Embracing your Weirdness

Meet LJ (not her SL name).She is me. At least, in Second Life she is me. She is my avatar; she represents me in the online world known as Second Life. She looks a little like me – except for the weird sideburns and the fact she looks a little Russian. It’s pretty close. But the joy is, she doesn’t have to be. She doesn’t have to be female, in Second Life (SL) she could be a man, woman, alien, animal – it doesn’t matter.

LJ had a pretty uneventful start. She walked into a lot of trees, waded in a few rivers, and walked into a lot of walls during her orientation. Actually, she still walks into a lot of walls. She spent two days on the help island before she took her first brave steps onto the main grid (where most SL residents are). And then she took them again. And again. And again before she realised her graphics card couldn’t cope with very high resolution and she managed to make it into the bustling help area. Which she left again as soon as humanly possible. In her first ten minutes, she was propositioned for sex, saw a big red ball bouncing around the welcome area, hid from a monster, and got totally obscured by an array of bubbles.

Needless to say the whole experience was a little overwhelming. At this point LJ was beginning to wonder what she had gotten herself into with this SL malarkey. Luckily, she remembered a notecard that advertised a place called ‘Spaceport Alpha’ – the International Spaceflight Museum (ISM), and she embarked upon her first adventure.

If anything was going to make or break the experience, this would have been it. LJ is a self confessed nerd, and this is almost as nerdy as it comes. Put it this way, LJ doesn’t have a home in SL, but she does keep going back to the ISM. (A side note from the biographer – if this place existed in RL (Real Life) you wouldn’t need SL). Still struggling to stick to paths, and rambling through many trees, LJ began her exploration – by talking to another SL resident about all the weird things in SL. IT might be an interesting side not to mention that this resident had the appearance of a 2ft black cat.

LJ was very impressed with the museum. Especially the ‘Low Earth Orbit’ exhibit where you can tour the solar system close up, view the International Space Station, and the Hubble Space Telescope. (Biographers side note – Likelihood is I’ll never see these in RL, so SL will have to do) Geeky fact that LJ noticed was that the description of Earth reads ‘mostly harmless’ (a wonderful reference to Douglas Adams). Back on the ground, the Saturn V rocket and the Space Shuttle were most interesting to see, it was even possible to walk all the way up the launch tower alongside the Saturn V – although one wrong step at the top meant a rather fast plummet to the ground. LJ (unhurt) decided that in the future it would be much simpler to fly.

The museum was relatively quiet, but LJ did meet some people – even someone who seemed quite ‘normal’ by SL standards. And this was how the next adventure occurred. LJ was taken on a magic carpet tour of Nantucket (a region in SL) which is a New England-esqe Sim and saw the un-tackiest and most normal place in SL. It was pretty, quiet, and she also picked up some of the jargon and saw a bit of the main grid.

So far LJ has met people from America, Belgium, Ireland, Israel, and the UK. Of course no one in Second Life is who they appear (with the exception of the few big names who have kept their identity in SL). And that is perhaps the charm of SL; anyone can go and be someone completely different. There is no ‘face’ to maintain. No image to live up to. You can be a geeky or as extrovert as you want. There is something for everyone. The only proviso is – if it’s not so mainstream, it may be a more difficult to find (so just like RL).

So with one or two new friends, LJ signed off for a while (it was 2am), happy in the knowledge that she had survived the experience to log back in another day. After all, one of the things she noted before she logged out was the existence of a number of Star Trek museums in SL. And those are definitely worth a return visit.

SL is getting bigger. The big corporations are taking notice. Reuters has an office in SL, major clothing brands are creating virtual stores. SL even has its first millionaire in Anshe Chung, the property tycoon with an online empire. Second Life keeps hitting the press, sometimes for good things, sometimes not so good things. But it’s all publicity. It’s a big machine with a lot to gain (and a lot to lose). As the hype grows, the residents increase. When I came online about a month ago there were usually about 16,000 people online at peak times. As I write there are 26141 residents online. Maybe it’s a fad, maybe its not. It may be the next logical progression in communication. From the days of IRC chat, to message boards and live chatrooms, now it is interactive in a way we could never imagine. One conversation LJ had in SL was about how the SL world is akin to the Holodeck in Star Trek. The Holodeck is a virtual world, an interactive form of entertainment – so is SL – aside from the lack of actual holograms, the SL environment has only one main difference – instead of interacting with virtual characters, you interact with real people.

I think Second Life may stay around for quite a while if its current popularity is anything to go by.