Second Life

This week I went on an adventure in the postmodern flaneur known as Second Life. After creating my Second Life account and downloading the program onto my computer, I went through some of the tutorials with my avatar, which I named Ktown Braveheart. The visual appearance of the game, such as the look of the characters and the environment, instantly reminded me of the Sims, which I had played for a little bit a few years ago. This was interesting to me, because I had always thought of the Sims as a game, not a recreation of our world. Second Life was supposed to be more like a virtual world than a game. However, Second Life looked the same to me as a game that I was very familiar with, which made it harder for me to accept it as a real alternative world.

Once I had gone through the brief tutorial, I was taken to my home, which was called Korea 1 on the map. In reality, this was not my home because I had not purchased any land. The tutorial had explained how to control my character, but it had not clearly addressed the layout of this virtual world. From that point on, I found Second Life to be rather complicated and confusing. I had absolutely no money, and the only way I knew to get money was to actually pay for the virtual currency with my credit card, and I did not want to do that at this early stage in my experience. I wandered around the town for a little bit, but I didn't find anything except empty buildings and other people who were just walking around. I talked to a few of those people, but that just seemed strange to me because I didn't feel well-versed enough in the game to have an interesting conversation with them. Although it did not seem like another real world, I was impressed with the somewhat realistic appearance of the scenery and the buildings. However, even the parts that did seem like the real world in Second Life were overshadowed by the fact that the avatars could fly. Walking through this virtual world was very different to me from walking around in the real world, and I missed things that I would usually take for granted such as being able to actually touch and smell things. Perhaps my feelings would be changed a little if I actually understood completely how to navigate the game, but I couldn't find that information during this first visit to the site.

In an episode of The Office called Local Ad, which aired in Season 4, the character Dwight is completely obsessed with Second Life because he says his life was so amazing that he wanted to have two of them. This was my first impression of Second Life, and after exploring it for a little while, it seemed like it would be rather difficult to replicate one's real life in this game; but maybe if I understood how to maneuver through the virtual world more effectively, it would not seem so complex.