Research Essay on a Sub Culture
Imagine a group consisted mostly of males within the ages of eighteen to forty-five sitting in rows and columns, having no more than three feet of personal space in a room illuminated by computer screens as an attractive girl runs through the room wearing a bikini made for a fourteen-year-old which was in no doubt filled in quite nicely. This was a scene out of JobieLan, 2002. JobieLan was attended by ninety-four people from as far as London, England for an exhausting weekend during June 14 to 16 of 2002. JobieLan was sponsored by six major businesses, and a pawn shop. JobieLan was so successful that there are now plans of JobieLan 2003. JobieLan has become a phenomenon. What is JobieLan? JobieLan is part of a new growing culture: LAN parties. To a computer savvy person, this term is not new. The culture is growing, and fast. Random House Webster's College Dictionary simply says a LAN is a, "Local Area Network," but it is much more than that. A LAN is a way of connecting multiple computers together in an arrangement which allows the computers to communicate freely with one another. With the dawn of multiplayer computer games, LANs have become increasingly popular as a way to play head-to-head with other
So with the growth of total players, the advantages of a LAN became apparent. Besides the increase in speed, LANs became a place to meet the gamers you're playing against online, the fun of playing many different games at one sitting, tournaments, face to face competition, and the opportunity to learn more about the applications and/or operating systems you're currently using or showing off your masterpiece of hardware while people like me sulk in envy (Xavier). Most in the gaming community accept LANs, and some even travel international distances to attend LAN parties because of camaraderie with the attendees. The whole experience of the LAN party is growing to the point that sub cultures are starting to form. Some LAN parties are more focused on being social, and some like QuakeCon are more akin to tournaments, and more recently some LANs have become a business. Exactly when LAN parties started, no one knows exactly. One of the very first games to support games over a LAN would be id Software's DOOM which was released in December of 1993 (3DGamers). LAN parties did not start off as popular as it is now; I'm sure that if I were my age today back then, I would have thought that the idea of staying in to play video games would be too geekish and go elsewhere to listen to M.C. Hammer. But as new games came out, the popularity of LAN games grew.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 916
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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