Nino Rodriguez wrote:

[…] What does it mean to psychologically impose personal narratives onto
the real-time representations of your fellow participants?

[…]

(Full text, *Question for Friday/ psychological imposition* can be found in
the <a href="http://www.rhizome.org/query" target="_top">RHIZOME
CONTENTBASE</a> by searching on the keyword "psychological" or "imposition."

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David Hudson Responded:

Interesting question. I think the key word here is "narrative." We are, as
you say, invited (sometimes begged) to identify with characters in movies –
although perhaps the better word is "sympathize" with. This is a vital
factor in what makes an effective story. Because we can't be there
ourselves, a protagonist focuses us emotionally. Then we care what happens
next.

In something like a VR environment, We 'R' Us, that is, there's no need
to transfer identification – we're already there.

Just as we create new characters for/out of ourselves online, whether
it's a full-scale 3D environment or a plain ol' ASCII list like this
one, we do so offline as well. Real-time or not, we're in the habit of
constructing narratives out of chaos ("What a day I've had" – "Oh,
that's a long story" – "If I could just get one of those, I could…"
[happy ending!).

The degree to which each of us do this varies. it seems that the more
anyone views his/her own life as a movie (or other narrative form), the
more his/her own character has been tinkered with.

Anyway. That was fun. And your site is, too! I hope to get back to it
when I have a lot of time to linger and try out more of those little
windows…

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Nino responded:

Auto-commodification

As David wrote, "there's no need to transfer identification" in a
virtual environment, but I think it's intriguing that there's nothing
stopping us from having the same psychological reactions as we do when
viewing a slice of traditional time-media [film, video, etc.].

Perhaps this is a question that can only occur during a moment of
technological transition. Future media consumers/participants may not
be able to conceive of "identifying" with the characters/people
inhabiting their virtual environments.

But for those of us here-and-now whose neurons are wired to project
ourselves onto protagonists, what will be the problems of this
transition?

And why should we believe that such flares of cognitive dissonance will
be confined to those old enough to remember what a film or television
show is?

In our hypothetical virtual-entertainment environment, there will be,
presumably, some entities that are entirely artificial and some which
are directly controlled by our peer-participants.

What does it mean psychologically to place our peers on the same level
as the pre-manufactured media representations?

If traditional media representations are commodities for consumption,
it would follow that networked media is the ideal tool for participants
to make commodities out of each other. Closely related is the process
of auto-commodification that occurs simply through the act of
self-representation.

What will new media make us make of ourselves?