Mr. Bungle lives in us all...

This is dangerous territory we're stepping into here; is there really a difference in actual harassment and virtual harassment? The arcticle "A Rape in Cyberspace" by Julian Dibbell makes mention of an incident that occured in a textualized virtual space (commonly refered to as a MUD or a MOO) that he was able to bear witness to it's execution, punishment and the "social" ramifications that occured during what is commonly known under the title of the virtual rape. This study involved a vitual entity know only by the name Mr. Bungle. To keep a long story short, Mr. Bungle was able to use the objects, tools, rules, ect. of the virtual text based space known as LambdaMOO to assult other characters in this space. Most users found his actions extreemly offensive, and his victims felt violated. The only remedy to this horrible crime was the proposed execution of the Mr. Bungle persona. For more detail on the steps that were taken to disapline the Character know as Mr. Bungle, I encourage you to read the article, but as someone who has knowlege and experience in and of the virtual space, I can only make a judgment on the grounds of the information of the article and of my own experiences. I state that Mr. Bungle lives in all of us, because, like him, we have all felt the urge to test the boundaries of the virual world. As the person behind the character stated, "It was purely a sequence of events with no
consequence on my RL existence." That is one of the freedoms of existing in the virtual space. Granted, such a concept was still young in December of 1993, rules had not been defined and consequences were issued in an unruly, dictorial fashion, but it takes time to bring order to chaos. Even though most portrayed themselves in a civilized manner, there was still an urge to commit acts that would be punishable in reality. I myself can relate to what Mr. Bungle feels, because I had felt it too when I was young. A sence of freedom in a place where I could test the limitation of the "socially" acceptable. How many times had I experienced a thrill from getting another person so worked up that they would actually threaten to "find out where I live and kill me." That's a bold statement even in the virtual world. Just think, someone was about to dedcate time, money, even a life imprisonment or death just because of some ridiculous words uttered by a child. That reaction alone is worth throwing a virtual chair into a crowd of virual people.