Best way is to address your comments
directly to a person. Respond to a question, amplify a comment, etc. As for the
abbreviations, etc., you pick 'em up by just hanging out and lurking. Titles of
the eps are listed on the home page. Newbies are welcomed except when they're
violating the rules (which are also listed on the buffy site), such as posting,
"Angel is a hottie!" or "Buffy Rocks!" or asking if anyone has the stars'
addresses, etc. Best way to work your way into the community is to lurk for a
while, follow the ebb and flow of the conversation, then jump in with relevant
posts to actual people. You'll be surprised how accomodating people can be,
especially if you have something to contribute. As for the lack of on-topic
conversations, well, that's the nature of these things. The more poeple get to
know each other, the more they have to talk about that doesn't have much to do
with Buffy. How do you conceive of the Bronze posting board? I mean,
if people boycotted over a name change, it sounds like more than just a web
site...? Plus, it seems like a totally different thing than the chat-room or
threaded posting board, but I'm not really sure how...
It's less like
a chat room because you can only post three times an hour. And it's not like a
threaded board because the entire conversation can be scanned at once. The ebb
and flow is more like that of a bunch of people sitting around a table; some
talking to everyone, some talking to a few people at a time. Some just talking to
the person sitting (metaphorically) next to them. But you can switch back and
forth at any time. In a threaded board, you must be on topic and are forced to
talk to a small group, not to the whole group at a time. You also
mentioned Buffy-as-allegory, which I hadn't really thought of. What about that
allegory struck a chord with you? What do you relate to?
Allegory in the sense that the action reflects inner states, emotionally or
intellectually. A demon isn't just a demon; it's the external manisfestation of
some problem, or an emotion, or a personal crisis on the part of Buffy or her
friends. How she deals with the demon is a metaphor or allegory for how she deals
with her problem.
Apparently, the Bronze is unique because it is
more like a community than other on line communities. This begs the question:
what makes it more like a community, and why? One answer to this lies in the fact
that it's a Linear Posting Board. It's confusing, and therefore requires some
effort and forethought to become a Bronzer. Furthermore, there's nothing
regulating the discussions, nothing keeping people on topic, which means that all
of the rough edges of conversation that are circumscribed on the threaded board
are allowed to seep in at the linear posting board. Whereas the threaded board
organizes people by topic, the linear board organizes them according to who they
want to talk to. In other words--and this will be addressed in more detail
below--part of what makes this community genuine is the flexibility people have
in conversing and interacting with one another.
My only other on-line informant, with whom I had only one "interview,"
echoed Patrick's sentiments. Following are her (excerpted) responses:
- What is it about the show (BtVS) that captures your interest?
It has lots of everything in it... satisfying my desire for
different types of entertainment all at once. The writing is so incredibly
intelligent, too, so it's not a zone-out time for me. I'm pulled completely into
this other world for an hour, but some of it stays with me afterwards...for days
and months.
How long have you been posting/lurking at the Bronze?
I first posted in mid-August '97. I was off for the month, living at home in
between working in NYC and going to graduate school; thus, I was bored. I had
finally started watching Buffy in July, and so came upon the site while I was
developing an Internet addiction. During the next few weeks, I posted a lot and
exchanged e mails with a bunch of people. At this point, I posted a lot more
on-topic, and often the e-mails were information (re: the show). School soon
overwhelmed me, so I stopped posting mid-September. Then, a few months later, I
was visiting home on my birthday and had some free time. I checked the board,
and saw that all these people were wishing me a happy birthday! I haven't left
since.
What drew you to the Bronze?
The tail end of my
previous response started to address that. This is a place people come to and
remain at by choice. Even in RL extracurricular activities, you usually have
some sort of commitment for a certain amount of time, or, at least, know that
others will see you around, so you can't bail too easily. So, here is a place
where people stay because they really want to be there. Since we're not doing
much together-like a project-there aren't too many political struggles and major
conflicts. When they do occur, they are about clashes of opinions and
personalities when those opinions have been expressed. We're still all united in
our passion for Buffy.
The people are extremely supportive. Sure, it doesn't take much to write
<<< good vibes>>> to someone when they say they have an exam or job interview,
but somehow you don't think about that when you read the stuff like that when
it's addressed to you... or anyone. Things have gone beyond this one "gathering
place". People send presents/goodies to one another. People e-mail and IM...
and meet in person. We don't, by any means, always talk about Buffy. We have a
lot of other things in common, similar tastes. Solid friendships and romances
have started here. Back to supportiveness. When Seth Green comes on-line (I'm a
bit smitten with him), people post to him, asking him to post to me, people
e-mail me, people CALL me to tell me he's there. This place simply rocks.
Apparently, there's something unique happening at The Bronze, which
makes me wonder: what does it do for people that they get so hooked?
The Mayberry Bronzers
Destiny
Destiny, like Sally, is a college graduate in her 20s. She's not a grad
student, but is currently working full time while taking classes in preparation
for medical school. The first time we met in person was in the Plant Biology
building on campus. She had sent me an e mail an hour prior, saying "I'm wearing
a sort of Sumatran batik-y long dress with no waist. And I've got my Drusilla
hair on today." I had no idea what this meant. Fortunately, she was the only
person in the building's lobby when I came in.
Unlike me, she was very down-to-business, which confused me a bit,
because I tend to ramble. She had the same expression on her face that my
students typically do on the first day of class: they look expectantly at me,
like I'm supposed to know what's going on, which usually prompts me to stifle a
laugh. Which I did.
After some chit-chat about the batik-y dress, during
which I tried not to act like I had no idea what one was, I gave her a spiel
about my project, and mentioned how most grad students were big goobers and would
probably not see the value of "Buffy." This comment is what seems to have gotten
us past the initial awkwardness of never having met. (Note to self: "goober" puts
informants at ease)
.
Once we started talking about the Bronze, I found Destiny to be a font
of information. She immediately started telling me what a great community this
was. It was, in fact, clear from the way she spoke that she assumed that I knew
it was a community. I don't think it occurred to her that I might have thought
otherwise.
