Category Archives: Digital

“Camping”

Nationality: “Half Japanese, half Korean, so I am Asian.”
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, but born in Fresno and lived there until starting college
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: English

Informant’s self-description: “I am a large melting pot of everyone that I have ever met. Even if I did not really know who they were. And that makes me me! And different from everyone, ‘cause we all have different experiences. I am a video game person that loves a video game, and I love things that aren’t actually real life. But I also like real life! But sometimes fiction more so because the boundaries of what can be done are expanded. And that’s really cool to me. I like food – a lot. And I am a person that just wants to do a lot of things all the time. Forever.”

 

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Is there gamer culture that you take part in, or is it more of a solitary thing?

I’d like to be part of some sort of gaming culture – I’d really enjoy going to some video game convention and get to see what’s up-and-coming, and be able to talk to people who are within that community and get to make friends. I’ve only recently begun trying to engage with that side of my life – before it was very solitary. It was just me at home, planting my butt in the chair and playing Mario Kart or the Sims for ages on end. And then I got an X-Box, which was like communication with other people that were playing, and that sorta kinda kicked me in the right direction, which is fun, also scary but fun.

Do you talk to people online?

The game I mostly play is Mass Effect, and there’s a Mass Effect multiplayer. You just do missions with other people. You can talk to them if you like, I usually only play with friends that I know in real life, because there’s a tendency for – especially if you’re like a gal and you’re playing online and if they know, they don’t treat you with respect or it’s kind of really weird and they don’t treat you like a fellow gamer? It’s like “Oh, it’s a girl.” I’ve experienced before where they just kind of leave me be to the really small side missions. And I’m not down with that. So I usually just play with friends that I know in real life. And we destroy things together.

Is there any particular lingo that you guys use in the game and not outside of it?

I guess the terms for the things that we’re trying to do. With the monsters or the enemies that we’re trying to go up against, or I think – like a certain term would be “camping.” Which is when a certain player is lying in wait. And hidden from the rest of the players just so they can score, or kill someone, so they can destroy something, they can achieve the objective without really having to go through the process of avoiding other people on the go. They just kinda lie in wait. That’s generally frowned upon.

How often does it happen?

Depends on the game and whether or not you’re able to. I know in Call of Duty, if you camp a lot of people will gang up on you.  After they’ll be like “CAMPER! HE’S A CAMPER!” And then you wind up dying a lot because if you get found out, you’re the camper, and no one likes you. In other games, maybe not so much because you can’t really camp? And if you do you’re kind of just like a coward and people will ignore you.

Have you ever camped?

Yes in Call of Duty, because I am not very good at Call of Duty. And the only time I played it, I played Black Ops, and I was about to die and I was like “NO!” So I just hid for the rest of the game. I let other people just kind of kill each other, and once in a while I would shoot someone if they were passing by.

It was more of a defensive camping than an offensive camping.

Yeah, yes, much yes. Lots of defense, no offense whatsoever. I mean, occasionally try to shoot someone, and then maybe get them, and they’d come back and find me, and I’d just lie in wait again.

Have you ever ganged up on a camper when they were found out?

Only on my friends, really. I mean I kind of feel bad when it’s someone that I don’t know, unless – it’s been very rarely that I talk to other people via the voice chat, in a party – it’s just so quick sometimes, especially with Mass Effect, but um… Yeah sometimes, my friends and I – friends I know in real life – if we see someone that’s camping, then we go and gang up on them and destroy all of their kills – if they’re about to kill something and we see that the enemy’s health is low, we kill them before they do, so when they kill them it doesn’t count for them, and it’s ours. And that makes them angry, and it’s funny.

 

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By playing this multiplayer game, informant engages in the gamer culture maybe more than they realize, to the point where they can explain a specific communally-recognized term and the behaviors surrounding that action the term refers to in the game.

Rule 34 (of the Internet)

Nationality: American – Parents Western European, German on mother's side; German on fathers side as well, but an Irish-German mix
Age: 19
Occupation: Licensed Cleric - JK, Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: English

The informant is a USC student, an artist, an anthro major, LGBT-identified, and was born in 1994.

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Rule 34.

Rule 34 is when – have I got a story for you.

Rule 34 refers to ‘Rule 34 of the internet.’ I don’t know when the rules were decided. They were probably written by some guy in his basement like 10 years ago.

Do you know if it was written by one person?

Probably written by several people.

Because there are so many rules and people keep coming up with more rules.

