Abstract

The Pleasure principle revisited in virtual reality.

The Web Society and AACE-WebNet 1997.

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Maturity calls for the surrrender of the pleasure principle in favor of the reality principle. When reality is virtual or ambiguous, whither the principle of reality? This paper re-examines the principled notions of pleasure and reality in light of creative behavior found in the use of Smileys and ASCII character drawings which abound in on-line communication. Data is drawn from a five year ethnographic study of ListServer communication where an international community of academic scholars were subscribers. Traditional interpretations of such data are detailed and an alternative interpretation is constructed in a Saussurian framework. This interpretation points to a principled notion of creativity that invokes sheer pleasure and archaic modes discovery.

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