I greatly enjoyed our first conversation, so much so that I made some a
remark about gushing with enthusiasm, which somehow became alliteratively
conflated with my previous statement about being a goober, at which point she
said "quote!" She went on to explain that Bronzers, in real life gatherings,
tend to write down what others are saying for the sole purpose of taking it out
of context and using it against each other. As it happens, this ritual would
come back to haunt me. A lot.
Destiny is comfortable with computers. Although her college education
was decidedly humanistic--she attended an all-female liberal arts college, from
which she has a degree in opera--she works in a tech-support/system-administrator
capacity. Unlike me, she seems comfortable with the idea that one can surf the
'net in search of information that's otherwise not readily available, or for
like-minded individuals who one wouldn't be likely to meet in real life. Like
Patrick, she had visited other sites, but The Bronze is where she got hooked.
When I asked her how she started posting, she said that at first, "I was so
afraid of ~mere~ that I wouldn't post." But, one day after she had been lurking
for a while, a topic of conversation arose--Indian food--that she felt she could
respond to. So she delurked.
She first started posting when, having moved to DC (Mayberry) after
graduating from college, she found herself feeling increasingly isolated as a
result of her difficulty in keeping in touch with old friends. She's good with
computers, so technophobia wasn't a problem for her, and since she loved BtVS,
she started posting. Ironically, what started out as a low-maintenance
quasi-cyber social life has become a set of high-maintenance real life
friendships.
One reason that Bronzers develop such friendships is that most of the
members are not viewing The Bronze as a substitute for real life, but rather as a
vehicle to enriching real life. In other words, it's a way of meeting people
with common interests in an otherwise fragmented society in which geography,
occupation, and even family ties can't necessarily keep people connected. In
retrospect, given Destiny's time commitments, I'm surprised that she ever
bothered to respond to my call for interviewees.
Destiny mentioned to me that it's not unusual for people to be
intimidated by The Bronze. In fact, her sister, who actually knows some of the
Bronze regulars in real life, is intimidated enough that she refuses to post. I
said I could relate, that I had a lot of trouble following what was happening on
the board, and wouldn't have a clue as to how or why I might start posting. I
didn't realize that this last statement would also come back to haunt me. In
retrospect, I'm wondering if there's any significance to Destiny's choice of
moniker, given the degree to which our conversations keep coming back to haunt
me.
Destiny described Bronzers as a caring, sympathetic group of people, as
in any close knit community. She was quite clear, however, that this community,
just like any other, had its problems, including a stalker and a few
relationships that didn't translate--or translated badly--from The Bronze to real
life. But, on the other hand, there were relationships at the Bronze that
translated quite well to RL. Destiny told me that "Booky and Skull were the
first to get married." There was something striking in this statement, as if
their marriage indicated that there could be no denying that The Bronze was
neither real nor virtual, but firmly lodged somewhere in between, that there
could be no going back to the simplistic view of RL and VR as distinct worlds.
A few days after the first interview with Destiny, at which I expressed my
confusion about the appeal of The Bronze and my trepidation at the thought of
posting, she called me to tell me about an interesting argument occurring at The
Bronze. During that conversation, she also told me she thought I should delurk.
Feeling self-conscious, especially since I was studying this community, I
resisted, but mentioned that if I ever did delurk, it would be using the board
name "Quidam."32 The next day,
while I was at the library, Destiny called me both at home and at work to tell me
that people were posting to me "all over the place." I had been "delurked."
Apparently, Destiny felt I should deal with some of my self-esteem issues by
facing my fear of writing to a few hundred strangers who didn't know me from Adam
and would probably think I was dumb. Also, as she was to tell me later, she knew
that I was probably lurking, and she thought that I would fit right in at The
Bronze. She was, of course, correct. Which I find strange, because between her
incisive comments about my psyche and her quoting me, I'm beginning to wonder
just who the ethnographer is here.33
Over the course of my interviews with Destiny, I discovered that her
parents are highly educated, and that's she's very close to them, especially her
father, because her mother was in graduate school during her formative years.
Also, for some reason, it came up that she's a Unitarian, and that she identifies
with minorities in America, because her mother is Puerto Rican. While she didn't
strike me as being a marginalized American, she certainly seems able to empathize
with those who are. Indeed, it turns out she's fascinated by--possibly obsessed
with--lycanthropy. When I asked her why, she said she's very interested in
"involuntary transformation." She definitely strikes me as someone who
identifies with borderlands.34
My first interview with Destiny that didn't take place in the Plant
Biology building happened over lunch in a downtown Thai restaurant. The
interview had a bit of a surreal quality, mainly because the hostess kept yelling
at me to hurry up and decide what I wanted, which left me feeling quite
distracted. I was doing my best to not be too non-linear in my interviewing,
when, seemingly of out of the blue, Destiny asked me if I was going to be there
tomorrow. I had no idea what she was talking about. Then she reminded me that
the Mayberry Bronzers were going to dinner at Cafe Atlantico, and I should join
them, and bring Mrs. Quidam also. I hesitated, saying I didn't want to intrude,
at which point she said to me, "you're not getting how this works." She was
right: I wasn't. As it turns out, Bronzers tend to assume that persons who watch
"Buffy" are pretty cool until proven otherwise.
So I went to dinner, not sure what to expect, but wondering if these
people--there were 16 of us all together, three of whom were from out of
town--would be dressed like death rockers, or punks, or vampires, or witches, or
something else occultish or supernatural. It turns out they were a pretty
normal-looking, sociable bunch. My sense was that this was a college-educated,
upper-middle class, left-of-center group of people. Interestingly, this real life
gathering matched Patrick's description of The Bronze: a bunch of people sitting
around a huge table, with everybody fading in and out of everybody else's
conversations. And somehow managing to write down every stupid thing I said.