Rule 34: “If it exists, there’s porn of it.” Which is true most of the time. Because usually if something exists and somebody has seen it, they probably have a fetish for it. It comes from that idea that the internet is a place where anyone can submit anything really, and Rule 34 refers to anything that’s – “Oh look, it’s Winnie the Pooh and Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. They really like each other. They like each other sooo much, that I drew porn of it.” That’s like “I ship it.” You can find anything. I think it’s tough to say how to measure Rule 34 as a medium but it’s become kind of like a category. You don’t remember any of the other categories, really, there’s like one other rule – well I can’t remember what it is, it’s like Rule 52 or something.

The genderswap category. That’s the other popular one. But those are the only two really that are famous because basically they’re like art categories now. If you draw Rule 34 – there are people who are like “Yeah, I’m a professional Rule 34 artist.” People commission you to make porn of your favorite things. It’s really fucked up, but it happens, you know. I think that there are website where you can look it up. Tumblr is a great place for finding it. I would know.

Have you looked up many Rule 34?

I can’t say I’ve looked it up, rather, I’ve stumbled across it quite frequently. I’m on my way down my feed, and y’know. One thing about it is that artists who are starting out are trying to make a living on commissions, one thing that they do is that if they’re good at drawing characters they will draw – porn is easy money actually, because people will actually pay for it. Unlike other types. Any they will – most artists go into porn because it’s easier for them to draw, and then they can just draw it. And they can just crank it out. And people will be like “Oh, your art is so good. I will buy 20.” And that’s why people make it – there’s an audience for it.

Talk about your feelings about Rule 34

My feelings about Rule 34 – I’m indifferent to it, honestly. I’m a very easygoing person. I think that people should enjoy whatever they want to enjoy. I mean like – as an artist?

Have you ever drawn Rule 34?

I guess like – I once drew a dragon dick, and that’s probably as far as I went. I don’t think I’ve actively drawn – I’ve never contributed to the Rule 34 society, the community as a whole. I have not given back. But I will say this – y’know. It does – it definitely does have an audience. So if you need to get somewhere…

There’s a reason it’s a rule on the internet. When did you first learn about it?

Damn. I would say when I started using the internet pretty actively – so I think around twelve. I don’t think I saw it then, I just happened to know what it was then. I’d say I was familiar with the concept of Rule 34 at that point in my life.

 

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While by no means exclusive to younger folk, this is probably a concept more familiar to the generation who grew up with the internet as a standard part of their life. It’s a very internet-originated thing and the whole list of rules is pretty meta, given that it’s a list of rules about the internet, on the internet, generated by internet users. This particular rule highlights the relative freedom that the internet allows and calls boundaries into question.

SCP: Containment Breach

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: March 28, 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

SCP: Containment Breach is a horror computer game that is based on user-generated stories on the wiki/website SCP Foundation. SCP stands for “Secure, Contain, Protect”. The game takes place in a facility that hunts, tracks down, and categorizes supernatural objects, or SCPs, that are either safe, euclid, or keter. You can come into contact with safe SCPs without getting harmed. SCPs that are euclid are unpredictable, and keter SCPs will kill you.

The main types of characters in the game are scientists with code names, the SCPs, and finally the D-class personnel. There is a seemingly infinite amount of D-class personnel, and you play as one of them. They are prisoners sent to the facility for experimentation purposes, and they die off very easily because they’re always dealing with the SCPs.

The first SCP you meet is this giant baby that’s facing the wall. You have a blink meter, and every time you are forced to blink, the baby moves closer to you. When it’s right in front of you, it kills you. [Informant’s] favorite is the butler. It can do anything you want it to do, as long as it is reasonable. He would ask,” What can I do for you?” in a very butler-like manner. You can ask him to kill a D-class personnel in the neighboring room, and he would point at a surveillance camera, saying, “Is that camera on? I can’t do it if it’s on.” And once you turn it off, he would disappear and then come back, having accomplished the goal. If you ask him to get a bar of gold of, say, 99.99% purity, he would say no, but ask if a a lower purity were okay. There are also inanimate SCPs like a train ticket SCP, which would affect the train that the ticket-holder takes.

Anyone who passes the test to be a writer on the website can create an SCP. The SCP Foundation website is a wiki that is open for comment. If people see a bad SCP, they’ll mark it down, and if enough people dislike it, they’ll remove it. There are rules, like no using clichés, and no SCPs that can be described in two words (like “basically Wolverine”). The game developers then take these user-created SCPs and put them into the game.

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I found it very innovative for a video game to be based on user-generated content. It throws into question the idea of authorship but it is also somewhat reminiscent of the way folklore was spread / the way people told stories before the institutionalization of writing/publishing/etc.

