First published in 2002

In Cybertypes, Lisa Nakamura turns the sour assumption that the Net is color-blind on its head. Examining all facets of everyday web-life, she shows that racial and ethnic stereotypes, or cybertypes, are hardwired into our online interactions: Identity tourists masquerade in chat rooms as Asian_Geisha or Alatiniolover. Web directories sharply delimit racial categories. Anonymous computer users are assumed to be white. Lively, provocative, Cybertypes takes up the computer relationship between race, ethnicity, and technology and offers a candid and nuanced understanding of identity in the information age.