Writing a Better World
As mentioned above, there are several
RL relationships that originated at The Bronze. But what I find even more
interesting is that several non-RL relationships originated there as well. One
of these was a wedding, which marked the first time I had ever seen the Whedon
Improvisational Theater Troupe (WITT) in action. Much to my amazement, virtually
everyone who posted during this event contributed to its creation. Furthermore,
there seemed to be no objection to the fact that three people got married (to
each other). Writing mostly in italics to indicate third person narrative rather
than the usual direct speech, Bronzers came in, sat down, and enjoyed the
wedding. Destiny spent most of the afternoon frantically running around (in
italics, of course), making sure the flowers were in place, the cake was ordered,
and so on. For the better part of four hours, Bronzers posted as if a real time
wedding was taking place, literally writing the wedding into existence. Posters
described themselves entering the Bronze, their wedding attire, where they sat,
what they drank, even how often they fell asleep during the ceremony. Their
personas, their physical selves, and the physical space that they inhabited were
all created in vivid, and generally humorous, detail.
The wedding serves to highlight several themes. First, Bronzers tend to
be extremely imaginative and literate. Second, Bronzers are literally writing
the Bronze into existence. Third, as alluded to above, the Bronze is a
close-knit community brought together by a love of "Buffy." Apparently, "Buffy,"
boredom, or something else draws people to the Bronze, and once here, its
regulars devote large blocks of time to events such as the WITT wedding mentioned
above. In my experience, just keeping up with normal conversations requires a
fair amount of time and attention. Since most of the people I communicate with
are posting from work, being a regular would seem to require extraordinary
parallel processing and logical compartmentalization. And it also requires a
certain willingness to use technology to subvert its own function as a
productivity-enhancing, labor-saving device.35
The second of these themes strikes me as being particularly relevant to
understanding how it is that The Bronze has become such a "genuine" community.
Bronzers are, in effect, using language to objectify themselves.36 Language is what allows them to
think outside themselves, to make less subjective what's in their heads. Just as
the characters in "Buffy" are self-reflexive, using language to think out loud,
to think outside themselves, so too are Bronzers. This is not to say that
Bronzers are a self-selecting group of people who are actually similar to the
characters in "Buffy." But there is a connection: Bronzers use language in a
fashion similar to that of the Scooby Gang. Since much of this language is
either adopted or adapted from the show, or is a result of discussing it, it is
not surprising that there are similarities. The difference is one of intent,
rather than outcome: whereas the Scooby Gang uses language to engage its
audience, Bronzers do it to write their worlds (although the case could be made
that this is also a form of engaging an audience, especially during WITT
performances).
In the social constructionist parlance of Berger and Luckmann, language
is used to objectify knowledge, which can then become institutionalized.
Institutions, once codified, then become taken for granted by individuals and
become the common sense order of the universe that "coerces" individuals into
behaving according to institutional norms. Language creates institutions that,
once objectified, are external forces acting upon the individual.
Berger and Luckmann probably didn't have The Bronze in mind when they were
writing of coercive institutions. Their analysis is not incorrect. However, The
Bronze is able to resist the reification of its constructs. One reason for this
is that Bronzer language is neither as permanent as words on paper, nor as
impermanent as vocal language. Words can be chosen more carefully than in real
time conversations. But, they disappear after one week unless someone bothers to
copy them. The Bronze is therefore characterized by change, but not by the
relentless force of change in real time.
Because Bronzers don't interact face to face, there is also greater
latitude in being true to oneself. At The Bronze, I needn't respond to anyone
who I don't like. And, I can write in as evocative or sensual a manner as I
want--within certain limits--because the thoughts that are conveyed are not
easily backed up with actions. Hence, writing "smooch" at the end of a post is
different than kissing the real person: it's a sign of affection, but without
physical baggage. Furthermore, Bronzers can reinscribe themselves via their
on-line personas. They can be any imaginable physical entity, or they can get
married in threesomes, or wear clothes they would never wear in public (even
though they might own them in real life). They can, in effect, be more like
their idealized selves.
There are other ways in which The Bronze resists ossification. For
example, even though Bronzers write themselves and their physical environments
into existence, The Bronze is not a physical space. There can be as many doors,
bars, tables, closets, or rooms as anyone cares to imagine. Many of these
physical creations are eventually forgotten, but some--like the Font of
Employment, in which Bronzers are ritually dunked for good luck in their
job-search endeavors--are popular enough that they become a regular part of the
imagined physicality of The Bronze. Since no individuals' construct need
necessarily conflict with anyone else's, one source of conflict--that over
physical space--is transformed into an encouragement of a changing imagined
physical space.
As with all institutions, new blood shakes up the mix. While there are
certainly people who do not pay much attention to newbies, there are many who do:
there are at least four sites that provide information for newbies. And, much to
my surprise, I've rarely seen a "newbie drive-by"--a hastily prepared post by
someone who is not a Bronzer and has not bothered to learn the rules--that did
not result in helpful posts, usually with links to the "Bronze Welcome Wagon," an
unofficial site with a great deal of information on how to become a Bronzer.
Still, such newbie posts will often elicit angry responses from Bronze regulars.
But, for the most part, Bronzers welcome newbies as long as they are not
malicious (in which case they are called Bezoars, are typically ignored, and
usually go away on their own once they realize that nobody's paying attention).
And, in the case of persons who carefully delurk and announce their newbie
status, most Bronzers are downright warm and friendly. Indeed, the prevalence of
sites with helpful hints for newbies, usually maintained by subgroups ("clubs")
of The Bronze, indicates that a good number of Bronzers are devoting substantial
effort to keeping The Bronze inclusive. This is not to say that cliques don't
form. In fact, at least one Bronze club has become an invitation-only club for which new
members must be sponsored. But, The Bronze per se has resisted this type
of stratification.
