Social Activism in MMORPGs
Several years ago, viagra buy I started playing my first MMORPG. I was unemployed, living alone, and had no girlfriend, and thought I would find a game to occupy my time. I got a copy of Ultima Online. For the time it was an amazing game, and I enjoyed the interaction with thousands of other dorks from around the US and the world.
But, like any other MMO out there, there comes a point where you are not always out grinding for XP, you just socialize or find weird ways to have fun. In Ultima Online, when you just sat around and talked to other players, the activity was called “bank sitting” as the bank was where all players came and went at one point or another. It was the place to virtual people watch. You could see all sorts of interesting things at the bank. City guards killing a thief, people buying and selling crafted items, people arguing about who is more uber, … the usual.
I’m not sure what possessed me this one night, but I wanted to do something really interesting and have fun. I had a large audience and plenty of spare time.
I thought it would be funny to march around the bank and protest for gay rights.
I’m not gay. I’m not anti-gay. I’m just a straight guy who thought, “How funny will this be to have a gay pride parade in a medieval/fantasy game?”
So, I rolled a new character, “Gay Blade” and dressed him in the foofiest, pink shirt the game offered, along with a nice Van Dyke for the facial hair and an awesome receding hairline. He looked like half the gay men I have known in my life already. Finally if there was any question about his sexuality, I made him a fencer. Let’s face it fencing is the gayest form of swordplay, so he had to be a fencer.
Since I didn’t really have any friends in the game, and certainly not any I was going to convince to take part in a gay pride parade, I decided to get a horse and name it Gay Pride. The cool thing about having a pet, like a horse was that they would follow you where ever you went and their name showed up on screen as well as your name.
So, when I started, people at the bank saw a guy dressed in pink named Gay Blade, followed by a horse named Gay Pride. We walked in a circle around the bank, while Gay Blade yelled, “We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!”
Plenty of people thought it was funny.
“We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!”
A few just wanted me to shut up.
“We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!”
I even had one guy come up to me and tell me that he was gay and that I was his new hero.
But then I ran into intolerance and bigotry.
There were a couple of guys that were none too happy with me expressing my virtual homosexuality to the world. They tried to give me crap and called me names. Basically they were not thrilled that my horse and I were here or queer and they certainly were not going to get used to it anytime soon.
Finally one of them told me to go to the cemetery just outside of town.
The cemetery was where people often went to duel, as it was outside of town and fighting in the town limits was illegal and the guards would come and kill you. I knew he wanted to fight me. I knew he would beat the crap out of me as my character was about thirty minutes old and had no “skillz” to speak of. But I went anyway because I had a plan that I knew would be funny.
We get to the graveyard, and this guy almost immediately starts to attack me. As he does, I begin to yell, “HATE CRIME! HATE CRIME!”
He kills me and starts to ride back to town, after taking my belongings, including the foofy pink shirt, which just adds to the theory that most homophobes are actually a bit gay themselves.
I’m left standing there as a ghost. But I noticed that my faithful horse, Gay Pride was still alive and following me. That’s when I realize that since I am a ghost I can have my horse follow this guy where ever he goes. It drove him nuts to have this horse just stuck to him in town where everyone can see. No matter where he went, there was Gay Pride following him.
You should have seen him run in circles trying to shake us. I think he was afraid he might “catch the gay” from a virtual queer ghost and his virtual horse.
I made the mistake of following him to the graveyard again, where he killed my horse. So I had no choice but to resurrect and come back. As soon as he saw me, he attacked me. Again I screamed “HATE CRIME! HATE CRIME!” Dead.
Resurrect.
“HATE CRIME! HATE CRIME!” Dead.
Resurrect.
We did this over and over, and I may have even questioned his sexuality based on the intensity of his reaction to me and my horse. He finally ran off or logged out or something. I guess gay bashing becomes tiring when your victim keeps resurrecting and spreading gayness all around you.
It was one of the most fun times I have ever had in any MMO. I would like to think I struck a blow for tolerance that night, but I think all I accomplished was cracking myself up and annoying some homophobic jackass. If that isn’t fun, I don’t know what is.
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April 1st, 2008 at 1:59 am
I once tried Christian-ing up a game just to see what reaction it would draw.
Oddly enough, I too was called a hero by some shortly before my character was mauled by others.
