|
My essay for English class ~ of interest to all users! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gaia Online is a web-based forum. In its own words, it is
"the largest forum community on the Internet! What makes GAIA Online so unique is that each user can create their own virtual character and customize it through clothing and accessories located in virtual shops throughout the site. With constant updates and events, as well as an ever-growing community, there is always something fun to do or someone to talk to!"
Gaia also advertises that “there are millions of members, but you never have to blend into the crowd.” I am addicted to Gaia, though not for the anime or video-game based discussion that permeates the atmosphere of the entire site. The forums are unexpectedly consuming. Take, for example, the threads, or user-run forum topics, in which I enjoy posting. In a popular thread, multiple users converse with each other over a variety of topics. Since the forum puts a one-minute hold between each user’s personal posts, we normally group our comments directed toward multiple individual users in one post, indicating whom we are speaking to by quoting their latest post or writing their names before the messages they’re intended to read. Even when only two people are conversing with each other, they might have several completely unrelated topics of conversation that they discuss within the same post. All this becomes more complicated when these same two users are conversing together and with other people in multiple threads at the same time! Users who enter in the middle of a conversation either have to scan back over the past few pages to learn what they have missed or pick up the conversation in the middle. All of these complications force us to multitask, receive information and process it quickly, and strategize (sometimes unconsciously) what we want to say and how to say it, who we would like to address, and whether we would be better off doing something else.
But Gaia isn’t simply forum-based. The site spews digital money, called “gold,” that users hoard in order to spend on clothing for their virtual characters, called “avatars,” and other items. Recent additions to the site have included an avatar arena, which rewards gold to users whose avatars rate the best (in other users’ opinions) in the top 10 of all entries. This also presents a mental challenge to users, who must choose avatar designs that are original, appealing, painstakingly color-coordinated, and within their price ranges in order to even place in the top 500. Obtaining rare items requires even more cognitive skills. Active users can make anywhere from 500 to thousands of gold a day depending on their time and ability to access the site, their use of the player-driven market, or use of pre-programmed bots (the last of which is a bannable offense). There is also a constant inflation within the site, which causes certain items to inflate to the cost of millions of gold. To successfully purchase rare items, users have to monitor how much gold they accumulate, try to bargain with other users to decrease potential prices, post, play the market, and sometimes sell off other items. When users would like more than one item, they must determine which will inflate faster, along with availability and demand. Some users save gold for literally years until they have enough to purchase the item they would like!
Although these are only a few facets of the world of Gaia, they include factors similar to the stock market, fashion and advertising industries, and PR jobs that are increasingly competitive. All the areas of the site require quickness of some sort, and the site can be discouraging to newcomers, who are quickly overwhelmed. However, the complexities of the site do not seem obvious to older users, who don’t realize how they are manipulating their own minds.
ALL ESSAY MATERIAL COPYRIGHT BY LAW.
 Ersind · Mon Jan 22, 2007 @ 04:45am · 3 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
