4. “…spaces that have the curious property of being in relation with all the other sites [of society], but in such a way as to suspect, neutralize, or invent the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect…”

5.  The internet is a heterotopia… let’s figure this out…  Precise Determined Functions that can change over time … beginning: research data, share resources, find information… … now: connect people, create community, provide information… Internet: Heterotopia with many heterotopias within…

6.  Capable of juxtaposing -- in a single, real place -- several places …virtual communities now lack visible signs that usually indicate how to interact with one another… … instead, textual descriptions are relied upon… … what’s the difference between the textual description, and the image …

7.  System of opening/closing… restrict entry but allow some… purification/rites or compulsory… …purification: (MHC) download Virus Software… …rites… obtaining an internet connection… “logging on”… “logging off”

8.  Either create a space of illusion that exposes real space, or else it is a space that is other…as perfect as the ‘real’ is chaotic… …the mere of creating ‘internet’ communities… ‘virtual’ realities… of constructing them… reflects how we construct our own “real” world…

9. … but remember… heterotopias, while embodying all this… … are “real” places… So the internet is a “real” place… … but “real” things don’t happen there… … right?

10. … there is the sense of the “virtual” and the “real”… … what is online isn’t “real”… > facts in virtual reality are shadowed by “real life” > in real life… a bunch of people sit in front of their computers > typing… typing … typing…

11. LambdaMOO, 1992 – a virtual chat space with virtual characters… … a rape in cyber space? But… can you be raped without a body? …wasn’t it all… “virtual”?.. it wasn’t “real”…

12. … but if it wasn’t real… if it didn’t “really” happen… if no one was harmed… … why did people react to it as a traumatic event? … couldn’t they just stop reading?

13. … just a bunch of people, typing away at their computers! … they could have just not read it… they could have just logged off… … their virtual community isn’t real! … because it’s all on a network with some text! … all it was was text!