Finally, and most importantly, the very language that in many instances can
lead to hegemonic institutional coercion is used to disrupt institutional
tendencies at The Bronze. This is accomplished through the use of slang. Language
can objectify by providing a common basis for understanding meaning. But
Bronzers use the process in reverse: slang is prevalent to the point where
precise word choice seems more the exception than the rule. It allows Bronzers to
create a richness and connotation that would not exist if they used precise, and
hence strictly denotative, language. Similar to the manner in which an electric
guitarist uses distortion, meaning is conveyed not only in the sound, but in the
noise surrounding the sound. The result is a swirling mass of coded phrases,
layered meanings, and double entendres. This becomes especially apparent in
cases in which Bronzers are discussing topics that they deem inappropriate for
this "family board." For example, rather than not talk about topics--or
individuals--of a sexual nature, Bronzers instead do so with various degrees of
opacity by "piggybacking" additional meanings onto standard words for the benefit
of those in the know.
It is this slang, that I initially found so bewildering about The Bronze.
But in retrospect, it is this connotative use of language that simultaneously
encourages creativity, encourages new posters to learn about the people they're
posting to before jumping into a conversation, and allows for conversations that
create a feeling of community. I believe that it is this messy, imprecise, and
unstable language that makes The Bronze a community; without it, The Bronze would
likely become just another sterile, topical, denotative, well-defined, and
efficient medium of communication.
Blade-The Vampire Hunter
I had been posting for several months when I first interviewed Blade. We had
met once before, briefly, but our first interview was really the first time I had
talked with him. While I still felt like a relative newbie, I don't know if I
was seen that way. I had, after all, by this time joined a couple of clubs: I'm
the 27th member of BAD (Bronzers Adoring Darla), and the 12th member of the PBPK
(Posting Board Porch Kitties). Of course, I'm not really a kitty; I identify
much more closely with otters. But, the PBPK founder, wanting to be inclusive,
keeps the porch open to everybody, and in fact has gone so far as to keep some
ToFish on hand for those of us herbivorous otters who like to know there's always
a place for them to go when they need a kind word and some food. I'm also a
member of MacWatchers, which is a group of posters who use Macs, and share
information regarding them. And, for some reason, my siggy contains an inordinate
number of words starting with the letter "p."
I'm also a groupie. I was so captivated by one particular Bronzer's posts
that she allowed me to become the seventh of her groupies. It was through
groupiedom that I got my first taste of firsthand WITT: several Bronzers, on the
occasion of the birthday of she to-whom-we-group, each took turns grabbing the
microphone and praising the day that she was born. In retrospect, I'm not sure
why we did this. But it was fun, and very funny, too, as we each took turns
waxing melodramatic off the top of our heads. And from work, no less.
I
had also witnessed some negative events at the Bronze. One of these involved a
cyberstalker; the other, a suicide. Both of these events were interesting to me
because of the sheer confusion surrounding them. The suicide, for example, was
an eloquent and elaborate description of a Bronzer entering The Bronze and
killing herself. I don't why she did this; I can only speculate that she felt
alienated enough to make it clear that her persona would not return. The
frightening thing, however, was that nobody seemed to know at the time whether
this online suicide would be accompanied by a real life suicide. Fortunately,
that situation seems to have resolved itself with no loss of life.
The
cyberstalker issue is similarly confusing: apparently, the person accused of
stalking was unaware that he had crossed the boundary of what others considered
appropriate electronic communication. At one extreme are Bronzers who feel that
there's a clique that's trying to control who can and can't post, and are looking
for flimsy excuses to ostracize others. At the other extreme are Bronzers who
feel that persons who repeatedly commit an intolerable violation of another's
personal (electronic) space should not be allowed to continue posting. I doubt
that I will ever know exactly what happened, as every version of the stalking
that I've heard has been different. But the situation points to one of the
contradictions faced by Bronzers: their tolerant community, if it is to remain
that way, must remain open to antithetical and even intolerant points of
view.
Blade is what Destiny refers to as one of the "old guard," meaning
that he has been posting pretty much from the beginning. He is a most atypical
person. He's an Air Force Captain, a trial lawyer in the office of the Judge
Advocate General., where his job title is "Chief of Military Justice." He holds
a bachelor's in philosophy, a J.D., and a black belt. He is also the President of
the Whole Wide World, a title that he acquired after he organized the first
Posting Board Party in Los Angeles, at which someone commented that, judging by
his ability to throw a gala event and graciously mingle with the guests, he would
make a good politician. Apparently, as often happens at The Bronze, things got
"out of hand," and the next thing he knew, he was President of the Whole
Wide World.
Blade's an interesting, and interested, person. He negotiates several
dramatically different worlds, and he does so very conscientiously, on a regular
basis. Like the comic book character from whom he takes his name, he is
African-American. He talks easily about racial issues, describing, for example,
his less-than-ideal childhood in a stereotypical "black" neighborhood, or
arguments he would have with fellow African-American law students about what it
meant to be a "race traitor." He says that he is often described as "a nice guy,
but not what you'd expect."
He's definitely not what I expected, and I suspect Blade wouldn't want it any
other way. He's a firm believer in the benefits of multiplicity, saying that if
there's one thing he learned as a philosophy major, it's that there's never a
single right answer. And so he consciously tries to take the best of whatever
world he's in, and leaves the rest behind. He sees himself as a liminal
individual; in fact, he rather seems to enjoy deconstructing other people's
assumptions, or at the very least the look on their faces when they walk into his
office and see it decorated not with the trappings of military success, but with
action figures!
Blade is much more optimistic than I am, particularly with
regard to technology. Whereas I tend to view technology as another means by which
capital and capitalists exert their hegemonic influence over individuals, Blade
sees in technology the possibility that the next generation might inherit a more
tolerant world than the one in which we grew up.37 The Bronze exemplifies this possibility: it
bridges gaps between people, allowing Bronzers to move beyond differences in
race, gender, sexuality, geography, physical appearance, or whatever. Blade
admits that it's not a perfect virtual world, but because it brings together
people who would probably never communicate in real life, it's a thoroughly
enjoyable exercise in tolerance and diversity.
A few days after my first interview with Blade, he posted his first State of
the Bronze address. Many of the issues he addressed humorously in that post were
issues that we discussed quite seriously in our conversation. Whether our
conversation had anything to do with this address I don't know. However, when I
thanked him for his inspirational words the next day at The Bronze, he mentioned
that he hoped this gave me something more to work with.
