by FEMAELSTROM, HSM team writer

First, a small introduction.

Godfrey Reggio introduced this term in his film “Koyaanisqatsi”. The word is a Hopi word, meaning “life out of balance.” Broken down, the words basically are, ‘koyannis’ — reflecting the lack of balance — as the word ‘qatsi’ is life. This is the point of this article: life, and how we come to Home, reflecting that life.

A very good friend of mine sent me a private e-mail the other day that got me thinking. I read the e-mail and it was like a ping-pong ball in a room of mouse traps. The cascade was actually scary. I had so many thoughts that came flooding in my mind that I found myself wandering the many public spaces of Home in search of the answers, and yet the topic was so much larger than Home. It was one of those bigger than Home yet about Home topics. At this time, I doubt that someone of my ability can really cover the topic with any satisfaction in the end, but I am willing to give it a try. Here we go.

Who are you?

Simple question, but complex and profound if you ruminate on it enough. If you fold this over in your mind and really put a deep and meaningful passion behind the effort, it becomes the Challenger Deep.

Who are you?

This is not a trite or casual question that we should answer in the un-thought of span of a half second while changing the channels or jumping to a different estate. This is a question that we should consider daily — but as for this topic,  we need to consider it regarding who are we in Home and what we bring with us in terms of our personality we carry with us.

Who are you?

This is not about class strata, or reputation,  or whether or not you are (perceived as) popular or  famous in Home. Fame has a funny sting here in Home. You may have a known name, but in the very end, you have a maximum of one-hundred friends and five clubs. The footprint is still small compared to the mass of users that roam Home. I know people that are of name, that are not on my friends list and never see them wander Home. No entourages, no rose petal bearers, just another avatar wandering about like any other soul, having to decorate just like the rest of us. Just another person out there in the realm doing the same things basically as you or I. I digress.

The question is this: who are you?

As you sit here and read this, who are you — and who are you in Home — and how do the two compare?

Let’s take me, for instance. Is FEMAELSTROM the same as the user? Are you? Is anybody who they come on as?  I spoke with the person that wrote the initial e-mail and a second friend and the question came up again. The nature of the question is, simply, how much of us do we imbue our avatars with elements of who we really are? Do we as avatars, represent the real us, or do we abandon our real selves to some sort of virtual skin shedding to enter here and be what we want in the grand foggy cloud of  Home’s anonymity.

Think about it: are you who you really are while in Home? Is this a mandate that we should have some element of who we are as we wander the vast labyrinth of Home? There are basically two camps on this topic.

The first camp says that we do indeed bring to Home elements of who we are in the real world.

This camp says that we are here in Home and that, in and of itself means that you bring a core element of who you are to the realm. This camp says that being here, no matter what your disposition, you bring the things with you that make you who you are. If in the real world, you are a snide and abrasive person, this will win out as a personality trait and become part of the avatar and personality that is seen roaming Home. If you are a nice and giving person that cares for others and their affairs, this too will show up and be reflected in the behavior of the avatar. This I believe is obvious in the behavior that we see typically in those we toss under the blanket of being called trolls. Their behavior (and I realize that I am generalizing here), is what you typically suspect is carried over from the real world. This is not to say that every troll out there really goes to malls and accosts every young girl with foul language and offensive behavior, but instead the thought is that the seed of such anti-social or offensive behavior is somewhere rooted in the offender that they feel comfortable doing these things in the first place whether the environment is virtual or real.

The aspect for those that exhibit good behavior is different but still the same in that the actions of a well adjusted person in the virtual realm are welcomed and appreciated and of course good in nature, so there is no offense taken from such a person however the core element remains. The well behaved person in Home, more than likely brought this behavior into the virtual from their real life disposition.

The other camp states that the actions of some, namely the badly-behaved persons in Home, are the result of the luxury of anonymity that we are afforded in the virtual. The logic follows the path that the people do not necessarily bring bad behavior into Home because it is a way of life for them, more over it is something that people find in the virtual and is something that the offender may never do in the real world, but the casual and easy nature of Home allows for the bad behavior.

