MOOs vs Facebook

Based on my experience in the MOO, I had a difficult time determining how the "Rape in Cyberspace" was even taken seriously enough to be analyzed.  The program seemed extremely distant and impersonal to me, despite my efforts to be sucked into it.  The rigidity of the commands and the boring textual format reinforced the fact that the MOO was not a real society, but a technological program. 

I wonder if my inability to relate within the MOO has to do with my experience on Facebook and more contemporary networked publics that seem to bear a closer relationship to our real life identities.  I found myself desperate to ask everyone how old they were in REAL LIFE, what they looked like, where they lived, etc. and it was impossible for me to become engaged as a "character."