It did. Not only was I glad to read the words of someone who had such high
hopes for the future, but I was happy to know that someone else was thinking
about issues that concern me, and was even of a like mind regarding some of them!
And his words also served as a reminder of just how artificial subject/object
distinctions are: until this essay is complete, I'll always feel at least a
little like an outsider, a voyeur, turning my fellow Bronzers into a self-serving
research project. But at the same time, I can't deny the possibility that the
experimenter is affecting the experiment, or even that the experimenter is being
experimented on himself.
What follows is excerpted from the first State of the
Bronze address.
State of the Bronze Address says:
(Wed Jan 20 10:49:35
1999 [ . . . ]) - Madame Vice President, members of the Cabinet,
Apollo Interactive, the Honorable Joss Whedon, the Honorable RD, distinguished
VIPs, honored guests, my fellow Bronzers. Today I have the honor of reporting to
you the State of the Bronze. Today I stand before you to report that the Bronze
is the single greatest, most diverse, open minded,forward thinking cyber
community in history. For the first time in our history, people from all walks of
life, social & economic backgrounds, ages, cultural backgrounds, religions,
political views, and from every corner of the globe have come together in a
community which has demonstrated these lines can be crossed and we as a community
can unite for the good of all. My fellow Bronzers, I stand before you to report
that the state of our Bronze is strong. . . .
- The Bronze must continue
to build bridges which bring people together along racial, economic, cultural,
religious gender, and political backgrounds. America's journey down this road,
has been a long one. For the Bronze, we are the pioneers that will keep this
truly free community alive. Free of hatred, bigotry, racism, sexism, and
discrimination. . . .
- The Bronze may have begun as a fan based
community, centered around genius writing, superb acting, excellent special
effects, and incredible stunts, but now we are so much more. Although we can
never forget the Sunnydale roots from which we sprung, let us now realize that it
is not this which holds us together. For now the bond we share as a community is
stronger than ever before, with a power not seen anywhere else on the Internet.
It is time for us to see this is our time, we are on the cusp of a new dawn for
America. Several seasons from now, another President of the Whole Wide World will
post in this place and report on the State of the Bronze. She or he will look
back on a 21st century bronze shaped in so many ways by the decisions we make
here and now, by the promises we make. So let it be said of us then that we were
thinking not only of our time, but of our future. Of continuing the forward
thinking, high ideal, creative momentum, and the putting aside of divisions to
find the true strength we know we are capable of. . . .
- Thank you and
good afternoon.
Blade-The Vampire Hunter
President of
the Whole Wide World
Taster's Choice
Like Blade, Taster's Choice (TC) has been posting since the board's
inception. He remembers the uproar that was caused by Warner Brothers' attempt
to modify the web site. In fact, he still has the letter he wrote to The WB
urging it not to make changes to the board or eliminate it. His reasoning was
twofold: not only had a remarkable fan community sprung up because of "Buffy,"
but the WB would be wise to do nothing to discourage that fan base.
TC, like my other informants, is far from teen slackerdom. He recently
completed his Master's degree in Early Christian Theology, after which he worked
on a congressional campaign in Iowa. When the campaign was over, he came to
Mayberry from Dubuque to look for a job. I met him through Destiny; he was
staying with her while looking for a place to live in the area. His decision to
move to Mayberry was based on two factors: his occupational background made the
nation's capital a likely place for him to find a job; and he knew people
(Bronzers) here.
In many ways, TC is a typical old-fashioned midwestern liberal. He
grew up in a lower middle-class suburban environment, a "blue-collar ethnic"
community. He's comfortable talking about his socialist leanings, his Irish
Catholic roots, his strong Christian beliefs, or the fact that his mother was the
first person in his family to go to college. About the only thing we haven't
discussed in detail is his graduate school experience, which, although perhaps
not atypical, was certainly unpleasant, even by graduate student standards. (I
felt it would be stark violation of the graduate student code of conduct to
broach the subject before at least five more years had elapsed).
TC has two "wifettes"--the WITT wedding referred to above was his. When
I asked him whether polygyny, even in virtual form, wasn't somewhat unchristian,
he seemed a bit surprised that I should ask the question. I don't actually
recall whether he ever answered my question. But it did lead to a very lengthy
discussion about Christianity, and how he went to graduate school to discover for
himself what "real" Christianity was, and how unconvinced he is by the
"postmodern turn." For TC, authorial intent is paramount, reader response theory
is bogus, and the Self--his Christian self--inheres firmly in his body.
To me, TC exhibits a decidedly modernist perspective. And yet, as with
most of the Bronzers I've met, he seems perfectly comfortable with the idea that
his views are not shared by his fellow Mayberrians. Indeed, Destiny captured my
view of religion quite well when she spoke of her own religious upbringing: "I
associate religion with this hidebound Catholicism that my parents practice, or
practiced, which was always kind of, you know, no partying, no carousing, no
drinking." To which TC responded: "You hung out with the wrong bunch of
Catholics!"
Postmodern Community: Who Did This?
I have
been hesitant to identify links between "Buffy" and The Bronze lest I
overidentify those connections. Still, I believe that much of what makes The Bronze
unique is the same thing that makes "Buffy" unique: a postmodern view of society
that lends itself to a use of language that is used to simultaneously deconstruct
assumptions about society and reconstruct new types of community. How much of
The Bronze can be explained by this postmodern view, however, is beyond me, and I
suspect it always will be. My explanation is undoubtedly one among many--one of
which is that there is just too much randomness and ignorance in life to
attribute causality to something as nebulous as an internet community- but one
that suggests the importance of alternative communities, not as "other"
communities, but as communities built along non-traditional lines that coexist
with traditional communities.
The Bronze is a function of BtVS, and in
its current state, exhibits a great deal of institutional flexibility, as
discussed above. But the question remains: how did it get this way? The fact
that The Bronze comprises "Buffy" fans suggests its current characteristics, but
does not necessitate them. Similarly, the fact that The Bronze in its current
incarnation tends to exhibit tolerance and flexibility is not evidence that it
cannot be otherwise. What is that turns this tendency into a
reality?
