greifing

Julian Dibbell wrote the article titled, “Mutilated Flurries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World. The article discuses what the term Griefers applies to and it’s existence in online Second Life. Basically they are groups of people whose main purpose is to annoy other virtual world gamers. They will do anything and everything to annoy and piss off players which ultimately lead to players either logging off the game or watch their avatars become abused.
Griefing brings players lulz, which are laughs in Second Life. The griefing bring attacks and crashes servers on computers. It is done by various players online but it all focuses on one main purpose: to annoy and anger players.
Dibbell talks about the various groups of griefers, some of their names are: SA Goons, W-HAT, Voted 5/V5, and The Patriotic Nigras. In lecture we discussed one group, The Patriotic Nigras and talked about their characters. They all dress and appear to all look like African Americans. They claim that they are not a racist group, yet it is clear that their motives and appearances are racist. They say that they want to show that Second Life is taken way too seriously, yet their unwanted attacks show that they too take Second Life seriously. When they are kicked off or banned from their avatar characters they find other ways of opening new accounts. In my opinion if the online world somehow stopped all griefing they would be angered proving they take Second Life more than a game too.
As discussed in lecture, it is clear that I am 100% against greifing. I don’t understand why people would make virtual buildings of the twin towers with pictures of people jumping out the window. I was appalled when I read and discussed this subject in class and will continue to disagree with anyone who chooses to be a griefer online.