac.il Brenda Danet, Dept. of Communication & Journalism, Dept. of Sociology & Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. msdanet@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il Yehudit Rosenbaum-Tamari, Dept. of Sociology & Anthropology and Dept. of Communication & Journalism, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. msrosen@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il -------------------------------------------------end of file-------