{"id":761,"date":"2006-03-13T12:10:32","date_gmt":"2006-03-13T17:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=761"},"modified":"2006-03-16T12:07:18","modified_gmt":"2006-03-16T17:07:18","slug":"the-new-virtual-lower-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=761","title":{"rendered":"The New (Virtual) Lower Class"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s an excellent post over on Terra Nova (Link)<\/a> concerning a documentary (in progress)<\/a> about Chinese “gold farmers”, people who make a living playing videogames by earning virtual loot which is then sold for real money via sites like eBay. The topic isn’t new. I’ve posted about it previously; most extensively in a post over on the SL Future Salon website (Link)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What is<\/em> new are increasing reports of racial tension in these online worlds; the most recent being a report of South Korean gamers targeting Chinese “opportunists” breaching unspoken rules of game etiquette (Link to article on Joystiq<\/a>). The Terra Nova entry puts a new light on this issue. From the post: <\/p>\n

In watching the video, I am most struck by the intertwined empowerment\/disempowerment that is occurring simultaneously for these Chinese workers. Their lives in these virtual worlds are brighter, but yet their interactions with American players (and associated slurs) are a constant reminder of their inferior socio-economic status.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a fascinating and important topic imo, so be sure to read the Terra Nova entry as well as the comments. They’re always excellent.<\/p>\n

To help put some of this in perspective, you might also want to check out the Subtopia blog entry (Link) <\/a>discussing Mike Davis’ book, Planet of Slums<\/em>. The pictures alone tell the story. But having been in some of the worst slums in both South America and Asia, I can honestly say the pictures don’t communicate half of what the reality is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s an excellent post over on Terra Nova (Link) concerning a documentary (in progress) about Chinese “gold farmers”, people who make a living playing videogames by earning virtual loot which is then sold for real money via sites like eBay. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-administrative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}