THE MR. BUNGLE AFFAIR

  The character of Mr. Bungle is the epitome of how an individual’s extreme imagination on a MOO, specifically LambdaMOO, fostered victimization.  The essay “A Rape in Cyberspace or How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database Into a Society" By Julian Dibbell contends how "a  story of a man named Mr. Bungle, and of the ghostly sexual violence he committed in the halls of LambdaMOO, and most importantly of the ways his violence and his victims challenged the 1000 and more residents of that surreal, magic-infested mansion to become, finally, the community so many of them already believed they were”.  The Mr. Bungle Affair is a landmark illustration in how both RL(Real Life) and VR(Virtual Reality) transcends into one another.  Cyberspace enabled the character of Mr. Bungle to participate in sadistic fantasies while on the Lambda MOO.  He manipulated his victims with a ``voodoo doll,'' a subprogram that served the not-exactly kosher purpose of attributing actions to other characters that their users did not actually write” (Dibbell).  Even though the violent acts of misconduct and violence were done in a virtual world they affected the victims in real life:  "Months later, the woman in Seattle would confide to me that as she wrote those words posttraumatic tears were streaming down her face--a real-life fact that should suffice to prove that the words' emotional content was no mere playacting" (Dibbell) 

Julian Dibbell argues that "No bodies touched. Whatever physical interaction occurred consisted of a mingling of electronic signals".  The Mr. Bungle affair was sexual and violent in nature thus the "crime provoked such powerful feelings, and not just in legba…Even players who had never experienced MUD rape (the vast majority of male-presenting characters, but not as large a majority of the female-presenting as might be hoped) immediately appreciated its gravity and were moved to condemnation of the perp"(Dibbell). Mr.Bungle committed a crime on the Moo violating virtual bodies but in no way touching the physical  bodies of the individuals.  Do actions speak louder than words?  Not in the worlds of MOOs and MUDS.  The word or written text is supreme.

        The appropriate punishment for Mr. Bungle's crime ( sexual acts) was to be toaded from the LambdaMOO.  Only wizards are vested with the power to toad individuals like Mr. Bungle:

“The oligarchs -- MOO-founder Pavel Curtis as well as several other players who had participated in LambdaMOO since its infancy Äwere known as "wizards"; they were responsible for both technical integrity and social control on the MOO. The wizards were benevolent dictators. They set the rules of conduct within the MOO; they decided when to increase a player's quota (the quantity of disk space reserved for objects and spaces of her creation); they attempted to resolve disputes among players. Occasionally the "wizocracy" meted out punishment, the most extreme form of which was to "recycle" (destroy) a player for incorrigibly antisocial behavior”(Mnookin).

Toading is the a solution to end cruel acts like the ones performed by Mr. Bungle:  

 ``toading'' still refers to a command that, true to the gameworlds' sword-and-sorcery origins, simply turns a player into a toad, wiping the player's description and attributes and replacing them with those of the slimy amphibian. Bad luck for sure, but not quite as bad as what happens when the same command is invoked in the MOOish strains of MUD: not only are the description and attributes of the toaded player erased, but the account itself goes too. The annihilation of the character, thus, is total".

Mr. Bungle was ostracized for his evil acts of cyber violence and rape thus toading was the ideal and only punishment because it occurred via the MOO.  Even though the character of Mr. Bungle was toaded from the LambdaMOO, he amazingly reappeared through the character of Dr.Jest.   Is there any real punishment for repeated offenders like Mr. Bungle?.  I guess not in cyberspace.  This is where pseudonyms in the virtual world contribute to virtual misconduct and are problematic.

        Does a MOO crime like The Mr. Bungle Affair have real life implications?  Yes, of course.  In fact,  the Mr. Bungle case spawned a anti rape measure in the MOO:

“An anti-rape measure, spurred in part by an incident, infamous in LambdaMOO, in which a character named Mr. Bungle spoofed several players in a public space, forcing them to engage in violent sex acts and making it appear that they were acting voluntarily, represents the opposite extreme. This petition recommended that "toading," or permanent expulsion, become the recommended punishment for confirmed virtual rapists”(Mnookin)

In cyberspace violent acts occur all of the time.  MOOs and MUDs are constructed of mere text(words).  It is through the narrative discourse that individuals like Mr. Bungle participated in violence.  It is when these words become violent and offensive that must be addressed and furthermore stopped.

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