In order to effectively examine the WoW culture, I must first define what culture, and more importantly for this website, what internet culture is. Culture is defined as the common beliefs, behaviors, language, norms, rules, rituals, and way of life shared amongst a group of people. People of the same culture often hold similar values, morals and common goals. The difference between culture and internet culture, is that internet culture is a culture that exists solely or mainly online. The internet is used as the main source of communication and interaction amongst a group of people.
Mix between the online and physical worlds. Source: Flickr
Many times internet culture is influenced by events in real life. For example, gaming communities online arise from people playing games in real life, and then expressing their thoughts on online forums or groups. Although the culture of games exists in the physical world as well, the culture itself flourishes online.
Websites where people can share their thoughts anonymously significantly impact the internet culture by allowing intimate conversations to occur about gaming. Many people may be embarrassed to discuss their games in verbal conversation, but online conversation allows them the ability to express their true feelings without being judged.
One could argue that the culture of WOWaholics is similar to Alcoholics Anonymous because intimate feelings are shared with strangers, however, WOWaholics is unique because the communication between recovering addicts occurs solely online.
WOWaholics falls into the category of an internet culture because it is a group of people who have the common goal of quitting WoW. The people who post on WOWaholics understand the way of life that WoW entails. They have all been captivated by the storyline, graphics, missions, characters, and thrill of playing WoW and they all have come to realize the effect it had on their lives. Because of their extensive presence in the online community of WoW the players all share a common identity in that they enjoyed being a part of a place where they could work together to accomplish missions.
Anti WoW Symbol. Source: Steam
The very fact that all of these people played WoW, and to such a grand extent, makes them part of an internet culture. Not all gaming cultures are the same, some are more violent than others, some require team work, some solidarity, some games are more serious than others, and some are less intellectually engaging.
Each gaming community makes up their own online culture, and within that gaming community, an even more specific culture exists. This is because within that culture, just like in any culture, people who share common struggles, accomplishment, and goals tend to group together. For this reason, WOWaholics can be defined as a specific internet culture. It is within the internet culture of WoW players, and then narrowed down because all people on WOWaholics are addicts to WoW. The people in that culture have, for one reason or another, been lured into the WoW world and have lost self-control to the game.