Get a life why?
August 29, 2007
Some time ago I wrote about racism in World of Warcraft and submitted the link to StumbleUpon. If you’re not familiar with StumbleUpon, it’s a service that brings channel-flipping to the InterWebs, and I have Solonor to thank for introducing me to this time sink. Anyway, it works a little like Digg; the more people who give you the thumbs-up, the more traffic you get. I usually submit something to StumbleUpon if I think it’s interesting or at least a little entertaining.
Well, all of a sudden I get a sudden spike in traffic. What, for me, represents a spike anyway:
Now, you can go the extra mile and write reviews on StumbleUpon. Someone did, and he said:
Its warcraft. Get a life.
I post here about life topics like religion, politics, art, music, being a new father — traffic hovers around 80 visits a day, most of them to the now-ancient polygeek quiz. I rarely even get a wingnut troll. But a post about racism in a fantasy world? Traffic and hostility skyrockets. So why, exactly, would I get a life? It seems to me like not having one gets all the attention!
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August 29th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Yeah, I know — I get my StumbleUpon traffic on fire fighting robots. Go figure.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:50 am
It also seems like the reviewer missed the point of your post (or more likely didn’t read it). Because your argument seemed to be, in large part, that it *is* just a game — that, while the question of race within the game is an interesting one, the charges of racism in it are not entirely accurate. Maybe the reviewer is implying that *any* discussion beyond “hey, this is cool!” or “hey, this sucks!” is unnecessary, but I never got the sense that you were over-analyzing the game.
But it’s also clear that a lot of people aren’t reading your post. They see “racism” and “World of Warcraft” and they assume you’re echoing Matt Ruff’s original concerns, not rebutting them.
August 29th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Racism is a major theme in World of Warcraft — maybe I’ll post about that, too — which might be why some people parse some of the content as racist. But I don’t think the use off accent is racist.
As far as people not getting my point, I think that’s partly my fault for burying the lede.
August 29th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
I missed your WOW posting — but will have to go check it out… You really never know what will cause a spike in traffic. I whined about Brooklyn real estate and was picked up by Brownstoner. Of course, I think it is important to writer about things that resonate with you and things that you feel have value — not looking for what will generate traffic. Of course, if you reap financial benefit from your blog — the opposite may hold true.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:25 am
WoW players do that all the time. Try to start a serious conversation about the represntation of race in WoW and even if your’e not criticizing just discussing the entire community will become all defensive. If you need proof of this check out the WoW forums on the rare occasions someone posts something like that. Either devs close the thread or 800 players respond to bash whoever made the thread. If your’e interested in serious dialog on race in MMORPGS check out http://aniggaincyberspace.com