Second Life? Get a Life? But Which One?

My latest rant is available in the Second Life Herald entitled Get A Life! Any Idea Which One? It came about while I was reading the comments to postings that referred to Second Life and began to get irritated at the "Get A Life" responses being used as a way of ending discussion. It seems that the answer to anything in a virtual world is to "Get A Life," and that any problems someone may be having in-world is not worth thinking or caring about.

Bollocks!

A problem is a problem is a problem. If your virtual life partner is cheating with another virtual entity, it can still cause real emotional reactions. Just because the surface structure of the interaction is based on pretty pictures on a screen, the deep structure is still good old-fashioned human emotions, naked and raw.

It's just to glib to dismiss virtual existence as "just a game" because even games evoke affect. The on-screen Barbie and Ken may seem like toys but there are human beings pulling the strings on these pixelated puppets.

The exhortation to "Get A Life" is no different from what many people will do in real life. Cynical as it may seem, in general, most people really don't care about other people's problems. Me included. Apart from my family and small group of friends, frankly, my dears, I don't give a damn.

Don't believe me? Hah. Folks will spend money on premium dog food to keep little Bowser happy but won't spend 1/10th of that to sponsor a child in a third-world country. Is it because they don't care? Well yes! It sounds shocking but I'm afraid human beings are not altruistic.

Bah, humbug.

Is That Really You Talking?

After months of avoiding it, last night I gave in for a short while to the Voice feature of Second Life. Donning my headset, I enabled the chat along with my friends mtd1952 Timeless and Merry Felwitch, along with a new guy, Charlez Caproni. An odd experience for me, to say the least. Hearing MTD and Merry for the first time since I started back in November 2007 was surprising. Not because they didn't sound like I expected - and I honestly had no expectations - but because suddenly it became more like a phone call, all be it rather distorted and fiddly.

The mechanics of "push to talk" and having voices clash felt awkward. I also felt like we tacitly acknowledged we had to take turns in order to be heard. The lack of non-verbal cues such as eye contact and facial expression also made it feel odd. It wasn't unpleasant - just unusual.

The other thing that gets in the way of my using voice is that I have a family who sleep! My computer is located such that it wouldn't be long before someone would be telling me to be quiet. Maybe it's also significant that I am not much of a phone person anyway. In RL, I do a LOT of face-to-face teaching and talking so that's really more comfortable for me. I can run online presentations and use Skype happily on a one-to-one. But I think I'm not ready for a significant amount of SL chatting. I'm sure there will be occasions when it makes sense, however replacing my Typonese with Voice is a long way off.


If nothing else, I am more certain that MTD is a guy and Merry is a gal. Although you can use voice changing software - apparently - I understand that it is obvious; so you really can't be a guy pretending to be a gal.

And another thing: I suddenly felt my real-life self beginning to replace my Second Life persona. Sure, Sigmund Leominster and "me" have things in common, but I don't want SL to be just a copy of RL. After Voice would come video, and then Siggy is gone and "I" am there - which I don't want. My Second Life is precisely that; a Second Life.

Best to try keep the two apart as much as possible for as long as possible. At this moment in time, the podcast is voice enough for me.