My Second Life

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MagMan — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:00:27 +0000

It’s not you, it’s your avatar

MagMan — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:14:00 +0000

There are a several degrees of immersion in Second Life. You can view the different avatars as cartoons, or you can immerse yourself in the fantasy and start to perceive the avatars as real. Granted, there are real people behind those avatars, but trust me when I say that most of them look nothing their pixelated counterparts. I have occasionally come across some people who bear a striking resemblance to these characters.

What I find most amazing is the different ways that others will interact with a person based on the appearance of their avatar. Most of us will agree that there’s nothing uglier than a newb (aka “Ruth”), sporting a cake-mold haircut and monotone skin, often completely oblivious to the fact that everyone else looks real except them. Many of them walk around fully erect, and I am not referring to their stature.

Then, as time goes on, they become more savvy. They become more attractive if they desire. Some spend hundreds of US dollars just getting started. Others scour for freebies, or get jobs. As these avatars become more attractive, they become more likely to be approached by the opposite sex. Most of these people don’t have a real picture of themselves posted, so what would lead us to believe that this person in RL is any more attractive than a Ruth or a vat of jello?

The answer is that each character is a puzzle, and we rely on the few puzzle pieces we are given to formulate an opinion of a person. If we have never spoken to them before, then all we have to go on is the appearance of their avatar and the information on their profile. In some cases, a person might post a real life picture, although there’s still no guarantee that it’s their picture. Some people may have absolutely nothing on their profiles, and then you can only formulate your opinion based on their avatar’s appearance and the groups they’ve joined. Others may have an extension description of themselves in both their first and second lives, a rich list of picks to give you further insight, and perhaps even a web site link to something like a myspace page. When a person decides to make their avatar attractive, that’s a signal that they want to be noticed. It doesn’t always tell you their motivation for wanting to be noticed. In some cases, it may be an escort looking for work, or it may be someone looking for love or perhaps a one night stand, or it may be someone who has already found someone. A woman who dresses her avatar in a provocative outfit might be seeking a different sort of attention than a woman who wears a ballroom gown. The same goes for a man who fashions his avatar with leather and tattooes vs. one who might wear a T-shirt and jeans.

As we get to know the person behind the avatar, we collect more and more pieces to the puzzle, and the avatar’s appearance matters less and less. If we see a picture of them in real life, then the avatar appearance becomes even less significant, since no matter what form they morph into, we can have a constant image of the person we are speaking with. Over time me may learn their age, marital status, occupation, and life situation. We may learn more about their own motivation for playing SL. The pieces gradually come into place, and we can replace the cartoon we initially met with the person we’ve gotten to know.

There are still exceptions though. There are some folks who want to remain immersed in the fantasy, want to picture you as your avatar (I’ll use “avi” interchangably with “avatar”) rather than what you really look like, and will change their opinion of you when you change your avi’s appearance. There was one friend of mine who I will call Bethany who fit into this category. She posted her own RL picture to attract attention, but didn’t want to know what others looked like. She had a habit of getting into serial relationships with extreme highs and lows. She also went for guys who owned large parcels of land in SL. There was one particular chap, who I’ll call Lieven, who had become the target of Beth’s affections. Lieven’s avatar was well put together, with a beautiful head of hair and a nice skin. He also owned his own island, and was a very nice guy. Their romance blossomed quickly, and within a few weeks they were SL engaged and planning a lavish SL wedding. The wedding date was fast approaching, and Beth asked me to be the one to give her away. She wanted me to look proper, so we went out one night and did some shopping. She said that it was time for me to get some new hair, so I spent time trying on different demos. None of them seemed to fit right with my shape, which was unfortunately not moddable and for some reason I had grown attached to. So, I tried on a different shape that a friend had given me, along with the hair demo. Then I heard Beth say “Wow, you look hawt!” This escalated for at least another twenty minutes, and I quickly realized that she was getting cold feet about her upcoming wedding.

I asked her if there was something else going on that she wasn’t telling me, and that’s when she said “Well, Lieven did something today that kind of wrecked my fantasy”. I asked her what that was, and she responded “He sent me his RL picture”. She went on to explain that she had never asked for it, and at the time you did not have the option of refusing a picture if someone dropped it in your inventory. “He looked like Colonel Sanders!” she said. “How do I erase this from my mind?” He had also put this picture on his profile, and she demanded that he take it down, presumably to prevent others from learning about her embarassing future in the fast food industry. She said at the time that she was still going through with the wedding, but that she was very angry about this unsolicited exposure. Lieven was simply trying to make the relationship more real, and wanted to know if she could love him for what he was. Beth had no desire to meet any of her SL lovers in real life, nor did she want to know anything about their appearances. Within about a week, the wedding was called off and the relationship was over.

The Buffet

MagMan — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:05:46 +0000

The other night I went to a buffet. I looked around at the crowd, noticing the disturbing contrasts between the different generations. The younger ones had well-proportioned bodies, perfect skin, good teeth, good hair, and smiles on their faces. They were accompanied by parents whose bodies have been ravaged by time. A culture that lives on vats of corn syrup, pot after pot of coffee, fast foods that in many cases still contain trans fatty acids had done them in. The mothers had bodies that would require mapquest directions for an intimate act, and one could only venture to guess what they looked like at one time based on their perfect little offspring. The men and women had teeth stained by tobacco, coffee, or both. Once lustrous manes of hair had begun to retreat or surrendered altogether. Once perfectly taught skin had loosened and become riddled with crows feet. The parents all looked tired, a look that said they had given everything to their children and had nothing left to give. The care-free days were long gone, the vows made a lifetime ago to people who only still existed in wedding photos. Endless days toiling in a thankless job to provide the basic needs for their family, or folding laundry, cooking short order meals, trips to the doctor’s office or the hospital, piano lessons, soccer practice, the list goes on. The gray-haired generation looked even worse, entering accompanied by a walker or a canister of oxygen, once toothy grins replaced by dentures, nothing to long forward to except the occasional game of cards, a social security check, and very infrequent visits from their grandchildren.

So what am I getting at here? The answer is that as we grow older, there is an irrepressible urge to go back in time and relive our youth. To recapture that first kiss, to experience love anew. But we can’t go back. We’ve got mortgages to pay, income taxes to file, children to feed. We’ve got little people dependent on us for survival. So we can’t just walk away from our lives and relive our fraternity days, the days where we looked our best, had no mortgages to pay, and dreaded the thought of becoming just like our parents. We can’t go back. Or can we? What if there was a venue where we could be 21 forever, and experience love all over again without walking away from everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve? What if, rather than diverting our lives on alternate courses, we could simply create another one that we live in parallel?

It was only a matter of time before technology would have an answer for us. It was only a matter of time before someone would give us the ability to live out a second life. In this world you can be 21 forever, never worry about catching a social disease or getting fat. Don’t like your shape? Just manipulate a few slider bars, or buy a new one. Not happy with your skin? You can buy that too. You can dress as sexy as you want, or live life out as a mythical creature, a vat of jello, or Darth Vader. You’re now in a singles bar hundreds of thousands of other residents (several million if you go by the number of accounts created). It’s another buffet of sorts, but with a much more hedonistic slant.