A community has traditionally been viewed as a group of people that interact and live relatively close in terms of geographical space. With the invention of the internet a new form of community has been created, a virtual community. The internet allows a community to form in a new medium, where geographical space and even time become irrelevant. As long as you have a computer and can connect to the internet, you can participate in a virtual community. These virtual communities allow people to project their identity so that others can see using computer-mediated communication (cmc), such as facebook, instant messaging, blogs, vlogs, forums, second life, etc. This virtual world allows members to be completely anonymous to other members in that community. Anonymity has been achieved in other mediums through the usage of masks and pen names. Yet the internet has given rise to a new medium that is evolving rapidly and allows new levels of anonymity. A digital medium that has the potential of allowing one to interact with one to billions of people instantly. Allowing the creation of communities that can be created and then materialized visually on a computer screen.

My project will focus on the history of virtual communities. I want to see how we have adapted the technology to fulfill the need to form community, anywhere and everywhere. How have these new forms of interaction changed the way we interact outside of the internet? How has the interaction from simple text communication, video interaction, and the creation of virtual realities (second life) changed the dynamics of virtual communities? Why do people connect on such deep levels emotionally and yet they may never meet or know the other persons name? In order to know where these new realities might take us, one must start from the beginning...

Here's my final trailer.