While I was reading "Utopia", my mind, as it often does, drifted. (Not the "Pacific Rim" sort of drift, but rather the "hey, this sounds like this! There's food there in that place. I want food..." sort of deal.) However, unlike the desperate, hunger-driven drift that is my norm, my mind wound up drifting all the way to my sociology 101 class that I took first semester freshman year.
Even though I wound up skipping half of that class (I did not have time for useless Friday morning student-run-lectures, thank you!) I distinctly remember learning about "ideal places" that people create, and the internet's role in creating this sort of "utopias". There was an entire section on other lives people lead on the internet, and how platforms like Sims and SecondLife allow people to create places, people, and situations that they find ideal, and live vicariously through their fictional alter-ego.
This got me thinking about how Utopia, to us, is not necessarily the greatest place on Earth. It's really more of a dystopia, with slavery and women's rights, as well as a strange lack of will. But it's only a created place. Yes, there are elements of satire, but it's still an entire fictionalized universe. A historical AU of how England might go. Man, Thomas Moore would have loved the Sims.
The game is set up so that you can create your own little universe bubble, essentially, and create people with personalities and aspirations that you want them to have. The annoying part is taking care of all of your citizen's basic needs, but it turns out okay. There are a lot of hacks to make your SimWorld ultra-customizable, which is something that a lot of people really enjoy.
People live in their versions of paradise online, and often are subject to a lot of criticism because their ideal utopia does not line up with another person's... but that's the whole point.
I never thought of Sims as an online version of "Utopia", but now I can totally see that. I think it is important to note that a utopia cannot exist because it would be different for everyone. No one has the same "perfect" place, so there can't be one unless it's on a game like Sims.
ReplyDeleteI always saw The Sims as a virtual dollhouse more than a society simulator, and I hate to break it to you, but Second Life is probably more in line with a Utopia for the... pent up. (I have friends...) Yes. That's the polite euphemism for it. "Pent up."
ReplyDeleteThat said, More probably would have gotten a kick out of like, SimCity, which applies the same general concept of The Sims to an entire city.
Here's a video of a horrifyingly "perfect" SimCity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtB2ZfVuLhY
First, as far as "Utopia" goes, I didn't find it to be that much of a dystopia. There were aspects like slavery and women's rights that I absolutely do not agree with, but there are idea like education that I do. I didn't really feel it was as much of a dystopia, as much as just another society. I wouldn't want to live there, but I don't know if it would be the absolute worst either.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I liked how you compared online systems to make a comparisons to "Utopia". I think it's an interesting idea that people will go searching for what they will consider a perfect world. What else is interesting is that like you an I both kind of said we probably would want to live in Utopia, people creating the online utopian societies have to find one that best suits their needs, meaning that everyone has different ideas of what makes up a utopia.