When I first met Destiny, she had been posting for about
six months. She posted from work, and it quickly became clear to me that her
work environment was far from ideal. I was therefore thrilled when I read her
post to The Bronze that she had found a new job. I was saddened, though, when
she announced about two weeks later that this was her last day at The Bronze,
because it wouldn't be possible for her to post from her new job.
I was
overwhelmed by the posts she received in response. As I sat in my windowless
office, staring at my laptop's computer screen (I had long since given up trying
to work on the desktop computer that my office provided), I found myself getting
choked up as I read the heartfelt goodbyes and well-wishes of my fellow Bronzers.
And I was surprised: even though we live barely 10 miles apart and keep in touch
outside of The Bronze, I found myself missing her.
It was at this point that I realized that I had mistaken the institutional
qualities of The Bronze for many of its individuals. I realized that The Bronze's
potential as an open and tolerant community would not have been realized were it
not for a few particular individuals. This is not to say that everybody would
find The Bronze as open as I do. But that's not for lack of trying on the part
of a few key Bronzers.
These persons, like Destiny, are not merely members of the community--they
are shapers of it. They are, basically, thoughtful people. They respond to
people's posts in a positive manner, and they always respond, even if it takes a
few days. They don't disrespect people, even obnoxious newbies. And, most
importantly, they respond to posts in kind, always taking them seriously.
Destiny, for example, has always apprehended the seriousness of certain posts, or
the playfulness of other posts, and responded accordingly. Rather than merely
post messages about herself for others to read, her messages also take into
account what other people want to hear. She doesn't just talk about herself; she
draws out others. She doesn't just put her thoughts out there; she interacts with
other people's. Furthermore, she does something that many people aren't willing
to do: she talks to newbies, knowing full well that most of them will soon
disappear for good.
It therefore gives me a bizarre sense of closure that
Destiny has been away from The Bronze for a while. It's as if the conversation
seamlessly continues, but the persons doing the conversing have changed. Or,
maybe they've just filled in for Destiny for a while.38
I find myself compelled, more than ever, to welcome new people, to provide
the sort of environment that others provided for me. Interestingly, it's an
environment that I've never been in at work. At The Bronze, people actually
notice when I'm not there, and I can talk to the same people every day, creating
a sense of normalcy that doesn't occur in my real life work environment, where
students and faculty are constantly coming and going according the hours they set
for themselves, and where the routines and familiar faces change every semester.
Theory and Conclusions
In the course of my interviews of Bronzers, and of my increasing addiction to
The Bronze, three themes have emerged. The first of these is the concept of
community. Is The Bronze a community? I think that it definitely is. In fact,
I also believe that it's a unique community, because it's almost impossible for
it to stagnate. One reason for this is BtVS itself: because it questions
everything, it encourages discussion that questions everything. A second reason
is that The Bronze brings people together based on a very specific
context--"Buffy"--but does not necessarily lend itself to any other contexts.
Which means that there is very little I can assume about persons with whom I'm
speaking: categories such as age, nationality, gender, sexuality, race, or
occupation become largely irrelevant until more information is provided. This
first occurred to me when I was at The Bronze on a cold winter day, and people
were talking about the weather. Just the fact that I was talking to someone who
was about to go shovel snow at the same time as I was talking to someone who was
sitting on her balcony in 70 degree weather indicated that there was really no
basis for falling back on "common sense" assumptions about Bronzers (other than
that they watch "Buffy" and have access to the internet).
The second theme is the importance of language. What originally drew me
to "Buffy" was the dialog. The uniquely constitutive discourse that
characterizes "Buffy" is used by Bronzers to constitute the Bronze in a unique
way, allowing Bronzers to push their Bronze reality into more meaningful and
relevant (to themselves) directions. Furthermore, the reality that is The Bronze
can be transformed to be applicable to RL much faster than real life
institutions, and hence it's a safe haven, a place where the conflicts of real
life can be dealt with by writing into existence a world that can handle them.
In this sense The Bronze is better than reality, because its institutional
structure matches more closely the subjective lived experiences--the reality that
people actually think and feel and experience internally--of its members. This
is not to say that people are consciously constituting The Bronze, or that
they're aware that it's being done, or even that they're not engaged in pure
escapism. But I believe that The Bronze can be extremely beneficial for persons
who use it to engage real life more effectively, because it allows them, whether
they know it or not, to retake control of the signifier and use it to make a
community that's more in keeping with their ideal worlds.39
Obviously, this wouldn't work if Bronzers weren't predisposed to being
literary, which they are: among students, there appear to be an inordinate number
of English majors and law students; among those who are working, there are an
inordinate number of editors (employed English majors) and lawyers. Furthermore,
many Bronzers write fan fiction. But, even if this was not the case, a cursory
examination of typical posts indicates a creative and literate group of people,
many of whom are unable to let loose their creative impulses through other
channels.40
Thirdly, The Bronze use of slang is of interest in ways that relate to
the concepts of language and community as mentioned above. Slang has the effect
of denoting less precisely: inventive use of language can create a vagueness that
in turn lends a depth of meaning to words. Use of slang and non-standard terms
allows the speaker to connote more and denote less, thereby allowing the person
to whom the speaker is speaking to fill in more of the gaps with his or her own
imagination, to understand the content in a more meaningful way. In a sense,
this type of connotative language contains an implicit admission that language is
at best an imperfect substitute for meaning. Therefore, rather than inflate the
importance of language, which would merely be pretending that it's more useful
than it is, many Bronzers write in a way that points to the limitations of
language, focusing instead on imagery, which, because it doesn't even try to
convey meaning, conveys it better than precise and denotative verbiage.
One example of this can be seen in the mistakes people make in their
posts. Typically, upon noticing a mistake, a Bronzer will post again with
corrections, which will often be followed by a statement such as "eye=suck."
