Moirs--Exploring the MUDs

Exploring the MUDs: An Adventure in Cyberspace

by Holly Moirs

"Hi, my name is Jamal. I'm a tall, gorgeous black man with a bod made for sin. Talk to me!"

"Hi, I'm India, an exotic prostitute with a fondness for short, Norwegian men."

"Harry here . . . I'm handsome and shy, and looking for love. . ."

"My name is Sophie, and my job as a songwriter has led me to the great city of Miami."

"Hello, I'm Lila. I am a 24-year old Jazz singer with a preference for foreign men. If you qualify, definitely say hi."
The people you see above are very interesting individuals, all unique and distinctive. At first glance, there seems to be no common thread that connects them, except for the fact that they appear to be seeking some sort of interaction. No, these are not entries in a Personals Column or members of a support group for the love-lost. All of them do, however, share a very important characteristic. They are all facets of the same person; they are all descriptions of me.
No, I am not schizophrenic or insane; I am simply one of the many that has found entertainment exploring a MUD-- an acronym that stands for Multiple User Domain or Multi User Dungeon. Before this assignment, I had no idea that MUD was something other than dirt mixed with water or that the world that existed on-line was so immense and so popular. In fact, MUDding has become one of the most sought after forms of interactive entertainment in the world, engaging tens of thousands of players (Leslie 28).
The world of MUDding seems like a relatively new concept, but the truth is that MUDs have been around for years. Invented at the University of Essex in England in 1979, MUDs served as a computerized way to play Dungeons and Dragons, a popular and addictive role-playing game that mesmerized thousands (Rigdon R16). While the undisputed thrill of participating in such a game was the ability to reshape identity, other attracting factors were the relationships that a player could develop with fellow characters. Today, both adventure-type MUDs and social MUDs work in the much same way that Dungeons and Dragons did 20 years ago--players take on an identity and enter a fantasy world, only now they can communicate with people from around the globe. This type of role-playing sounds like simple fun, but the underlying issues and complex social situations that materialize are more than just child's play.
The first step in entering into the realm of MUD is creating an on-line persona, something which ends up being a lot harder than it sounds. The first time I ever ventured on-line, it turned into a breakthrough experience. When I was asked to name myself, I was about to type in "Holly" when something seized my hand and stopped me. Suddenly, in a revelation, I realized the startling power which was at my fingertips. No one in this chat room knew me, and no one had to be conscious of my true identity if I didn't want them to be. The world opened up, and I realized I could be anything I so desired. Without another pause, I promptly typed the name "Jamal" and made up a description that fit him. I was no longer Holly from a rural college setting--I was a black man from the city. My choice to swap genders and paint myself outrageously is not at all unusual--in fact, in the world of MUD, it is the norm. When you log on and enter a chat room, you are given the ultimate opportunity to explore the unknown and live the life of another. By visiting a text-based society, you can create exactly who you want to become. In such a world there is no rejection for appearance, age, race, gender, or handicap (Leslie 29). There is only socialization and the thrill of being transformed. In many cases, people choose to create an identity that is completely opposite from what they are, because MUDding allows an opportunity that is too appealing to pass up. In my case, I was not merely observing what it was like to be male and African American--I WAS male and African American. The experience could not be equaled.
Socialization and interaction are the key attractions of the MUDding adventure, and it is this communication with other people that makes the MUDs different from a book, a television, or an ordinary computer game (Leslie 30). It is astounding how exciting this test-based world can be. When I logged on with my false identity intact, I found myself extremely eager to speak and communicate with the other various on-line personas, people with names like Roar and Suicide and Music. My first visit, however, was disappointing. Although I thought that Jamal was an interesting character, no one seemed very willing to hit on me or even talk to me. It was also very confusing adjusting to the world of cyberchat, for everything seemed to scroll by at a dizzying speed and I was constantly trying to catch up. Frustrated, I logged off and decided to put Jamal to rest for good.
I named my next creation India, and I thought that by painting her as an exotic prostitute I might get more of a response. I was right. Aside from sly questions about whether I was "working" or not, I got lots of winks and kisses. Surprisingly, however, conversation was pretty tame, and I found the most frequently asked questions to be "where are you from?" and "how old are you?" It wasn't long before this kind of hum-drum discussion became boring, but I found it difficult to liven things up. Even if I WAS trying to come across as a worldly prostitute, in real life I was timid and a real novice in the chat room. Again, I felt frustrated as I realized that the people there seemed to know each other, and as a newcomer, I felt left out.
Once India retired, it took some thinking to come up with a new character to portray. I decided right away that being a woman was the best decision, because people related to me in an entirely different way if I was female. On MUDs, women are given more attention, more help, and more tolerance (Turkle 215). In fact, since the majority of MUD-dwellers are male, women players are in short supply and high demand. Although many women choose to portray male characters on the MUD to avoid sexual harassment (Leslie 28), I realized this kind of gender-swapping felt weird to me. I was unsure about how to act as a guy, and consequently, my interaction with others was more difficult. I had also discovered something else in my jaunt as India--I liked to flirt with male characters. Flirting with women was much too odd for me, and as an anonymous female I could be as outrageously aggressive as I could handle, without any dire consequences.
I explored this concept further when I invented Sophie, a passionate songwriter whose home was the sunshine state. At this point, I was more comfortable with the chatroom scene and decided that it was high time that I displayed the gutsy seductress that had always been lurking inside quiet little Holly. Unabashed, I was forward and direct, and ended up making quite a few friends that night. "Sophie" could say things that I had never dared to. My new-found anonymity allowed me to be coyly suggestive or blatantly sexual, depending on the mood I was in. I was living my fantasies, again without the fear of consequence. In a nutshell, the most appealing aspect of visiting the MUDs is the fact that you can get away with anything and be anyone you choose. As a result, many men choose to portray themselves as women on the internet just to experience the novelty of being female and to attract the extra attention it allows them (Leslie 28).