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April 1st, 2008 at 2:11 am
when i was playing world of warcraft a lot i used to go streaking whenever i made a trip to one of the major cities. i’d just put all my armor into my inventory so my character was just in his loincloth and i’d do a couple of laps around the city. but first i’d always shout “we’re going streaking!!!” in honor of old school. usually people would just laugh or say i was wierd. but one night someone fired right back with “bring your green hat”. that had me laughing for a good long time.
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Snyarhedir reply on January 30th, 2011 1:13 am:
I don’t get it.
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April 1st, 2008 at 2:59 am
Too funny!! I wonder if I could pull this off in WoW. You come up with the most weird shit when you’re bored. If you have any ideas of what I could do in WoW, let me know.
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April 1st, 2008 at 3:11 am
Now, that’s a true stalking horse. Priceless!
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April 1st, 2008 at 4:12 am
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April 1st, 2008 at 11:50 pm
You know… there were actual gay rights protests in WoW right? Like legitimate protests and a couple of gay guilds. I forget what happened but I know it ended with a GM being fired and all the GMs having to have sensitivity training.
Either way that’s a good story Skippy.
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April 2nd, 2008 at 12:34 am
Skippy didn’t write it, but he loved the story when I told it to him a couple years back. It seemed like a good first post, all things considered.
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April 3rd, 2008 at 4:13 am
I am not a big video game person, but I laughed so hard tears came out when I read this. I think you are my hero for showing how you can subvert a game and have a great time!
Maybe you finally tought this guy that tolerance can be a good thing as well.
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April 3rd, 2008 at 4:14 am
sorry that should have been taught
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April 3rd, 2008 at 6:22 am
completely hysterical! =D
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April 3rd, 2008 at 7:21 am
@ Michiel *blush* oops… either way, great story, I look forward to seeing more.
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April 4th, 2008 at 6:04 am
And the irony in your story is that Richard Garriott, the guy that started Ultima online, is in the SCA. He does light fighting, otherwise known as fencing. He’s a don, the highest honour a light fighter can receive.
And I’ve been to his house.
And in June, I’m going there again to drink his liquour.
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April 4th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Well ask Garriott if he is ever going to open his haunted house again, and if he wants some help with that from a longtime haunt dork, like me.
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April 4th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Oh, and tell him I am local. I live in the Austin area, and have a severe need to get my boo on.
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April 4th, 2008 at 8:45 am
And tell him that Skippy would love to come to Austin to work in a haunted house or on any *cough cough* MMOs he happens to feel like developing.
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April 4th, 2008 at 10:40 am
lol will do. That is one don I would looooove to cadet to.
You ever hear about his back 40? He built so that him and his friends could go play. His friends being SCA’dians. There’s a tavern that houses his booze… you know… $200 bottles of scotch that he’ll sell a glass of it to you for a buck. There’s a jail, a pirate ship (that you can do actual ship battles on squee!), a scale model of the Globe theatre. Oh the extra credit that man has brought me…
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April 4th, 2008 at 10:48 am
oops forgot to mention: The first weekend of May is the Lysts at Castleton which is on Garriott’s property if you’re interested in attending that event, Michiel (and I guess Skippy too if you’re close by)… if you’re into medieval stuff.
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April 4th, 2008 at 10:49 am
This is the last one I swear… It’s the LAST weekend of May. I’d go but I have company coming in that weekend for Akon.
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April 4th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Actually i live in Chicago now, so I probably won’t be able to wander over anytime soon. But when you go to A-kon see if you can tell Mary that I said hi.
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April 4th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
If I know who/where she is, I’ll do that. Or at least tell my husband to.
I must apologize. I was mistaken on the date of the Lysts at Castleton so sadly I won’t be able to drink Shamino’s liquour unless there’s another event there this year.
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April 5th, 2008 at 1:15 am
Patton fenced in the Olympics.
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April 5th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Mary is the lady that runs A-kon. I used to work for her.
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April 10th, 2008 at 3:12 am
That was pure evil. I loved it.
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January 30th, 2011 at 1:12 am
I have the idea of making Chao World in the Sonic Adventure games more fun by using a mainly horror character theme. I will also do some other, miscellaneous things, but I have the plans all written down and I think that it might turn out rather interesting.
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