Story and Game: The Interacticve Narrative

Jill Walker: How I Was Played by Online Caroline

Jill Walker’s article appears to be an analogy of the Internet traffic monitoring capabilities of the online marketing industry. Though she describes a game (or “simulation”) in which she must continually participate in order for the narrative of Online Caroline to progress, the sinister-sounding motivation behind the simulation seems less like idle entertainment than a lesson on the avoidance of deliberate attempts by unwanted intruders to obtain personal information (much like the attachment of invisible cookies busily tracking consumer preferences). It’s not so much that we’re outed by the information we provide as by the information we never intended to divulge.

Walker’s conclusion intimates more than is revealed by the simple narrative of how she was duped by an online simulation when she complains, “My explorations through the text make me feel as though I have choices and as though I am in control. The narrative seems to adjust itself to my actions and responses. Then I see that the system is paying as much attention to the details of the way I read as it is to my deliberate responses.” In this sense, the user distinctly takes on dual roles of “viewer and viewed.” While Walker makes references to the harvesting of information by companies (Eopinions.com and Amazon.com for example) that make use of information based on prior knowledge of the user’s interests to promote further involvement, she wonders at the application of behavior modeling to narratives and games. Is she truly puzzled or just faking it to make a point?

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