So it remains a mystery to me why I was intrigued and seduced by the virtual on-line world called Second Life.
I'm not sure I know enough about it yet to even adequately describe what "SL" entails. But I know one thing: it is the Fantasy Island for the 21st Century. Minus the creepy little person.
This SL world is one of your own making--but what is peculiar about it is this: the other "residents" you see in SL are actual, living, breathing people, just like you.
You can look how you want. You can live where you want. You can do what you want. You can work, you can travel, you can tele-port and you can fly. You can give yourself a sunburn. If you're a man, you can be a woman, or a unicorn, whatever floats your boat. You can have sex. Not kidding. Real, NC-17 sex.
And no, that's not why I signed up. Okay, maybe it was. Shut up.
Who wouldn't want to have sex with these women?
The discrepancies between the real live person and the SL person may be large or...well, humongous. Here is, I'm afraid, a real example.
SL Avatar:
Real Live Person:
Not sure I'd be able to peg her IRL if we met.
The site is free, but if you want to actually have fun, you have to buy things--with actual money that is then translated into currency called Linden Dollars. You can buy clothes, a house/real estate, bling, jewelry, furniture...and people. Yes, you can get a prostitute on SL.
You communicate via IMing. You can even get software that allows you to talk in real time. I learned all of this last night and I was intrigued. Since I had a whole bunch of stuff to do today, I naturally decided to research Second Life more fully. What intrigued me the most was making my SL avatar. I wanted to see ME in virtual, 3-D (will the narcissism never end?!)
I got on the site and they lured me in with a photo much like this:
How cool is that?
So...inch by inch, input by input, I found myself creating an account on Second Life. Apparently my Thanksgiving pies are going to make themselves.
I got to choose from a myriad of things for my avatar. You can be a random person, a creature, an animal, a vehicle, a vampire, you name it. Or you can specify exactly how you want to look. I thought they'd have some photo/facial recognition feature, but I was lost in the world, commands and frankly, could find no answers to my query on how to make "me." I decided that I could create a pretty good facsimile of me after seeing the avatar creation features. Talk about specific.
You can change the density of your eyebrows. Color of hair and length, of course. You can sculpt your own nose, your eyes, your chin, forehead, ears. You can add wrinkles and jowls (yeah, I'm sure everybody uses those features). So I went to work. I didn't want perfection--I wanted me on there. A rendition of me.
I tried to change my hair length but I ended up bald. When I was finally able to have the hair again, I just left that feature alone. I can have a half-pony tail. No biggie.
I tried to make my nose the French nose that it is. There was no "beakish" command. There was a crooked command, so I promptly slid my nose off to the left. I'm not vain; I wanted my avatar to be true to life. I added the wrinkles. I added jowls. I thinned out my lips. I tried my very hardest to NOT be perfect.
I made my body pear-shaped and curvy. I had to minimize the breasts (oh, it was so tempting....but no.) I shortened myself up. Thickened out the legs.
My finished project looked something like this:
I don't know. I'm thinking I should darken the eyes.
After spending way too much time on me, me, me...I decided it was time to start the cranberry relish. Maybe when I log back on, I'll have some friend requests? Sex in a virtual world is legal, right? Honey? I'll ask him later.
If I ever decide to visit SL again, maybe I'll see you there. Introduce yourself. I live in Paris.
Chowder.
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