Identity Crisis

Identity Crisis, by Sherry Turkle was an article reflecting the border between virtual reality and actual reality; your ability to adapt and change to a new and interesting world from the one you live in everyday. It's a chance for those to step into a new world and play actor, or actress as it may be. However, do the realities you can find online have an effect on who you are as an individual. Turkle goes into great depth about that and other inquiries targeted in the article.

I believe there are times when it's difficult to decide what exactly reality is. When you dive into a virutal world, who's to say what's reality and what isn't? Nowadays, game-makers and virtual artisits are coming up with new and improved ways to convince the player they're in reality, when in fact, they are actually in the opposite: virtual reality. It is exactly that, virtual. Unreal, fake, false. However, more and more players are getting involved in this virus of play.

There are conventions targeted around specific gaming systems and games of the sort that focus merely on the virtual world of that game. Anime is an example of this. There are those that dress up, change there names for a weekend, and pretend they are someone else. They eat different foods, play the games only of that genre, and put on a figurative mask for 48 hours. Although some may claim to understand that this is for mere fun and simply a hobby, others would beg to differ. Some would even argue it's ridiculous.

Regardless, the message Turkle puts out there is that the online persona can emerge into a psychoanalytic encouter with a different kind of reality, one that's not real at all. Can we seperate ourselves? Or do we just multiply into a series of people, all dependant on the "reality" we put ourselves into that day? Who's to say. I assume it's as you like it.