ROCK LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW!

Howard Rheingold’s article, “Multi-Users” was a very new concept for me. As I have stated in the past I am not that big of an internet surfer or user, so I was very unaware of MUD and LambdaMoo and CMC’s and so forth. In high school I was introduced to the computer game SIMS and played around with it for a little bit but never got too interested in it. When we were talking about MUD and LambdaMoo in class SIMS was what I compared it to. I think it’s a very interesting idea of making your own character and forming their identity all online. I agree with the class discussion on how it’s a communication of person-to-person, but I think it is something that you have to get use to.
Something else that I found very interesting was when we talked in class how MUDs and MOOs use to be very popular with college kids. I’ve been at college for three and a half years now and I can say that this article and class discussion was the first time I had ever even heard of these terms. It’s fascinating to me to think that in the past these concepts and this computer world was popular yet as time goes by and technology is continuing to improve we as a society don’t use the same computer applications like we use to.
I do believe if MUDs and MOOs were as popular as say facebook then I think I would find myself enjoying making these identities and characters online. I sometimes go home to babysit for a family that I babysat through high school and a few weekends I went home to babysit and played this thing called Rock Band. It consists of playing instruments such as singing, guitar, bass, and drums which is connected to the TV. Though this sounds like it has nothing to do with MUDs and MOOs it actually is very similar. I found out a few weekends while playing it for the first time that you create your own identity for each individual rock band member. Choices are endless regarding the style and color of your characters hair to what kind of tattoo, if any, you want. I was fascinated by the endless amount of choices on how to make my punk rocker look as cool as possible. I actually found more enjoyment in creating my character than I did with the actual playing in the band. This is exactly what Rheingold is talking about when he talks about MUDs and how you create your individual characters through imaginary worlds of texts and graphics. The activities in MUDs are just as endless as the things offered are in Rock Band. Though I have made it clear that I am not a computer and internet savvy person I would like to state that had MUDs and MOOs stayed popular with our generation then I think my computer time would have changed dramatically.
If you have never experienced Rock Band, or have never heard of it, check out this clip on a few people rocking it out!


http://www.amazon.com/MTV-Games-Rock-Special-Edition/dp/B000TT4GBG?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1194388148&sr=1-2