A Rape in Cyberspace - Legacy

Legacy

Over a decade later, these events remain the primary advertisement for LambdaMOO. Research students still regularly visit the MOO (often sent there by their professors) and start asking users about these events. They are surprised to find that sexual actions are currently used as a form of affectionate greeting. For example, creative writing instructor Cynthia Brantley Johnson of the University of Texas writes that after a discussion of the Dibbell article and Sherry Turkle's book Life on the Screen, which also mentions LambdaMOO, she has her classes log on to LambdaMOO en masse and congregate "in the 'room' where the virtual rape occurred" before sending them off to explore on their own.

Dibbell continued to participate in LambdaMOO, up to 30 hours a week, and eventually wrote My Tiny Life about his experiences, incorporating the article. He remains somewhat astonished at the impact it has had, saying in 1998, "No piece I had done before had managed to convey as vividly to readers the fact that there was something wild and different going on online, something that might profoundly alter the way they related to words and communication and culture in general."

The article made many people interested in the legal implications of online activity, including Lawrence Lessig, and Dibbell himself would go on to teach cyberlaw as a Fellow at Stanford Law School Center for the Internet and Society.

The article is also considered one of the earliest examples of New Games Journalism where review of computer games are meshed with social observation and consideration of surrounding issues.