Cyber Types and Racial Sluuuuurs Blog # 8

Cybertyping is an interesting method for labeling figures based on a web or media cultures. Our group had the presentation on this format and I found our discoveries to be quite alarming, but realistic. The second half of Cybertypes deals with the way the internet and other new media adopts the same racial stereotypes as older more traditional media. It goes on to explain how the internet is regarded as a post racial democracy where everyone is equal, the text suggests that this is not true. 

We complied that, the text “Race In / For Cyberspace: identity tourism and racial passing on the Internet” by Lisa Nakamura is a study on the way race is presented and viewed in the online video game, LambdaMoo. In this game users are able to adopt an online persona and customize it, by choosing a specific gender and race. In the text Nakamura describes the habits of players and suggests that their habits are representative of the general population online. Most often the choices made create online characters that are different from their real life counterparts, who are typically white males, and promote harmful racial stereotypes.

In street fighter 2, the examples of Nakamura’s explanations are represented. Each character available to choose from is based of a culture and country. Ryu and Ken are shown being from America, Chun Li rooted from china or Japan. These Characters are designed to look like they are directly from the country. Clothing, skin color, and attributes are all part of these dynamic parts.  Sagat is a representation of the Middle East. These characters are ridiculous in the sense of how they relate to their countries. Even when the battles start they sometimes have a flag or a visual description stemming from the country they are derived from. I personally loved street fighter growing up, I still do, especially now that they have remade the game with modern technology and more characters, all still having the same Identified tourist theme.

Nakamura, Lisa. Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. New York Routledge, 2002. Print.


CR 18 - Nakamura, Lisa. "Race In/For Cyberspace." Ed. David Bell and Barbara M. Kennedy. The Cybercultures Reader. London: Routledge, 2007. 297-304. Print.