Second Life: Really that Bizarre?
Second life has been getting a lot of attention as far its bizarreness. But honestly, I don’t think it’s that bizarre of an idea. It’s not too far outside of the boundaries of many forms of entertainment that are already extraordinarily popular. I think it’s exactly the same thing as indulging in video or computer games, just more up front about its purpose & not masked by its name. Second life is obvious about what it is: it’s a second life. For most, it’s probably all done in fun. For some, it’s an escape from their first life. You can achieve the status you never actually could in reality; you can obtain the possessions that you can’t afford in reality; you can be exactly who you want to be. You can do the things that reality just won’t let you do.
But how is that any different than other electronic games? I don’t think it is. Whether you’re an all-star soccer player or some secret agent trying to kill everyone else, it’s all pretend. It’s all about doing things that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. The people doing it are looking for the same things as those involved in Second Life — it’s just achieved by taking a more subtle avenue.
I think that the creators of Second Life found something that people were looking for: a way to live in an alternate reality. But it’s not the first time the idea has been thought of; so let’s not give it that much credit. They realized that people have been trying to do this in so many different ways for years — and they just made it a lot easier.
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February 28th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Valid point - networked fantasy environments have existed since the 70s. What’s remarkable about Second Life, however is content creation and intellectual property rights. Is there any other MMO or video game that gives the same degree of control over authorship and sharing? As far as I’ve been able to ascertain, the SL users fall into two camps - the immersionists and the augmentationalists. The latter generally use SL for social, business or education purposes, less so for the fantasy element, although the two camps often blend resulting in visually interesting communication.
March 1st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I agree with what you guys are saying, but i think there is something unique about second life. The fact that it openly admits that it offers a “second life”, i.e. and opportunity to be what you can’t in this life is significant. It’s proof that we have become conscious of this desire to be more removed from reality, and are willing to embrace it. That’s really all it takes to “open the flood gates”. I wouldn’t be surprised if alot more of these sorts of games emerge.
I guess what i’m trying to say is that second life represents something larger than itself, it represents a trend in our generation of using technology to become more removed from reality and from each other. Even texting is an example of this: people would rather punch out words one letter at a time than actually call someone up and actually talk to them. Even blogs and various internet social sites (myspace, facebook, etc.) seem to offer a way to interact with other people yet still remain somewhat removed from them.
I am not trying to say that all these sites are bad and signify something terrible. But i am trying to point out that a very real change is taking place in how we interact with each other and in how we cope with reality. There seems to be a desire to maintain some sort of barrier between ourselves and reality. Second Life is unique in that it is willing to openly admit this and embrace it. Although social sites are a great tool and have alot of great uses, is the ability to “remove ourselves” really the aspect we want to embrace?
March 1st, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I’m not sure that it is trying to remove ourselves from reality necessarily…
More like create our own reality. A selfish world where we look the way we want to, act the way we want to and be the person we want to.
Maybe the addiction to this site of the “finding”(more like making) of one’s identity is really just a person’s insecurity showing up? Too harsh?