As I began to MUD frequently, I eventually began recognizing the characters that were constantly on-line and started forming relationships. Slowly, I got to know people and began to talk about things that were more important and more personal than just how old they were. "Bee," for instance, told me all about his broken heart, while "Columbus" shared his woes about his unfair parents. It was at this point that I realized a whole other benefit for using the MUDs--psychotherapy. Although professionals have disputed the effectiveness of such "therapy", it makes sense that a place where people can vent their problems and speak openly would be a good place for emotional healing and self-understanding. In the right circumstances, MUDding can prove to be a therapeutic environment by offering people new insights on their real-life relationships and allowing them a new perspective on their behavioral patterns (Turkle 199).
Yet while some find it beneficial to use the MUD medium for psychological solace, many others see MUDding as dangerous and destructive. Granted, it is extremely easy to become hooked on MUDs and use them as an escape route. Much like Dungeons and Dragons, the games on-line can become very addicting. Students have been known to spend up to 80 hours a week on their computer, sometimes neglecting their studies and flunking out of college (Leslie 30). It is this kind of activity that has caused many to discourage MUD play in a school environment. This potential obsession with fantasy has even prompted the invention of the phrase "Friends don't let friends play MUD" at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (Wilson A18). It is easy to see why people are concerned about constant, obsessive MUD-dwellers--sometimes, people get so involved in their fictional character that they don't spend enough time playing their real life role. It is important to remember that although MUDding is entertaining and often productive, too much of an involvement in it can be harmful to the human psyche. There is a fine line between healthy MUD-dwelling and compulsive, harmful activity.
It is not surprising to see why some people obsess over MUDs and find them to be a favorable place to reside, for they serve as the ultimate identity and transformation workshop. They are the only way a person can be perceived as they truly want to be, the only way to live as a dream persona. The societies that build up on the MUD are complex and amazingly elaborate, where people fall in love, have engagement parties, and even get married. Often, life on-line is more fulfilling and more enjoyable than the real world, where people have to deal with the physical and emotional handicaps that hold them back when they're interacting face-to-face (Leslie 31). The relationships that develop on MUD are often intense, leading to deep psychological involvements and erotic sexual relationships. "Tinysex", a term used to describe sexual activity in Cyberspace, is something that allows a person to experiment with others in way that would not be safe in the real world. On the MUD, it is common for people to gender-swap and then have sex with someone of their own gender, something they may have been curious about but would never do as a flesh-and-blood human (Turkle 225).
Because of the possibilities, thousands and thousands of people have become enthralled and fascinated by MUDding and have come to crave these types of interactions. Even as a novice, I found the MUDding experience to be immediately addicting. I also found myself becoming attached to the people I met and conversed with, something which is very common in MUD. While this type of relationship isn't always bad, it can mean a wounded heart in the emotionally vulnerable (Leslie 30). In cyberculture, deception is a way of life; people cannot be trusted to be what they say they are. Your on-line girlfriend could be a man, or your closest confidant could be the complete opposite from how he describes himself. Although this kind of trickery is anticipated in the realm of MUDding, discovering the truth can be a blow that is harsh and emotionally traumatizing (Turkle 229). Once again, we see the harm in becoming too attached to a virtual stranger and blurring the line between fantasy and reality.
Although deception seems unfair in ordinary circumstances, it is certainly the norm in cyberspace. I found myself being very deceitful in all of my on-line interactions, especially since it seemed almost expected of me. Whether I was lying about my gender, age, location, or appearance, I felt the need to separate myself from the game and any sort of relationship that could develop. Throughout all my discourse with other players, I could not bring myself to tell any of them my true identity or confide my actual residence. There was still that need to distance myself because our intimacy only felt comfortable as it existed on the computer screen. Although I had the opportunity to contact these people in real life (I got an e-mail address or two), crossing that line wasn't something I wanted to do, even if the characters weren't particularly threatening. The mindset I took was almost a survival tactic--I could function as a player but not let my soul get too attached to anyone. By being an impostor, my true self would not be able to be hurt or abandoned by another's deception.
The world of MUD is truly a bizarre environment, but in a way it is also the ultimate role-playing experience and the most unique form of interaction that I can think of. Nowhere else can you manipulate your identity so successfully and transform yourself so dramatically. When you become immersed in such a text-based world, you can't help but gain some insight into the mysterious workings of the mind. The danger of MUDding, however, is becoming too immersed in such a society and losing your true identity somewhere along the way. By becoming obsessed with a fictional character and using the MUDs purely as an escape route, you could venture into some dangerous territory.
The key is to remain detached and simply enjoy MUDding as an amazing role-playing experience. MUDs can actually turn quite educational, and by viewing others and analyzing your own actions and decisions, you become aware of how complicated the human psyche is. It is interesting to realize how revealing this kind of "play" actually turns out to be. We are all searching, we are all reaching, and we are all aching to be something very different than what we were born as. Used in the right way, MUDding can be the ultimate expression and the ultimate therapy, because it allows us to do something previously unthinkable: completely and safely live out our most daring fantasies.

WORKS CITED

Leslie, Jacques. "MUDroom. (word-based virtual reality programs)" _The Atlantic_ Sept. 1993: 28+.

Rigdon, Joan E. "Playing in the MUD; imagine a computer game that has no video, no graphic, no color, no sound". _Wall Street Journal_ 15 Sept. 1995, R16.

Turkle, Sherry. _Life on the Screen_. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Wilson, David L. "How students see an artificial world". _The Chronicle of Higher Education_ 18 Nov. 1992: A18+.

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