%0 Journal Article
%T Performance and Becoming:  Rethinking Nativeness in Virtual Communities
%A Jeremy Aroles
%J Games and Culture
%@ 1555-4139
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/1555412015616714
%X This article seeks to examine how the notions of belonging and nativeness are enacted in virtual communities. It draws from an ethnographically inspired study of the players of a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) that is explored through three key dimensions: space, time, and language. Drawing on concepts developed by Gilles Deleuze and F¨¦lix Guattari, I argue that the notion of nativeness, in the case of virtual communities, is best approached as a performance embedded in the process of becoming. In that sense, one is not but rather becomes a member of a virtual community. This process of becoming entails an exploration of smooth forms of space and the appropriation of a vernacular form of language
%K virtual communities
%K nativeness
%K Gilles Deleuze
%K temporality
%K spatiality
%K language
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1555412015616714