Background
Dibbell was born in New York City. He grew up in Claremont, California and resides in Chicago, Illinois.
Dibbell was born in New York City. He grew up in Claremont, California and resides in Chicago, Illinois.
He is a non-resident fellow of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and he previously served as George A. Miller Visiting Professor of Media at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His 1993 article "A Rape in Cyberspace" detailed attempts of LambdaMOO, an online community, to quantify and deal with lawbreaking in its midst. The article was later included in his first book, Dibbell has also written about Chinese gold farmers for The New York Times Magazine and about griefer culture for "Wired" Magazine.
He chronicled his attempt to make a living playing MMORPGs in his second book, Dibbell graduated from Yale University, summa cum laude, in 1986.
He graduated from University of Chicago Law School (where he was an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review) in 2014.