Which is to say "I realize I messed up my last post and I'm sorry but there's
nothing I can do about it now so I guess I suck." Which is an immense
generalization to make based on a misspelling. But it indicates not only a
certain reflexiveness, but also an unwillingness to argue semantics. To say "I
suck" is to overstate one's apology to the degree that it leaves no room for
discussion, as if to say "I admitted I suck for screwing up my post, so deal with it." Furthermore, it
indicates a lack of attachment to the subject at hand. To say that something
"sucks" is to have so unreasoned an opinion that all debate on the issue is
forestalled. It's an indication that I'm not willing to get into a big
discussion to justify my views because I'm not too attached to them, and that I'm
willing to open myself up to other people's unreasoned criticism. It's like
admitting that "I hate this but you probably don't so we've got our opinions and
we'll never convince each other because language is too imperfect and maybe there's no
absolute truth anyway, so let's agree to disagree."
As another example, consider three non-standard words that are
frequently used--in my experience more so than any others--at The Bronze: "tag,"
"bezoar," and "whup." A "tag" is an HTML tag, and is usually referred to in the
context of a "dropped tag." Tags are used to change the style of posts, but when
tags are "dropped" at the end--when someone forgets to use a closing tag--the
whole post retains the special characteristic. So, for example, if I forget to
put an italics tag at the end of a word, then the computer won't know to stop
italicizing, and everything I type will be italicized. Tags have taken on
mythical qualities at The Bronze: not only is there a club to save and feed them,
but there is also one devoted to slaying runaway tags. Why devote so much energy
to giving life to something that makes posts look funny? Dropped tags are the
ultimate symbol of miscommunication. For example, a State of the Bronze address
would probably be much less impressive if the whole thing alternated between
superscript and italics.
Similarly, bezoars and whup have taken on mythic qualities. Many people
actively fight them, ascribing to them fierce beast-like qualities. There is a club for
bezoar killers, and someone has recently started advertising "whup-b-gone." What
exactly are these creatures? Bezoars are people who flame, non-regular posters
whose purpose is to antagonize. Whup is work. Interestingly, many Bronzers have
"personalized" work, mean people, and miscommunication, ascribing to them free
will and vile characteristics, which they then fight in their third-person
Bronzer incarnations.
Generally, the Bronzer perspective is one of multiplicity. My
informants, while obviously not a random sample, all focused on diversity, on
difference, and on the importance of meeting new and interesting people. They
vary greatly, at least ostensibly, in their beliefs. But, they all seem to
accept the existence of a wide variety of beliefs, and this, I believe, is what
enables them to maintain their community.
The Bronze, then, is unique to me because it takes a group of marginalized
people, turns them into a community, and allows them to write into existence the
world as it would be if it was a better place. This is not to say that Bronzers
are outcasts from society. On the contrary, they seem to generally be very
social, and sociable people. But "Buffy" speaks to the outcast in all of us, and
that explains the attraction of the Bronze, as well as the ability of its members
to be a community: because we're all outcasts, it behooves is to be inclusive.
One Mayberrian, in relaying her high school experiences to me, exclaimed that she
had made a recent discovery of which she was still incredulous: "I was one of the
cool people in high school!" I can't help but wonder how she would've
turned out had she known this as a teenager.
Notes
1 Unfortunately, the original interview is unavailable.
However, in a later article in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Official
Magazine (page 18), which contains a quote that I strongly suspect is the
same one that I read in the TV Week article, Sarah Michelle Gellar says: "Kids
were hard on me. I was always excluded from everything because I was
different."
2 The Bronze Welcome page is
at http://www.buffy.com/slow/index_bronze.html.
3 The address of The Bronze
linear posting board is: http://board.buffy.com/bronze/postingboard.shtml.
For a broad ethnographic account of The Bronze community from two of its longtime
members, see Sarah N. Gatson and Amanda Zweerink, "Come as You Aren't?":
Anonymity, Community, and Vampire Slaying in Cyberspace: An Ethnographic Account
of Internet Community Development.
4 See Berger and Luckmann for
an excellent explication of the creation of social constructs, and how they
become "coercive" once they become accepted as a common sense view of reality. Of
the work that deconstructs such social constructs, I have found Turkle's Life
on the Screen and Stone's War of Desire to be the most relevant, as
both focus on technology as containing the potential to allow individuals to see
beyond the constructions and assumptions of everyday life. The second quote is
part of Stone's (182) description of what the vampire Lestat might see if he
became an anthropologist.
The first quote, about Sunnydale being a "one-Starbuck's town," is from a
comment made by Xander in "Welcome to the Hellmouth."
5 Whedon, Joss. "Marina
Warner." Bookworm. KCRW. 29 Apr. 1999. http://www.kcrw.org/cgi-bin/db/kcrw.pl?tmplt_type=program&show_code=bw:.
6 ibid. Not only is this
reminiscent of Stone's preceding quote, but of Siddhartha the Buddha's
observation as well.
7
This quote is part of an interview that precedes "Angel" on the video (retail)
version of that episode.
8 Springer 18.
9 Whedon, Joss. Online posting. 15 Dec. 1998.
10 Giles, "Never Kill a Boy
on the First Date."
11
The character of Larry makes periodic appearances, but the audience does not
learn of his homosexuality until "Phases."
12 Xander, "Phases."
13 See Berger and Luckmann (41-43) for a discussion of
"recipe knowledge," which is their term for the "common sense" assumptions which
people hold--even though they might be contradicted by reality--in order to avoid
reevaluating their worldviews.
14 Xander, "Puppet Show."
15 Willow, "Never Kill a
Boy on the First Date."
16 Willow, "Beauty and the
Beasts." Oz does graduate after repeating 12th grade, after which he attends UC
Sunnydale with Buffy and Willow. However, fearing that he may lose control of
his inner werewolf, he drops out during his first semester and leaves town in
order to distance himself from humans while he learns to control his
lycanthropy.
17 Buffy, "Phases."
18 Cain, a werewolf
poacher, "Phases."
19Spike, a vampire sired by
Angelus, "Becoming" part 2.
20Forrest, a member of The
Initiative, "Doomed."
