What do your friends and family think of your second life?

Very good point.

And we have an edge over people who make tangable creative things (crafts, models, paintings etc..) is there's no mess and no clutter.

Yep - that's how it is for me. Especially when most of my coworkers have a preset idea of what a woman in her 50s is like. I think telling them about World of Warcraft is somehow more aceptable...that is until I tell them that I play a male warrior. Sheesh. Better hold off on the announcement that I was a lesbian for 30 years and now am sexually 'agnostic'!

Sometimes RL gets just as much reactions as SL or other game.

My mother plays sl because she is in the states and im in germany.. and alot of times when i have free time im in sl.. so she gets on there to chat with me and such. It was kinda humorous because she started out as a lady and was hit on within 30 minutes of starting to play sl.. lol she got offended and said she isnt there looking for a man and that she's happilly married.. so now she is a man in sl =) lol she cracks me up big time.

My brother plays texas hold em in RL tournaments atleast once a week so when he heard aabout there being texas hold em tables in sl.. he was right on it.. =)

My friends are just like wtf is the point of the game? Who are you trying to kill? Where are your guns? lol then usually when they see my account history and gom transfers they change their tune and dont ask me why i wont play cs with them anymore =)

It's clear that most non-players don't seem to "get" Second Life or why anyone would play it.
What I'm wondering now: Is this due mostly to ignorance about the game and what goes on there (in other words, most of them would have fun here if they gave it a chance?). Or is it a personality difference thing? For example, I gave my brother a gift account long ago. I thought he'd have a great time but he never got into it. He didn't see the point and didn't think it was fun. I might add I'm the quirky, artistic, creative one in the family and the's the sensible, no-nonsense, no imagination type. (He probably dreams in binary numbers).

A year ago today I came to Second Life when I told my friends and family they all thought it was nuts. But after reading some of what you all say here I now have some better come backs for them like this is like a hobby. I love Second Life and I think we are pioneers. Before I came to Second Life I played many offline games and when I started playing here there was no going back...Second Life is the best!

I would say that the (few) persons that like and support me playing or at least argue it, do think something about my SL. The others will imagine or bet, but definitely don't think.

I will also say that all the times that I start with the "this is a new medium thing that will completely take over the world" argument to convince my mother, I do clearly see a fading and smiling Philip AV standing by her side, showing me a thumb up and well, for how much I can love you and your stuff Philip, this is becoming quite annoying!

My parents don't really understand computers well enough to ever grasp SL.

I have one friend that used to play SL (he introduced me to the game). He no longer plays because he prefers shooters.

Of all my other friends, I managed to get 2 to sign up and play for about an hour each before they decided it was time to go drinking and never return.

So to sum it up....they all think my SL life is interesting but not so much that they want to join up.

I'm a gamer, and always have been. Most of them see it as just another game I'm playing, though they don't understand what appeal it has over their chosen mediums of first person shooters and MMOs that most of them play. A few of my other friends have tried SL, and not liked it.. but I got lucky, and yet other friends, like Ashlynne, actually enjoy SL.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

If you look at the history of technology, particularly any new technology that arises to facilitate interpersonal communication, you see the same patterns over and over. As a society, we just "forget" these patterns. And as such, we are doomed to repeat them.

If you look at the popular press around the time of the invention of the telephone, there was an uproar about how "depersonalizing" this new technology was. Cries of: "It will destroy relationships!" "There is no way to have an exchange of emotional depth over this infernal contraption!" "It will isolate us!" "It will turn us into machines!"

Even before the telephone. Look at the invention of cheap printing. There were actually outcries about how people would become "unhealthily absorbed" in reading novels, taking in the fantasies and ideas of anyone willing to write them down. I'm dead serious. The literature is out there, just a bit buried in the mists of the past.

Fast forward to the beginning of the Internet and the web/email. Same cries of concern. "It will isolate us!" "It will dehumanize us!" "It's an unhealthy pursuit!" Ad infinitum.

Second Life is not a game (i.e., no pre-defined "artificial" goals like MMOGs). It is a means of creative expression, focusing on interpersonal communication. You interact with people by what you create and what people see. You talk to people. You form ties, both strong and weak, with other people...and expand your social network.

In my mind, SL is no different from any other new interpersonal communication technology. Historically, most people never "get" these new technologies when they arise. But the early adopters do. They embrace it, and use these technologies as "extensions of Man" (to quote McLuhan). Eventually, the rest of society "gets it," but most of the time only after a generational change.

Read "Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence" by Andy Clark for more insights into how humans have always sought and embraced technological extensions. Starting way back at "the axe."

Anyway, I fear I am ranting. But this "pattern" of people initially trivializing and even fearing a new interpersonal communication technology is nothing new. What has come before will come again.

A generation from now, the idea of using virtual worlds like SL for meaningful interpersonal communication will seem as natural as the telephone is today.

You can quote me on it.

-John