Procrastination and Escapism

Sometimes I wonder whether one of the attractions of SL (for me) is the fact that the banal and mundane becomes increasingly surreal and ridiculous. Since getting our hands on 2 swanky apartments in Manchester-UK, we’re now faced with two realms of domesticity; our homes in RL and our homes in SL.

Last weekend I had mortgage issues and general upkeep to contend with in RL. It was all rather dull, and time-consuming, so after a while I decided to go in-world and channel my energies into furnishing my newly-acquired virtual apartment instead. One bubble chair, a 60s dining set, a chaise longue and a Picasso later, I realised that this was utter procrastination, logged out and dealt with the matters at hand in RL. (Having set out to buy a cow, a huge coffee machine and a pizza oven, my new acquisitions were not what I had set out to purchase - obviously Ikea syndrome strikes in-world too…)

Anyway, it’s been a hellishly busy week so I haven’t had a chance to go back into SL until tonight, when I had to go in to make sure our apartments would be safe in our absence as we’re going on a RL holiday tomorrow and won’t have any internet access (gasp!). I checked on Misty’s coots and flamingos (yes, we ARE allowed pets we’ve already checked) and made sure my ‘beware of the dog’ sign looked suitably threatening, oh, and had a slice of pizza (1L$) from the machine in the corner (oops, another purchase – forgot to mention that one) and came back into RL to pack my case and escape to a remote Greek island.

Of course I know that when I get home, after throwing down the bags I’ll immediately check emails, Flickr, facebook before entering SL and going to my apartment - and then no doubt go and buy a virtual boat and go and relax on a virtual island in the virtual Mediterranean…

In the Summertime (a.k.a. RL avatars)

People SLife for a variety of reasons; personally I began SLifing a) to see what all the fuss was about, and b) to explore the potential for virtual meetings, virtual internships and various other work-related projects. Unfortunately RL got in the way so I had to take a couple of months out (heaven knows what Puli’s been getting up to in the absence of her ‘maker’ ;-)
But I must admit that even though my SLife addiction had to be put on hold, my Flickr addiction took over. I've was thinking about online social networking, communities etc. and began to wonder if there was a seasonal element – specifically in terms of SLifing as a form of escapism.
SL was brilliant in during the cold, dark winter months. I/she (Puli) regularly TP-d off to sunnier climes and basked in the virtual sun with an unspillable cocktail in my/her hand. At the time I was also rather partial to in-world gliding and wrote about the after-effects of immersion and my dismay at the RL realisation that I walked as opposed to skated to work.
It’s such a strange feeling when cognitive ghosts appear and sensations from SL spill over in to RL. I rationalised this by drawing the analogy with my Quake addiction years ago.
But since returning to SL I’ve begun to experience a different type of ‘SLangover’, and again this is seasonal in that it relates to RL summer outfits. On several occasions during the past 2 weeks, I’ve been walking down the street and thought I saw an avatar.
There’s a generic male SL outfit/body type – that of triangle torso, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt – and now when I see that body type/clothing combo, with an avatar’s gait, I get a very strong (albeit momentary) sensation that I’m in-world...

Big Chip Awards (SL version)

We had an interesting time several weeks ago when Misty and I simultaneously attended the Big Chip Awards - Misty in RL, myself in SL; 2-way streaming as can be seen here:

Weirdly enough, neither of us got to bed until 5am.

After the ceremony I went on to Flickr to upload the pics to our Second Life account and hopped over to my RL account (which is where the ‘action’ happens, as it were) and of course some of my friends from various other time zones were around, comment frenzy ensued and which spilled over into private flickr mails. HG and I then moved over to instant chat (google) as we wanted to have a proper conversation, and before I knew it, it was 4.30am – the same time that Misty rolled out of the press club in the ‘real’ world having consumed her own body weight in champagne due to a lucky win on a texting competition.
That one of the problems with online communities; the lack of shared (externally-influenced) circadian rhythms combined with the mock-alertness effect of life in front of a screen means that you’re friends are always ‘there’ – by the time your European amigos log off, your US buddies are live and kicking and then before you know it your friends in the southern hemisphere appear and they're all so bloody engaging that you literally have to peel yourself away from the computer!
By this time it’s about 5am, you need to be up at 6.45 in order to put the anti back into the social by choosing to enter SL at a time when it’s quiet - otherwise you end up having the same banal chit chat with different avatars and not getting anything done. Jjust for the record: 1) yes I DO know that my avatar is flat-chested, 2) I’ve been slifing since Christmas, and 3) NO I DON’T WANT TO HAVE VIRTUAL SEX.

It’s bloody knackering all this and i can regularly be seen sporting eye-bags the size of Cornish pasties due to living a significant portion of my life online. Because my social software addiction is becoming apparent visually in terms of under-eye baggage, I’m beginning to wonder if SLife will become increasingly desirable as no matter how much time I spend in-world my avatar doesn’t age. Basically, the more time I spend being Puli the more I age and yet she just stays the same. Yeah, it's vanity but she annoys the hell out of me sometimes – oh excellent, yet another socio-emotional digital identity discovery; envy of one’s own avatar!

It’s like one of those awful TV confessional shows (Jerry Springer etc) – ‘Avatar Envy’ or ‘My Avatar Ruined My Life’. Ha ha, could have fun with this: ‘My avatar slept with my best friend’s husband’, although an interesting one is ‘My avatar used to be a man’ – doesn’t really work does it? Obviously in RL this would be about a sex-change, but things are different in SL aren’t they? Rather than the dilemma of which workplace toilets should be used when a he becomes a she, our gender-related quandaries are related to whether the avatar you’ve been virtually bikini shopping with really IS a female (or is it a ‘man behind the mask’?).

Things should become a little clearer when voice finally gets off the ground in Second Life. Although I’m saying that as somebody who has actually been referred to as ‘sir’ during a phone call to a customer service centre, so perhaps not…

Big Chip Awards (RL version)

Puli and I were pretty excited about attending the Big Chip Award together, albeit one of us was going in the flesh and the other would be rendered of pixels. Questions flew through my mind; Would we be able to see each other? Would our new dresses be a hit on the night? How would the experiences differ? Would the real and the virtual experience be seamlessly fused together, thus blurring the traditionally accepted notions of existence? What would they serve me for dinner? It was enough to make a girl giddy.

Unfortunately it turned out that my table was too far away from the projection screen to see what was going on in SL, but I was told by others at my table with better eyesight than me that Puli was clearly visible and never without a drink in hand. Spookily, neither was I when our table won six bottles of champagne for texting in the most responses to a question about Second Life (My joy at this was slightly hampered by the fact that they were all texting in an answer to the effect that all people who use Second Life are losers. Frankly I would expect more open mindedness of a forward thinking New Media team, but I'm sure that drinking more than my fair share proved punishment enough)