WORLD OF WARCRAFT

I'll just jump right in here, since the title of this blog is a bit self-explanatory.

In 2004, Blizzard Entertainment released their Warcraft-universe MMORPG (Massively-Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). This wasn't their first Warcraft game - the series had started a decade earlier - but it was their first MMO, and somehow they hit it off big. World of Warcraft (Abbreviated as WoW) is the number one most subscribed MMO in the world, with major expansions and minor updates coming out frequently to keep the experience fresh for users.

It's a pay-to-play type of game (Quite a few other MMOs on the internet are free, with users paying for additional content so the company can support themselves), so when I first started to understand what World of Warcraft was, I wasn't very interested in joining. Not that it didn't sound pretty cool, but my parents have always held a policy of letting us play whatever video games we wanted, as long as we paid for them ourselves, and it wasn't worth it to me to work up the monthly subscription fee when I could get the same experience playing Diablo II, which my brothers had bought (One of my favorite games as a kid, also by Blizzard, and ESRB-rated M, though I don't remember anything in it being creepy or gory at all).


Over time I would see World of Warcraft pop up all over the place. I'm not the nerdiest or geekiest (there's a contest over which word means what, so I'll use both to make sure I'm getting the right connotation) person ever, but I like to think that I'm among their ranks, so I had a lot of opportunity to see WoW references being made and, though I hadn't played, I felt like I still understood. It made my day when I found the Leeroy Jenkins video everyone of linking to (his guild takes forever trying to devise a plan on how to beat an in-game enemy, only to have Leeroy ruin it when he comes back to his computer and runs into the enemy's lair, shouting his name as a battle cry), and I even got into an online webshow about the IRL ('In Real Life') adventures of MMO Guild-members.

I finally resolved, however, to not sign up for World of Warcraft (even if I did have the money to spent on it). As fun and addicting as the MMO might be, it's also fun and addicting (sic). I waste enough time playing video games, reading books, and watching TV shows as it is - how much time would I have for sleeping and eating if I devoted an hour a day to leveling up my online character? Honestly, I don't know how people are are seriously into video gaming can do it. New games are coming out every month, some take weeks to finish, then they have online obligations to meet (if they're part of a Guild) and a job to go to in order to pay for it all. As much as I would like to be a part of it all, I'm interested in a lot more things than video games. For now, I'll remain a mildly-interested outside observer (when it comes to World of Warcraft, that is. I'm saving up money for Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and I'm anxiously waiting for the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus PS3 remastered set to come out, along with Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in November, even though I don't have a console to play either, and I still need to finish ES IV: Oblivion).

My self-proclaimed nerdy/geeky nature doesn't limit itself to video games - I'm also a big fan of Online Subculture, which is anthropologically fascinating and dangerously addicting. I follow a series of humor blogs called the Cheezburger Network, some of which I check on once a week and some once a day. Someone logging into a Cheezburger site for the first time may not understand what is going on - a lot of the jokes are taken from Online Memes, which are a sort of pass-along inside-joke, and if you don't get the meme, you don't get the joke. When you do get the joke, however, it's a humorous and almost bonding experience; there are thousands of other 'in' people online, and you are part of the 'in' group.

It's really nothing special though. What may start out as a small community of users who gets the joke soon grows into an entire subculture, leaking off the internet and become mainstream knowledge. A good example is 'lol' - started out as meaning either 'Laugh out Loud' or 'lots of love', soon grew into popularity until now people (like my English professor) who aren't a part of any Internet Subculture use it often in typed-language (it means 'laugh out loud' now - if you use lol in a situation where 'lots of love' should be used, people are going to think you're being sarcastic, like 'I heard you puppy died. I'm so sorry! lol.') Sometimes memes even work the other way around, taking a pop-culture reference everyone knows and recycling it online (good example: that scene in 300 when King Leonidas kicks the messenger into the pit. I've never even seen the movie, but I know that scene from the trailers, and it pops up everywhere online).

What do my four paragraphs about WoW have to do with my 2 paragraphs about internet culture? They help explain this paragraph:

I was on one of my Cheezburger sites several months back, when I saw a post I found particularly stunning. I clicked to read the comments to see what the rest of the internet was saying about it, and started scrolling through. Some people were simply typing in 'lol', which I thought was a bit pathetic ('lol' by itself tends to sound like 'I understand this is funny, but I hardly even chuckled'). Finally, and one point, I saw someone respond to the original post with a 'WOW!' Having been, just a moment ago, translating 'lol' out into the original phrase, I immediate translated this comment as 'WORLD OF WARCRAFT!', which made me imagine Leeroy Jenkins standing like King Leonidas, shouting the title of the game as his battle cry, and I laughed hysterically.

Since then, it has been my intention to use the phrase 'WORLD OF WARCRAFT' in any situation where a normal person would say/write 'wow'. I haven't actually had many opportunities, but hopefully that can change.

(On a side note, I'm sorry my blogs tend to be 'The Longest Joke Ever Told' - where I take forever explaining things and being borderline interesting to finally end with something mildly amusing. I'm doing it all for you, I swear - it's my job to make your day.)