Flopped Atari Game Buried in New Mexico

Nationality: Italian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: Italian
Language: English

There was an urban legend where Atari had made this game called E.T. in like the ’80s, based on Steven Spielberg’s movie, but it was very bad and no one wanted to buy it, and that was when Atari was very successful for all their other games. Rumor was that Atari decided to take back all the E.T. cartridges in the market and even the ones they didn’t sell, and then they buried it somewhere in the desert in New Mexico. People would go there just to look for the cartridges, but they couldn’t find anything.

But very recently people did find something, and after a long excavation, they uncovered the cartridges!

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Informant frequents Reddit, a very up-to-date “social network”, from where he first heard the rumor of the buried cartridges. This is one of the less common instances in which an urban legend is later revealed to be true. It in a way reflects the question of how urban legends arise—perhaps first with leaked but vague information, later growing due to exaggerations and variations in telling.

The Legend of Slenderman

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 26, 2014
Primary Language: English

Context:

I was hanging out with my friend, watching Invader Zim and playing horror games, when my friend asked me if I knew what Slenderman was. I had heard of Slenderman, of course, but I did not know what exactly he was. So I asked her about it/him.

 

Interview:

Informant: What do you want to know about Slenderman?

Me: Just like; I don’t really know much about it, so first off I guess would be what is it? That kind of thing.

Informant: Well, um, Slenderman is a creature that looks very humanoid in that he has, like, the human body structure, like a head, a torso, two arms, two legs, but is distinctly different in that he has no face, and in every representation he is depicted as faceless. In some representations he is depicted as having like additional tentacles or additional arms, though that isn’t a consistent feature that everybody agrees on.

Me: Okay.

Informant: He’s also said to be very tall.

Me: Okay, like eight-nine feet? Something like that?

Informant: Um. I’m not exactly sure, just like significantly taller than a normal person would be, though some people say that he can change his shape, his size, at will. Um, Slenderman is very fast. He can chase you with unlimited stamina no matter how fast you try to run from him or, um, how persistently you try to get away from him. Like, you can, like, no matter how hard you try to get away from him, if you turn around he’ll probably still be there. Kind of like taunting you in a way. Yeah, like Slenderman is a stalker, and his favorite prey is children, though there have been cases in which people say he has gone after adults. No one is exactly sure what he does with his victims or why he chases them. And Slenderman, as far as his dress, um, is usually thought to wear a black suit with a black tie.

Me: Okay. And how did this phenomenon start?

Informant: It started because there are pictures in which, like pictures that were taken unaware of the fact that Slenderman was in them, but when they were examined later, like a tall, stalkerish, like, faceless figure is seen in the background and these pictures are often of children. One of the better known pictures is of children on a playground and then there is this ominous figure all the way in the background that is just kind of watching them. Like it’s not something that you would notice just looking at the picture, looking at the children, but when looking at the background it’s just like, “when, when did that get there!?”

Me: And then it became a game, online?

Informant: Like the mythos started first, and then people began developing games around it, so the games are inspired by the legends about Slenderman. And there are multiple games, not just the 8 Pages and Arrival which are made by the same person, there are other incarnations of Slenderman.

Me: And Slenderman isn’t noticed in real life, only in the pictures? Like, at first, he wasn’t seen in actuality but just in the pictures?

Informant: Yeah, uh huh.

Me: In pictures taken?

Informant: Yeah.

Me: Interesting. So an invisible stalker guy, who kidnaps children to do who knows what, and no one sees him? Wow. That is freaky.

[Laughter]

Informant: Yeah it’s freaky. That’s why it’s such a successful horror thing now.

Me: Exactly. Exactly. Wow.

 

Analysis:

Slenderman is truly an intriguing urban legend, as it is mainly a digital folklore phenomenon. People do not see Slenderman in real life, it is only in pictures taken that he appears. Furthermore, with the internet boom in the 2000’s, something like Slenderman, which before could not have spread nearly as quickly or as virulently around the, at the very least, American population, as from what I gather Slenderman is a largely American urban legend, as it did with the internet. Also, since Slenderman is largely an internet-based urban legend, it can spread far beyond the borders of America (or wherever it originated from) to nations, to countries worldwide. The legend of Slenderman even, at least to the fanbase, influenced the writers and producers of the British show Doctor Who with the introduction of the race called the Silence in Series 6. The viral spread of this legend via the internet is truly telling of the new media – the worldwide web – that has burst onto the scene and shows how deeply it has changed how we communicate, who we communicate with/to, and what we communicate.