Tuesday, September 23, 2008

What I Learned in 2nd Life in 2 Days

I've been spending some time in Second Life, the virtual "game" where you create another self, and live out a life in virtual space. You can look and act however you want and no one knows who you really are, so you essentially can live out your private dreams and fantasies anonymously.

This isn't a new website. It's been around for a couple of years. I tried it out about a year ago with my old PC but my graphics card just couldn't cut it. Now, with my spiffy laptop I thought I'd try it again and this time it's way better.

So here's what I've learned about myself...and about Second Life. First, Second Life is a lot similar to Real Life (RL) in that there is a whole lot of sleazy stuff to be found easily. And I found it. The wholesome stuff is more difficult to find but if you look for it, it's also right there in front of you. Less people are interested in it. There's also a lot of commercialism, socializing and pretty much everything else you find in RL. In many ways, they overlap.

What I learned about myself is that like most people I want to check out the bad to make sure it's not for me...which I did on Day 1 - but then went to bed feeling pretty sleazy myself and not sure if I wanted to return. I did return Day 2 but decided to bypass the less desirable in favor of activities that uplifted me rather.

I also learned that even in Second Life, I wanted to be productive, have a secure home, and do something to help others. I'm trying to figure out how to do those things without wasting too much time, but there is service to be done in Second Life that will equate in RL also - it's hard to explain. I've also learned that my Second Life will mirror my RL pretty closely and that just reassures me that I'm living my dream. That's awesome!

Anyway, I've met some very nice LDS folks that make me want to return to SL many times. One of them is even going to show me where I can get free temporary housing.

Waste of time? Maybe...but then again so might blogging. What else am I going to do at 1am when I can't sleep?

5 backward glances:

Tiffany said...

And THAT is why I love you. I JUST learned about 2nd life on The Office. Not that I'm comparing you to Dwight.... :)

Anonymous said...

I signed up for Second Life after a friend raved about it. Within about 5 minutes of walking around, I had men hitting on me. It made me so uncomfortable! I don't know what I was expecting, but I'm a faithfully married woman, I'm not looking to go online and have cyber sex or whatever. After a couple more visits, I gave up and left my character sitting outside a Tim Horton's in "Canada". As far as I know she is still there!

Amy said...

elizabeth: she's not still there, lol. when you log off - your character disappears but you'll reappear in the same place when you go back on. it took a while but i found some places where i'm not hit on anymore. i feel the same as you. it felt so weird!

Anonymous said...

I have tried this game...I created my own outfit-according to some random man, I looked hot--But after flying around a bit and teleporting a few places I found neither bad things or good things. In fact, I found not much of anything. But I'm not giving up!! I will find fun things...and if you ever see Kaitlynn Paule wandering around dazed and confused...that's me!!

LuAnn @ BackPorchervations said...

Never heard of 2nd Life, but I met my hubby on the internet in an online rpg. Stopped completely for a while beause most of the people back then (at least the ones I was "meeting") seemed a little more than a little off the beam, if you KWIM. Glad you met some nice people.