CLASS: material worlds
TERM: spring 10
"Hello, I'm Helmet Tenenbaum..."
Second life to me, as of now, is still more like a game than an actual second life. From the very beginning, I've gone into the project taking on a light hearted direction. Even down to my character design, I was laughing at myself. I couldn't help but create the craziest character I could think of. This character turned out to be Helmet Tenenbaum.... a short tubby man who waddles more than walks. His hair amounts for about a third of his height. He also loves riding on his pet cow while wielding a sword, or his newly acquired AK47.
Free AK's at the gun range.
Most people I have met in Second Life, treated the place with a great deal of seriousness. While wandering around, trying to talk to people, I found that I was often dismissed early on, even before a conversation could begin, mainly due to what I had chosen my character to looked like. I believe this hindered me in further exploring person to person interaction. (I was usually laughed at, and then people ran away from me in what seemed like an annoyed reaction.) Some of my classmates who created characters that were more life-like, had a bit more success with meeting and having conversations with strangers in Second Life. So, CONCLUSION #1: Even though it's a world of make believe, there are still real life situations that occur. In my case, a light form discrimination. People say I'm ugly... there goes my self esteem.
For me, with the small amount of time I have had in Second Life, I still can't get past the idea of it just being a sort of game. A game with no objective.... With no objectives I ended up running around and just started messing with people to get a reaction. (I apologize if I offended people in Second Life...) I couldn't find myself wanting to put time in to create a whole other life in the virtual space. It's a nice short "breather" from the real world, but I much rather prefer to BE in the real world... or at least be playing games on my PS3.
Sooooo.... I ended up taking some fun into my own hands and created a little game of my own. Some classmates and I decided to flashmob a location. Our location of choice was a country/western bar with a lot of room for square dancing. In the center of the room was a stage that was clearly marked telling dancers that the only people allowed on the stage are workers of the bar. We all started dancing and mobbed the stage for a take over and annoyance. To our pleasure, we could hear bar regulars cursing at us as they, one by one, booted us off of the island. Thaaaaaat was fun times in Second Life.
Flash mob.
Most locations I visited often resembled what you could find in the real world. It's what you'd expect to see... Similar landscapes with a few fantasy driven ideas behind the build. In one place there were even things like hot air balloon rides that you can take. Sweet, yes... but it ended up just being another glorified chat room location for me. No different from standing on top of a snowcapped mountain, or at the bottom of the sea.
Much like in the real world, I found it interesting that you could find places that were created with specific uses in mind for entertainment. Outside of the porn/sex littered worlds, I stumbled upon a few gems. One of them was a place to surf waves. Overall though, I was pretty impressed with the different islands I ventured to. Knowing first hand how difficult it was to build things in Second Life, I have to admit, there were some pretty amazingly intricate locations.
I personally never felt much attachment to Second Life on the emotional level. There are many who have put a lot of time into building an actual life away from reality in here, but I'm not quite sure that I will ever be one of them. It's just too quirky and game-like to me for this space to become a reality. Second Life is just a fun toy to play with that I know will eventually get bored of. Heck, it already happened once before some years ago when I signed up for an account. That initial experience ended in a fraction of the time this experience has gone already...
Sir Helmet of Tenenbaum...... The Third.
TERM: spring 10
"Hello, I'm Helmet Tenenbaum..."
Second life to me, as of now, is still more like a game than an actual second life. From the very beginning, I've gone into the project taking on a light hearted direction. Even down to my character design, I was laughing at myself. I couldn't help but create the craziest character I could think of. This character turned out to be Helmet Tenenbaum.... a short tubby man who waddles more than walks. His hair amounts for about a third of his height. He also loves riding on his pet cow while wielding a sword, or his newly acquired AK47.
Free AK's at the gun range.
Most people I have met in Second Life, treated the place with a great deal of seriousness. While wandering around, trying to talk to people, I found that I was often dismissed early on, even before a conversation could begin, mainly due to what I had chosen my character to looked like. I believe this hindered me in further exploring person to person interaction. (I was usually laughed at, and then people ran away from me in what seemed like an annoyed reaction.) Some of my classmates who created characters that were more life-like, had a bit more success with meeting and having conversations with strangers in Second Life. So, CONCLUSION #1: Even though it's a world of make believe, there are still real life situations that occur. In my case, a light form discrimination. People say I'm ugly... there goes my self esteem.
For me, with the small amount of time I have had in Second Life, I still can't get past the idea of it just being a sort of game. A game with no objective.... With no objectives I ended up running around and just started messing with people to get a reaction. (I apologize if I offended people in Second Life...) I couldn't find myself wanting to put time in to create a whole other life in the virtual space. It's a nice short "breather" from the real world, but I much rather prefer to BE in the real world... or at least be playing games on my PS3.
Sooooo.... I ended up taking some fun into my own hands and created a little game of my own. Some classmates and I decided to flashmob a location. Our location of choice was a country/western bar with a lot of room for square dancing. In the center of the room was a stage that was clearly marked telling dancers that the only people allowed on the stage are workers of the bar. We all started dancing and mobbed the stage for a take over and annoyance. To our pleasure, we could hear bar regulars cursing at us as they, one by one, booted us off of the island. Thaaaaaat was fun times in Second Life.
Flash mob.
Most locations I visited often resembled what you could find in the real world. It's what you'd expect to see... Similar landscapes with a few fantasy driven ideas behind the build. In one place there were even things like hot air balloon rides that you can take. Sweet, yes... but it ended up just being another glorified chat room location for me. No different from standing on top of a snowcapped mountain, or at the bottom of the sea.
Much like in the real world, I found it interesting that you could find places that were created with specific uses in mind for entertainment. Outside of the porn/sex littered worlds, I stumbled upon a few gems. One of them was a place to surf waves. Overall though, I was pretty impressed with the different islands I ventured to. Knowing first hand how difficult it was to build things in Second Life, I have to admit, there were some pretty amazingly intricate locations.
I personally never felt much attachment to Second Life on the emotional level. There are many who have put a lot of time into building an actual life away from reality in here, but I'm not quite sure that I will ever be one of them. It's just too quirky and game-like to me for this space to become a reality. Second Life is just a fun toy to play with that I know will eventually get bored of. Heck, it already happened once before some years ago when I signed up for an account. That initial experience ended in a fraction of the time this experience has gone already...
Sir Helmet of Tenenbaum...... The Third.