In honor of Ray Finkel, I decided to take his last name as I created my Second Life-self. I was kinda surprised that we were limited to what last names we could chose, but what better one than Finkel!
Anyways, here are a few of my initial experiences in Second Life:
1. Creating a box and sitting on it.
2. Encountering a fellow Second Lifer, and instead of talking (which I hadn't figured out yet), we simply began jumping 15 feet into the air over and over.
3. Wearing a tuxedo coat with blue jeans and getting a nice complement from a girl with blue skin and wings.
4. Meeting another person who was also exploring Second Life for a graduate class. Would have been a little weird had it randomly been someone from 709.
This experience was quite interesting to say the least. I was playing around on it over the noon hour one day, and Eric, the grad student in my lab kept looking over my should saying "I'm getting addicted to this and I'm not even using it." Walking around in this virtual world certainly brings a sense of detachment from your physical self, as well as this underlying addiction to keep playing. If a character approached you and started a conversation, I almost felt obligated to say hello and do a stop-and-chat. Unlike AIM or other messengers, the visual presence of an avatar made the communication seem much more real. I couldn't just close a text box, but had to "physically" walk away from that person if I wasn't interested in speaking to them. Kinda felt bad doing that. On the other hand, when I was bothering people for advice on how to acquire clothes and such, there were many who simply ignored me or walked away. Some were very helpful though, and given the initial, and difficult learning curve in Second Life, it would have taken me much longer to learn how to do simple things. Overall though, a very fascinating microcosym of real life.
I'm almost glad it crashes my Safari at home, otherwise I might be tempted to use it more often, and then things would never get done. I'm waiting to see if Eric went home and downloaded the software at home last night, effectively ending his thesis work.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
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3 comments:
Your experiences made me laugh out loud. (oops sorry, lol). I thought I was the only one who remembered Finkel and Einhorn... Anyway, your comment about making a box and sitting on it really was important. A) it probably took a really long time (in 1st life time) and B) how good you probably felt after accomplishing something really rather menial (in both 1st and 2nd life). I was proud to have changed my clothes and that I had a car, only to have the first person I chatted with tell me it was probably a pile because it was free. I never even found the road to try it out. Probably better that way.
It is the addictive part that is so interesting to me, and how some people in class, in their lone explorations, felt none of the pull of "I want to be back!!!" while others seem to have felt it pretty strongly.
But also what you noted, Jon, about not wanting to be rude in SL by walking away from people -- even though they don't really know you or who you are.
How is it that we become so attached to our avatars?
Nice.
I love that you encountered another graduate student. And, yes, it would have been a bit odd if it were one of us.
Although, I've heard, we're everywhere.
Or was that poetry?
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