My answer to this question is No, the residents of Second Life will never know me as Antoine that goes to college, but they will only know me as Jozi Oakleaf that wears a tye die T-shirt.
Whenever I meet a new person on Second Life, I always try to make sure that I ask about them and their experiences in Second Life. In my conversation with a man in Milky 9, he was telling me about his SL girlfriend and how she was flying around somewhere in the store. I began to wonder if he is attracted to his girlfriend's avatar, or if he is enamored by her personality. I may never know because I don't know the hearts of the two, but I can only speak for myself. I still can't see how a person is 100% themselves in Second Life because an avatar is in the place of who we really are.
My life in real life is vastly different than my life in Second Life. In real life, I'm always studying and working hard to do what I have to do to succeed in college. But in Second Life, I can go to a club, go to space, or fly around just for the sake of flying. This is who Second Life residents see, not the studious workaholic college student.
When I look at man in the mirror of Second Life, I don't see Antoine at UR but I see Jozi Oakleaf of Second Life.
"an avatar is in the place of who we really are."
ReplyDeleteBut who are we, really? The outer fraction of an inch that is our skin? Remove that, horrid as it sounds, and we are all similar.
This is why my and many of your first impulses have been to craft an avatar who looks as much like our real-selves as possible.
I got over that impulse when Iggy started wearing dreads. Tomorrow, he'll wear a Fred Astaire tuxedo, with spats, white bow-tie, and the works to host our Roundtable. But I'm still driving him, and his profile points back to the flesh-and-blood me.
At a certain point, it came to me that what I say and do as Iggy reflect Joe more than what Iggy looks like on a given day.
So I try not to be cruel or flip when I meet people, even though, as my profiles says, I am both "snarkier and more helpful" than I can be face-to-face, when I'm usually on campus and in a hurry.