I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life

Chapter . A Few Notes on Griefing and Morality

Part of what Killingmachine Marx was doing, in showing up on our island and shooting us, was called griefing. This is behavior that is intended, simply, to cause grief. When characters are engaged in peaceful interactions, and a non-contextual interaction (usually violent) gets plopped into the middle of the scene, it’s usually griefing.

World of Warcraft saw a famously controversial instance of griefing one day in early March of 2006. The week before, a popular player had died from a real heart attack, and approximately 40 of her in-world friends held a ceremony for her next to a virtual lake in a part of World of Warcraft named Winterspring. Her boyfriend logged in to her account, and the group carried ...