When I was in high school, before the advent of social media, the internet was mostly chat rooms and message boards. I spent a lot of time on those message boards, taking part in text-based role playing games with other kids from around the country. These “games” were really collaborative stories, with each of us writing from the perspective of our own characters. Offline I was shy, overweight and usually too timid to speak my mind. But online was another story.
Online I was a theatrical villain bent on world domination. I was a wisecracking, flirtatious superhero, whose humor covered deep pain. I was a calculating survivor vying for power in the wake of the apocalypse, and a reluctant Chosen One leading a group of unlikely disciples on a quest to save the world. Those worlds, those lives, existed only in our heads and in digital text. It was, in every sense, a virtual reality. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.
Those days came to mind as I watched “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.” A Norwegian documentary directed by Benjamin Ree, it won awards and rave reviews at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and is now available to stream on Netflix. The film tells the story of Mats Steen, a young man with a degenerative muscular disease who spent much of his short life in a wheelchair. Unable to participate in the same activities as his peers, he became an active online gamer. His favorite was World of Warcraft, a massive multiplayer online role playing game set in the fantastical world of Azeroth, which Steen spent hours playing.
When he passed away at the age of 25, his parents feared that his final years had been very lonely. But when they posted a death notice on his blog, hundreds of messages poured in from friends their son had made in the game. Through their testimonies, his family—and the audience —learn about the exploits of Steen’s online alter ego: a powerful, charismatic adventurer named Ibelin. In a digital body, unencumbered by the limitations of the physical, he went on long runs, climbed mountains, fought dragons. But even more extraordinary was the impact he had on other players, the lives he changed through his compassion and friendship.
“Ibelin” uses traditional documentary devices like home video footage and interviews with family and friends, but it also employs a more novel device to immerse us in the world of Azeroth. Moments in Steen’s life as Ibelin are rendered through recreated game footage, with dialogue and narration drawn from chat records and Steen’s own copious, emotionally insightful writings. This is certainly not the first time a documentary has used animation to tell a story; in one recent example, the 2021 Danish film “Flee” used animated segments to bring an Afghan refugee’s memories to vivid life. In “Ibelin,” animation allows us to see Steen’s online life as equally real and meaningful as his offline one.
That is a provocative idea, even—or maybe especially—now, when nearly every aspect of our lives is mediated through the internet. We worry about people abandoning the real world for a virtual one, losing themselves in digital fantasy. We have seen how online communities can lead to radicalization and polarization, how the anonymity of the internet encourages bullying and abuse. All of those concerns are valid and worth considering.
But it is also worth considering how the internet can be a force of good. In 2014, Pope Francis went so far as to call it “a gift from God,” saying: “The digital world can be an environment rich in humanity; a network not of wires but of people.” That was my experience, as a teenager on the message boards. The community I found there was a gift during a lonely time in my life. My memories of early high school are blurry and generalized: classes and bus rides and lunch tables. Much more vivid are my memories of the online adventures I had in those years: the personalities, the drama, the inside jokes, the lessons learned.
For me it wasn’t a rejection of the offline world, but a way of growing into myself. Embodying those characters allowed me to experiment with being brave, confident, vulnerable. It was a safe place to discover who I wanted to be, until I had the courage to be that all the time, on and offline.
Likewise, “Ibelin” posits Steen’s virtual life as a place where he could embrace his full potential. In the offline world his human dignity was often eclipsed (in the eyes of others) by his disability. But as Ibelin he could show off his wit and charm, find romance, and engage with peers as an equal. He wasn’t perfect, but we see how the game gave him a chance to learn from his mistakes, to seek reconciliation and forgiveness. It eventually helped him to open up about the challenges he faced due to his disability, and to accept himself wholly and genuinely.
It also gave him the great gift of making a positive impact on others during his short time on earth. One of the most affecting examples is his friendship with Xenia, a mother from Denmark who, offline, was struggling to connect with her teenage son, Mikkel, a young man with autism. Steen eventually suggested that she attempt to connect with him through the game, and became a friend and mentor to Mikkel when he entered their community. In the present, mother and son both credit Steen with helping them form a closer relationship. That’s the sort of legacy that any of us would be blessed to leave behind.
In this, and other episodes from Steen/Ibelin’s remarkable life, the film offers a vision of the Internet redeemed: a place where true connection is possible and limitations can be transcended. In Azeroth, Steen made friends, fell in love, helped others through difficult times and had the opportunity to live life to the fullest. It was a virtual life. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.