There is some truth to this, as Home does give us some shelter from being punished for our bad behavior and that could allow some to act with a freedom that they would not have thought possible. Sad as this sounds, moderation is limited to specific offenses, as opposed to curtailing people who are simply behaving like jerks. We do have a great amount of anonymity, and that may be the safety net that some need to spread out their actions to include those of the more surly kind that they may not other wise partake of except for the safety of truly not being caught or reported or paying any real consequence.

Again there is the aspect that if one were to come into Home and find it better to do good, then of course it is a plus, but the thought is still that we come in and do what we do, with the slant that we would not be known, and that Home affords the ability through anonymity and the ability to hide behind an avatar.

Of course this entire article (regrettably) does fall into the realm of painting with a broad brush, as it would be impossible to cover each and every possible combination of personality traits out there. I have been in Home for a while now and have seen the best that people can be — and the worst they can be. I have seen male avatars say the most foul things to female avatars in regards to their standing as women of ill repute and avatars spew out the foulest of racial slurs. I have seen great kindness and generosity heaped on people and care taken to make others feel welcomed. Watching the polarized examples of humanity on display has shown me time and again that, and here is where I reveal the camp I reside in: we as people in the real world do bring their best and worst to Home and often (I firmly believe) what we see in the attitudes and behavior of those around us, are part of us that like it or not we do carry over from the real us in the real world.

There is still a part that has to be addressed, and that is the amoral and neutral part of our existence here. Not all actions we perform are evil and swarming with devil’s horns or kind, perfect and angelic. Those would fall into how one acts anyways, but not all are so drastic in nature that they leave an aftermath, but they still fall into the topic as they have to bring an attitude or personality to Home, but do so in a more subtle way — so this is to examine the fact that whether or not they are dramatic to one end of the spectrum or the other. Even the more middle-of-the-road personalities have to derive their cores from something, whether it is in them as a person or not.

Home may allow us to dress and decorate anyway we desire, but in the end, the virtual skin we wear is simply the cloth that hangs off of our virtual skeletons.

This whole concept looks beyond the thought of what gender we present or what we wear and if it is free or costs real money from a PSN card. Those are superficial and I have known some of the nicest people that buy nothing and some of the meanest that have all the new stuff. My favorite saying is one that I termed in talking to friends one day, and that is, “Home is what you make it to be.”  Sometimes we make it a great place by bringing our best effort forward, and others make it a hell by bringing the bad and working to be evil.

So the question is: do we bring in true character elements from who we really are in the real world, or do we really become someone different because of the virtual and anonymous nature of Home?

Yes, there are times that we straddle that fence wherein we can lay claim to both sides, but that may simply be a case of the reality that in our base humanity, we can be bad and good, and that too is reflected in our avatars. I know I have (in earlier days here) not always been a nice or good person — and to be more exact, I did bring my bad side to Home on occasion, and I saw that in the end, that was me. I did what I was. I brought that part of the real me to Home, but in the end, I also brought the better part of me that eventually won out. I brought that bad behavior because of external forces to Home, Home’s anonymous nature did not foster or nurture it, after all, as the old saying goes, “Character is what you are in the dark”.

What are you in the dark?

What do you believe in terms of what one brings to Home? Is your Home avatar and personality a product of Home’s anonymity, or is it something that you bring in as a true and definitive part of you, for good or bad?

Qatsi is life. And so, what part of your life do you bring to Home?

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One Response to “Qatsi”

1. Burbie52 says:

   January 5, 2014 at 4:16 am

   Another nice one Strom. I love your take on things. I think if we are ourselves in Home as much as possible that it is the best strategy to meeting and making friends for the long haul. I have people on my list I have had since the very beginning. I may not even talk to some of them much, but they are still there because we made a good impression on each other.
   Home is what you make it and we are who we choose to be within that construct, good or bad.

   Reply