The internet is a space that invites and excludes, much like other spaces we know.

A foundational study of how race and ethnicity are produced, performed, and constrained online. Lisa Nakamura examines early internet spaces—chat rooms, role-playing environments, avatars, and user profiles—to show how digital “freedom” often reproduces familiar racial stereotypes and power structures.

Rather than treating the internet as neutral or disembodied, the book tracks how identity is coded, visualised, and consumed, especially through white defaults and "exoticised" difference.

Still widely cited, Cybertypes is useful for readers interested in digital culture, media studies, race theory, and the social history of the web.