Miha, 25 years old. Slovenia.
Miha, in-game known as Lamar,- has been one of the top criminals of the role-playing
community within the GTAV GoodlifeRP FiveM server. His avatar owns the drugs market and
recruits new players to help him with his illegal business.
The interview and conversation I had with Miha shows how stereotyping and media can
influence role-playing behavior. From a young age he has been listening to rap music, what
he classifies himself as “black music”. His virtual avatar displayed in the video is named
Lamar. The backstory of his character looks like something straight out of an action movie
and raises questions about how much of this character is actually inspired by music and
movies.
While his first avatar is a black male involved in criminal activities, his second avatar is a white
male and works at the police force of the digital city of Los Santos. Miha states he does not
judges people on their digital appearance, but rather on their behavior towards him.
He also describes a game can be a place for people who won’t get accepted by others in
real life. Nobody is judging you on how you look or how you act. Players can be completely
honest and experience no consequences. This is the opposite of what Connor said in one of
the other interviews; people are judged on how they interact with other players.
Role-play is a way for him to express his interest in acting by creating a complex digital
persona. During role-play he mentions that someone cannot act in a certain way if that
person hasn’t experienced that in real-life yet. In this way he shows a bit of himself during the
act of role-play.
Transcript
Disclaimer
The transcription of the interviews published on the analysis page are the exact words, tone and language used by the participants during the interview. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings of the research, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. Their word choices and grammar are an exact extraction from the interview and not my own interpretation.
This is Los Santos you know. My backstory is that i was born in Grove Street. My
father got killed and now I want vengeance for my father. I grown up with the rap, you
know it's black music, I don't wanna... colorize it but it's black music.
And, do you have another character?
yes, I have a police character too.
Is he also a black person?
No, he's white.
Was that on purpose?
No man, I don't know, no, it's not, it's not on purpose its just, I don't know. Yes thatthat
kinda sounds suspicious when you asked it. I don't see the color in people you
know, I just see how people act towards me you know. Like if they.. if they are good to
me, I am good to them. I don't see the color, never.
In real life, like, they don't get accepted nowhere and they just create like a person
here and get to know people like they don't see each other never in life you know.
Because nobody judges you here you know like you can be totally honest with them
and nobody will judge you like, i mean they judge you but you don't give a fuck about
it.
I like the role-play man. I like to go- in like when I was a kid I always like, I always liked
acting... like acting you know. And this is the only way I can do this like i can just
create a whole persona and just do it.
I got a soft spot in here you know. And still bring my soft spot in. I got a soft spot in
real life and i gotta soft spot here so I am just like... sometimes- but yea, I need to do
that because my character is like gangster and all that shit I need to bring that anger in
too, so if you never felt anger you don't know how to do it you know. It's nothing like
nothing intervenes with my real life i can do here whatever I want if i get killed, I get
killed you know.
It's probably just people search for that- you get, but you get the adrenaline
sometimes you know, when you get chased by cops and all that shit but its, for me its
still fun and games always loved gaming from a since I was a kid. So yea, this is where
I am right now.