21I don't know the actual
date on which "Earshot" finally aired. This is partly because I didn't write
down the date on which it aired, which is because I didn't tape it, which is
because I had already gotten my hands on a bootleg copy of it. Which I deny all
knowledge of. Unfortunately, an analysis of the remarkable fan activity in
response to postponed episodes is beyond the scope of this paper.
22 Buffy, "What's My
Line?"
23 Berger and Luckmann
106-107.
24 Giles, "Welcome to the
Hellmouth."
25 Buffy, "Dead Man's
Party."
26 This text is unaltered, except that
IP addresses have been replaced with bracketed ellipses, and some names have been
changed (with the permission of the Bronzers to whom they belong).
27 The Bronze exemplifies
this postmodern view of language. According to Rosaldo: "Burke's parable of the
endless conversation with no known beginning or ending departs from the
monumentalist's preoccupation with permanence and puts the unchanging foundation
of classic norms into perpetual motion. You arrive, and the conversation is
already in progress; you depart, and it continues without you" (104).
28 The official Buffy chat
room is at http://chatsrv.warnerbros.com:4080/chat/world/html/loginbuffy.html
and is accessible via http://www.Buffy.com.
29 The official threaded
posting board is at http://www.buffy.com/slow/index_bronzetpb.html.
30 The names of all
Bronzers used in this paper are used with their permission. In those situations
in which persons preferred not to be identified by either their real names or
their Posting Board names, I asked them to choose a name by which I could
identify them for this paper. Such was the case of the informant I refer to as
Destiny. However, since this paper was written, a Bronzer who goes by the name
"Destiny" has delurked. This will probably be a source of confusion, since
"Destiny" is not my informant's board name. However, since "Destiny" is the name
by which my informant asked to be identified--and because this name allows for
what I think is a really clever pun later in the paper--I have decided not to
change it despite the potential for confusion.
31 Spradley discusses in
detail the importance of discerning the questions to which informants are
responding based on the information that they volunteer. Patrick's reply made it
clear to me that The Bronze was a community, and a unique one at that, and a much
more complicated community than I could have previously imagined.
32 My aliases have
typically been centered around a death motif. In retrospect, this is probably
the case for two reasons. First, I have never found compelling the Western
dichotomization of life and death into two distinct realms. Second, I have long
identified with things vampiric, with the outskirts and margins of life. But,
since there was a already a regular poster by the name of "deadguy" on the board,
I chose the name "Quidam" because I had just seen the Cirque du Soleil
performance of the same name, and the name seemed to suit me. In the Cirque du
Soleil program was the following blurb:
- Quidam,
a nameless passerby,
a solitary figure lingering on a street corner,
a person rushing past,
a person who lives lost amidst the crowd in an all-too-anonymous society,
A soul that cries out, dreams and sings within us all.
For some reason that I now don't recall, I really wanted a first name, too.
So I picked "Jaan," a childhood nickname. This Hindi/Urdu word is a homonym of
"John," and therefore seemed to fit with the nameless/quidam theme in the sense
that it was the first part of the generic descriptor "John Doe." But, in
retrospect, it's also indicative of the point of this paper, which is to express
what it feels like to be part of this community. In Hindi and Urdu, "jaan" comes
from the word "jaanna," meaning "to know." But it also translates as "soul." As
such, it is a term of endearment: "jaan" means, roughly, "heart and soul," or
"beloved," indicating someone near and dear to one's heart. The word "jaan" is,
therefore, to me a powerful indicator of Eastern (specifically Indian) and
Western--or postmodern and Modernist--ontological differences. In the European
West, knowing is based on thinking, where thinking is separate and distinct from
feeling. This is reflected in traditional anthropology's emphasis on writing
about communities in an "objective" and intellectual manner. But in the Indian
philosophical tradition thinking can not be separated from feeling--thinking
is feeling--and feeling is therefore requisite to knowing. To put it
vernacularly: the English epigram "to know me is to love me" is an unremarkable
and generalizable truism in the language of India's philosophical tradition.
After all, what better way to know a community than to love it the way its
members do?
Since the time of this writing, I've largely stopped using my
(board) first name, but have grown quite attached to my last name. Go here for a picture of me
sporting my new favorite sweatshirt.
33 The idea that the
ethnographer simultaneously observes and is observed by his or her informants is
not new, and will be addressed in more detail below. See, for example, Rosaldo,
or Berkhofer, for the problems and dangers of maintaining (constructed)
boundaries between Self and Other, subject and object, us and them. See also
Desmond and Dominguez (477) on the ability of ethnographers, whether unwittingly
or not, to maintain power imbalances.
34 Destiny hasn't read
Anzaldua's Borderlands, but she is quite familiar with feminist and
borderlands theory, both through her academic mother, and her liberal arts
undergraduate schooling.
35 This is a very important
point, but is beyond the scope of this paper. For more on how technology can be
used to subvert the cultural and economic hegemony that it was created to
solidify, see, for example, Rey Chow's Writing Diaspora.
36 See Berger and Luckmann
(61) on the use of language to make subjective experiences more objective.
37 Jameson (54-77)
discusses both of these views in some detail; Best and Kellner provide a cursory
treatment in their first chapter.
38 See note 14 above.
39 See Hawks on retaking
control of the signifier. See Turkle on the ways in which internet communities
can be helpful or harmful. Basically, Turkle's view is that virtual reality,
when used as a vehicle for resolving real life problems, can be healthy, but when
used to avoid real life problems, is harmful.
40 In many ways, Bronzers
fit the descriptions of Radway's romance readers or Jenkin's textual poachers. Of
the 102 Bronzers currently on my shout list, for example, I know the gender of
85, of which 60 are females. In other ways, however, they are different from the
groups described in these previous studies. For example, of the 36 people whose
occupations I know, virtually all are either students or white-collar
professionals. I know of four Bronzers with Ph.D.s, three of whom are college
professors. The non-students are in occupations that would typically require at
least a college degree. Obviously, this is hardly a random sample. For example,
since I'm a graduate student, I tend to talk to those people--of whom there are
at least five others--that are in graduate school.
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