Another Bricolage in the Wall: Deleuze and Teenage Alienation
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2008
Abstract
This paper examines the relationship of the Deleuzean Virtual and Actual as it plays out in hardcore video gaming along the Plane of the Real. The test case is that of Shawn Woolley, who committed suicide after being influenced by what was purportedly an excessive amount of time playing EverQuest, a well-known online role-playing game. However, the essay does not approach the Woolley case from a moralistic or psychological point of view. Instead, I am interested in proposing a mechanics of the Actual/Virtual, in which the gamer's organized body becomes, in game, a Deleuzean Body without Organs (a multiplicity). Other analogous strata and folds, such as the empty and naively bourgeois values of Woolley's suburban life, merely exacerbate matters.
Recommended Citation
Cain, J. (2008). Another bricolage in the wall: Deleuze and teenage alienation. In A. J. Sudman & R. Stockmann (Eds.), Computer games as a sociocultural phenomenon (pp. 56-65). Palgrave MacMillan. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230583306_6
Comments
ISBN 9780230545441 (print); 9780230583306 (e-book)