Hanging out in the Virtual Pub Masculinities and Relationships
Online
By Lori Kendall
University of California Press 2002
ISBN 0520230388 $19.95 339 pages
Reviewed by Chris Cobb
ldr@leonardo.org
At times, I can feel Lori Kendalls cold sociologists eye
roaming over what is usually the live and interactive dialog of a chat
room. Hanging out in the Virtual Pub is a rather clinical examination
that is both critical study and aesthetic evaluation. In it, she breaks
down each element of contemporary chat room practices and explains what
is common knowledge for those who participate in them: there are a lot
of weirdoes and geeks who meet online. But she takes her research a
step further by including herself in the group that she analyzes, blurring
the boundary between researcher and subject. She even participates in
offline get-togethers where members of her MUD (multi-user
domain)/chat room, BlueSky, meet face to face. She also reports the
results in a kind of personal diary format. In Appendix B, Kendall mentions
that her key dilemma was how to anonymize all of the text, quotes and
identities of her subjects (even BlueSky isnt the real name of
her MUD). This became more and more complicated, she says, as she wrote
her 309-page book. After all, for snoops, hackers and law enforcement,
chat rooms, like BlueSky, are crops of information just waiting to be
harvested. These days people are searching for love online, for advice,
for technical assistance or for just plain old companionship. Part of
the allure is the access and the seeming privacy of it all since it
can be done at home. But what seem like anonymous verbal exchanges are
really not anonymous at all. Most Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
can and do turn over information about their customers, as well as buy
and sell information about customers. And if you are online you either
have an ISP or are an ISP. Viewing the Internet itself as art,
Kendall quotes Theodor Adorno, saying we can see how repression
is carried from reality into artworks then she continues by saying
art may be a promising source of truth and progress, (yet) its
cognitive and social value remains vulnerable to falsehood, folly and
regression. This is especially true these days as people are enjoying
the freedom of online communication while the government is building
systems designed to monitor every word one types. Judging by current
events, the online chat room may continue being a great place to meet
people, but remember its not all fun and games ñ everything
is recorded. That is the difference between the Virtual Pub and the
real one.