Blimey. Long time no blog! Two extremely intensive months have flown by in a frenzied whirl of deadlines, duties and directed (at times directionless) forays into a virtual world.  While I have a backlog of ‘must blog this’ musings to catch up on, I cannot hold out any longer. I simply must go public with my Second Life. 

Yes, I’m another one. Addict? No. Devotee? Hmmm, potentially…. 

Amidst all the rhetoric and media hype there’s some rather interesting goings on in the world that is Second Life. For instance, did you know that the bundle of joy, peace and goodwill aka Jean-Marie Le Pen actually built headquarters in SL, but was promptly picketed out? Or that biggie multinationals such as IBM, Sony BMG and Reuters have built an in-world presence? How about Anshe Chung, Second Life’s first millionaire (virtual) property developer, who is now a bona fida millionaire in spite of the fact that the exchange rate averages L$250[1] to $1? 

Ok, so there’s a taste of the hype. Now here’s my perspective: SL is no different from RL. On the surface, that is.

The passions, the interactions, the motivations, the cultures and belief systems – a veritable cornucopia of individuals with competing (and at times complementary) agendas entering a virtual world within which they can experiment, express themselves… and potentially make a bit of cash while they’re at it. 

My agenda? Well, wearing the hat of the ‘virtual ethnographer’ it’s completely fascinating. Unfortunately due to ethical reasons I can’t make my research public which is rather a shame as I’ve got some pretty compelling material. Nothing groundbreaking but I deliberately set out to ‘be’ a certain way each time and experiment with people’s reactions. Bit naughty, I know but hey….  

My partner in crime throughout these escapades has just written a highly amusing, tongue-in-cheek piece on our forays into SL. Yes, we are two girly geeks who like nothing more than a glass of rioja, a wifi connection and to delve into the world of social software – she as a flickr ‘icon’ and general girl about (virtual) town, myself as the virtual ethnographer with a never-ending fascination with online communities and communication dynamics. The Dream Team (ha!). 

Yes, on Christmas day morning what did we do? After staying up until 5 am discussing flickr communities we woke at 9 and went straight into SL to see what kind of ‘freaks’ would choose to be their virtual selves on Christmas Day. 

Freaks like us - except they were thanking one another for their reciprocal gifts of 2 Linden dollars (approx 0.004pence). 

The fact is that those of us who are lucky enough to be able to make our own choices in RL can amplify those choices x100 in SL. We can be who we want to be. We can strip away the years of social conditioning, personality development, fears, phobias and general hang-ups and become somebody else.  

Or can we? 

After a particularly intensive SL session with my aforementioned girly-geek friend (yes, we actually sat next to each other with our laptops in a RL bar on a Friday night and entered SL – purely for research purposes, of course), I arrived back home having arranged to meet another friend in SL. But you know what? It suddenly hit me. I wanted a RL cuddle. 

No matter how realistic the avatar, the gestures, and the emotions that come in to play through various SL interactions, nothing can compare (for me) to the touch, the taste, the smell, the pure joy of RL contact with a RL human being. 

SL is fantastic – as an embellishment for RL. Personally I have found a tipping point where so much SL makes me yearn for RL. Similarly, when RL gets a bit too much, it’s great to be able to get away from it all by slipping into SL. 

IMHO, therein lies the key. 

[1] Linden dollars – Second Life currency