January 27, 2007 08:50 AM |
reposted from: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk & view Readers comments
my highlights / edits
I have an alternate identity. Some evenings I am Misty Trilling, a girl who likes nothing better than to put on her pink fluffy bunny slippers and fly over chimney tops looking for mischief. Yes, I am a Second Lifer, one of the growing network of users of the online virtual world currently attracting a whirlwind of attention. Believe some commentators and it's all about making money, whether by big corporations with imaginary offices or the lurid trade in virtual sex. To others it is a disengagement from reality, heralding another nail in the coffin for society, and the rest find it so tedious they can't imagine why anyone but the gawkiest of geeks would bother.
Well I bother, and here's why. It's fun. I've jumped off the Eiffel Tower, tangoed the night away, got a pet kitten, and tried to steal a Harrier jump jet. I've got into fights, refused to pole dance, and worn a coot on my head like a hat. I've even borrowed my friend's login and gambled all her money away at virtual poker while she was cleaning the bathroom, but no one's supposed to know about that.
I've met loads of people along the way. Mostly cybergoths, dominatixes and small furry-tailed animals wearing trousers and deck shoes. But who am I to judge? That's the beauty of it. I can dress as ludicrously as I want and other residents have no idea who is at the other end of the computer.
It would be easy to imagine that the anonymity this brings would encourage us to break free from normal social constraints but that's not necessarily the case. Second Life residents spend a lot of time and money perfecting their avatars, and they attach real feelings and emotions to them. It's not hard to see why. A friend once phoned me in a blind panic because she had arranged to meet a colleague within Second Life. Upon logging in, however, she realised she had taken her avatar's clothes off when feeling a bit tipsy and experimental on Christmas day and couldn't work out how to put them back on again. It may be far removed from actually being caught without your undercrackers on by your boss but it conjures up similar emotions. It's the same logic that made me turn down the chance to pole dance for money. I felt that somehow it was degrading to my pixelated self, so she and I remain poor but virtuous. Real life principles still apply.
I've had my run ins with the darker side of Life. Exploring a wasteland one day we spied a pair of flag-waving skinheads in the distance. Suddenly one was in front of me, all tight jeans, tattoos and bovver boots, face pressed up close to mine, typing "u see this baseball bat? I'm gonna smash yr face in with it". It was an absurd situation, especially when you consider that avatars in Second Life are unable to lift their arms without a specially written script and are even less able to inflict damage on one another. He didn't seem overly taken with me pointing this out, however, and accused me of having "no arse" - which confused me as I wasn't sure if he meant me or my avatar. The whole sorry escapade only came to an end when a sympathetic bystander dropped a yacht on his head and he teleported away. I sometimes wonder what sort of spotty 13-year-old would sit at home in their bedroom thinking it might be a good idea to pretend to be a skinhead on the internet, but I'd rather they played out their fantasies there than went out to bother the rabbits at the local pets' corner. That's the thing about virtual worlds, they allow us to play out roles in a safe, limited environment that we can just switch off when we've had enough.
And I do switch it off. I confess that I'm a fairly heavy internet user. I share my thoughts, photos, videos and choice of bunny slippers with people across the world. I've made friends online, met boyfriends, even made enemies that way, and all the while managed to lead what resembles a perfectly normal real life. I have a job, lovely friends and my bathroom is as clean as it's ever going to be, even should I have an epiphany and throw my overworked laptop out the window. Second Life is just another delightful opportunity to muck about. Anyone who claims otherwise gets a yacht dropped on their head.
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