My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World [Paperback]

Julian Dibbell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 20, 1999

Being a true account of the infamous Mr. Bungle and of the author's journey, in consequence thereof, to the heart of a half-real world called LambdaMoo.

From In Cold Blood to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, readers have been gripped by the novelistic rering of eccentric communities torn apart by violent crime.

Julian Dibbell's reporting of the "Mr. Bungle" rape case first appeared as the cover story in The Village Voice. Since that time it has become a cause célèbre, cited as a landmark case in numerous books and articles and a source of less discussion on the Internet. That's because the scene of the crime was a "Multi-User Domain," an electronic "salon" where Internet junkies have created their own interactive fantasy realm. In a "place" where race, ger, and identity are infinitely malleable, the addictive denizens had thought they'd escaped all traditional cultural and moral limits. Yet Mr. Bungle's primal transgression challenged all their illusions, confronting even this electronic utopia with the same issues of order and social norms that humanity has faced since the Stone Age. When this fantasy imbroglio threatens Dibbell's actual marriage, we see how the virtual world at once mirrors and mocks real life.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This is the story of one user's experience at a virtual-reality community called LambdaMOO. A MOO--short for multiuser dungeon, object oriented--is a virtual place where participants can construct human-like graphical representations of themselves to interact in a simulated world. Author Julian Dibbell begins by relating the facts surrounding the case of Mr. Bungle, a character who committed the crime of "virtual rape" in this fantastic electronic world, shocking LambdaMOO's members. However, the thread of discussion about this case is minimal and the book ultimately becomes Dibbell's diary of his "research" of this virtual world, which grows gradually more obsessive, and how it affects his RL (real life).

Dibbell offers glimpses of his RL between rich, colorful, and entertaining chapters describing the online community's gossip, his interactions and relationships with the other members, and his first experience with cybersex. What is interesting is that the brief snatches of RL are bland and boring, written in a kind of script format with little more than stage directions for descriptions. This device, plus Dibbell's discussions of his dreams about the MOO, show the reader how deeply involved Dibbell becomes in this community. The turning point comes when Dibbell's membership at LambdaMOO threatens to ruin one of his closest RL relationships. --Cristina Vaamonde

From Publishers Weekly

It is a world that inhabitants dub "tiny," but its role in their lives is large. In the online community of LambdaMoo, Netizens occupy virtual living rooms and hot tubs, form close friendships and make mortal enemies, trade witticisms and discuss their lives for as many as 70 hours per week. Dibbell's account of this group is similarly large and ambitious. He eschews cliche and, in rich and active prose, frames a world that raises new questions by blurring the line not only between cyberspace and real space but between speech and action, intimacy and distance. What, for example, is the proper punishment for a virtual rapist, who wields only words as his weapon and sits hundreds of miles from his victim? Yet, for all its sociology, Dibbell's book never wanders too far from the personal. In its most compelling passages, the author contemplates fumbling toward virtual ecstasy and its impact on his real-space relationship. In a tone oscillating between invested and detached, Dibbell has written a sprawling, dazzling book, accessible to the least initiated and full of insights for the most wizened. If a complaint can be leveled, it's that he limits our view of the actual goings-on in Lambda, sacrificing the chaotic charm the book might have had without this filtering. Still, Dibbell's insight, intelligence and emotional depth make his interpretation one to behold and savor. Agent, Mark Kelley.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; 1st edition (January 20, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805036261
• ISBN-13: 978-0805036268
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,107,189 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Laurel" speaks, January 19, 2000

By 

NANCY R DEUEL (cavalry.org) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World (Paperback)

I was the character that Dibbell called "Laurel" in his book. I was "there" though the entire story he describes, reading what he read in real time, although I never "spoke" with him (on-line or off). His book is remarkably accurate, although he does not have all the facts straight of the people behind the LambdaMOO characters. He deserves a lot of credit -- he got it closer than anyone else possibly could have.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Study of a Fascinating Topic, January 8, 1999

By 

S. Fitzgerald (Dublin) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World (Paperback)

My Tiny Life largely succeeds in its presentation of the evolution of a "Tiny" society, one that -- if you believe Dibbell's writing -- struggles through serious birthing pains as its population swells and it must contend with the issues of relationships, sex, gender (and gender's possible non-relevance online), ethics, law and self-governance. Not to mention how much LambdaMOO can absorb of your "real world" life.

Dibbell's voyeurism and exhibitionism becomes somewhat annoying and distracting from time to time, although I do see the value of showing how his MOO life affects his relationship with his significant other. This is part of any journalistic writing in which the author is also participant, I suppose.

If, like Evandra in a previous review, you were there when these events unfolded, it may not be of interest or of great enough depth to you -- but the insider's attitude that the book is without merit simply doesn't ring true and smacks of elitism.

Overall -- extremely thought-provoking and very enjoyable.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting work of cyber enthnography, February 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World (Paperback)

Unlike most books on cyberculture, which either dryly recount someone's meteoric rise at an Internet start-up, or seek to explain the unprecedented growth of new media and to predict its endgame, this book is actually a page-turner. I couldn't put it down. In fact, I read part of it while sitting on a giant rock in a palm oasis in the middle of the Borrego Springs desert. What makes My Tiny Life a page-turner is how effectively Mr. Dibbell turns the typed-in shorthand of the LambdaMOO residents into the epic drama of a metropolis in a state of ascent or decline, depending on your point of view. Mr. Dibbell also presents himself in a brutally honest light, detailing his inner demons and conflicts and peccadilloes, as his obsession and entanglements grow. He writes with little regard as to where this book will place him in the pantheon of the new media elite. He eschews the usual smart-*** cynicism for real analysis that while sometimes layered in college dorm late night semantics, is not altogether dismissible as this new form of communication tries to understand itself.

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