Pool's Closed: Online Protests

        Our virtual world class, we read an article called And the Ringleaders Were Banned: An Examination of Protest in Virtual Worlds by Bridget Blodgett. We focused on protests that have happened within virtual worlds. Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, Second Life, Eve Online and even Habbo Hotel are just a few virtual worlds that have experienced large in-world protests. In her article, Blodgett discusses how protests change when they are moved into a virtual space. Blodgett uses a model to analyze how technology and virtual worlds causes different protest methods to be necessary. In her model Blodgett explains the four concepts that make up the model: the degree of virtualization, legality, cultural homogeneity and limitations of participation. The degree of virtualization is “a simple percentage of the amount of organization and participation that was achieved offline or virtually”. This is a pretty simple point. Next, legality is “a measurement of how legal the actions of the protests were both in planning a protest and holding it”. Often, protests that bridge the online/offline gap break the law, while purely online protests do not. The third point is cultural homogeneity. Cultural homogeneity is “a measure of how more similar individuals within the protest are to each other in regards to their cultural views and identity”. And the final point is the limitations on participation. The limitation on participation is “a measure of if and how individuals are prevented from participation in the protest”. These are all unique parts of the different aspects of a virtual protest that are often needed for the protest to have that framework.

One of the more interesting/amusing protests that occurred were the Habbo Hotel raids. Every single year since 2006 on July 12^th, hundreds of black avatars donning afros and gray suits flood Habbo. This all began on the /b/ thread of 4chan back in 2005. Some /b/tards heard a rumor that some of the Habbo moderators were racist and banning black skinned avatars without reason. To protest, the group went in-world with avatars wearing gray suits and afros. They would block the entrances of the pools and claim that “Pools closed” to all those who entered. It was one of the biggest raids of its time.

            What does this protest have to do with Blodgett’s virtual protest model? All of the protesters participated online. There are a couple instances of people dressing as the black avatar symbol at conventions but other than that it has no real life influences. I do not believe that this protest continued outside of 4chan and Habbo. Also this raid was completely legal. There are no laws in the Habbo EULA that ban avatars to wear a gray suit and afro. Also the fact that the game did not allow players to walk through each other was a design flaw (which was later changed). As far as cultural homogeneity goes, protesters were from all backgrounds. On the final note concerning limitations on participation, I do not think that individuals were prevented from protesting. This protest meets all of the parameters to fit into Blodgett’s model for online protests.