Do your friends think you're a dork

I fall into the dedicated computer gaming geek category, but I've devoted more time and energy into SL than any other game I've played. At least for the first person shooter crowd, we tend to be graphics whores. The graphics in SL compared to the graphics in even lower level FPS are abominable. They just can't compete. The reasons are very clear, and it's not SL's fault. If you tried to render cutting edge graphics in an environment like SL, people's computers would asplode. It can't be done with today's technology. Plus, SL exists for completely different purposes. It's just a different experience. I love it. I don't care if that makes me a geek...more of a geek. uber geek. Whatever. I'm having too much fun to care.

They thought I was completely nuts at first. Now they're both more addicted than I am

I bought my own surveying equipment (old school transit and rod) just because it was cool. I SO IDENTIFY with you!!! I collect really interesting rocks and I seriously geeked out on my last trip to Mt St Helens; I made my friend pull over so that I could look at rock strata.

I'm a geek in RL, so the SL thing doesn't faze my friends too much.

I am lucky in that my partner took to it right away after I introduced him to SL.

Other than that, the rest of the family is just glad Mom is off the streets (carousing not solicting!) and not causing trouble. Anything to keep her happy and occupied. But they don't see what I see in it and I hope that doesn't mean SL has a limited pool of folks who will subscribe.

Then again, I first saw SL a few years ago and thought it was awful then so they can change too.

OH maaaan the Dork thing...

On the one hand, as with Des Shang, I have non-dork RL credentials up the wahoo. When one has floated off St Tropez in a 60 foot yacht and helped the guy with the brigade of mercenaries in africa to move his shoulder-launched SAM out of the sail locker to get to his spinnaker, or ****ed the wife of the ***** of **** under the security cameras of the Old Bailey with him watching from the back of his stretch Rolls-Royce... Dork accusations fall abit flat when made.

On the *other* hand, all of that does not help a tiny little bit when trying to explain SL to real human beings. It's like the Dork-o-meter has a "reset" button and they just stab at it the minute this topic hoves into view. I suspect the passing comment made back up the thread here about Wal-Mart PCs is key to this problem - dorks tend to know why it makes sense to have a PC with an upgradeable graphics card, whereas non-dorks buy P.O.S. machines and can't see the difference in everyday use - and this deepens the dork/nondork divide hugely, because nondork with Walmart PC sits there and says "this one works fine, they *must* be nuts to be making such a fuss".

I have tried demonstrating SL to a massive range of people, from a shop-girl to a senior professor of international law. My impression is that those who are demo'd to may turn up in SL but if they get the idea in full, the very last thing they will do is tell you about it: they grok the anonymity thing instantly, and you as an RL contact, are one of the people they are likely to be anonymous from. Certainly, I have occasional conversations where people I don't recognize seem to know more about my RL, or pick up on old conversational topics, and I'm left thinking "...was that...?"

lol this is a brilliant thread.
My family don't understand what SL is. My mum thinks im in a cult, my stepdad person is constantly rolling his eyes and joking about it and the rest just think its a chat room lol. I showed my brother once. I forgot I had been trying new clothes on before I logged off so I logged on in a mini bikini with a woolly hat and clogs lol. I think he now thinks we all walk around like loons. He constantly takes the p*** out of me for it.
I think he secretly wants to try it lol.

I have only told one of my friends. she is utterly not interested. Whenever I mention SL she just ignores the comment lol.


I can just imagine my gran with this. She thinks I frequent sexy chat rooms and she also prays for my soul because I happen to be pagan. lol sometimes she is funny though. I taught her how to use the PC and she once typed the wrong address for the methodist church website and ended up on some porn site lol. i don't have a clue how she did it but it was hilarious. She nearly fainted.

hehehe this is a good thread....

Depends really on what your circle of friends are, I find the arty/musical types tend to appreciate the creatvity and the techy types either like it or loath it for its technical stand.

I did have one friend who said i had no life ...... untill i pointed out to them that they were single... living at thier parents and thier idea of a life was spending thier weeks wages getting pissed and waking up cuddling a kebab in thier own sick.

RL is busy enough for me being a professional geek, never mind the fact that when I was 22 I was DJing in Londons Soho at 2 clubs a week, holding down a day job, driving up to nottingham to play at a club there. I dont do that anymore because im just too old *s* but I still have an active life also being a member of a car club.. I do all my own work including spraying etc. The guys who work for me at my RL job think im nuts but they laugh at me ... my own boss is more a counter strike kinda guy. I run my own business in SL ... own a fair bit of land, DJ at a few SL clubs and have an active social scene in a couple of different genres..........

I have relitives who go on SL and have found friends from all over the world ......

So yes .... im a DORK ...... i stand tall and say ... my world is for more vast ...my life is richer and im proud to say it

I tell quite a few people about SL, mostly over 40s, I can tell by the look in their eyes how far to go with the conversation, or when to stop by calculating the length of spray emmitting from their mouths if they're drinking at the time.

My ex calls it Half Life.

Other people in my RL household know I do SL, but I don't think anyone else does. I do keep quiet about it - but in my RL household the other people are addicted to other computer games so they can't say much, can they???

Thanks for the welcome. I'm a 52 y/o geek that collects Volkswagen (Real Ones). I work on a PC all day at work, work and wrench on my cars when I'm off of work to give my brain a rest. Then instead of watching the idiot box I meet new and interesting people from all over the world on the internet.

"G" (Everyone calls me Big G)

My husband calls it Stupid Life and would rather I didn't play at all- so I do not mention it - son knows and would like to play but is too young. My other online friends- not of SL - would do an intervention if they could get together on it, my RL gf has always thought I was a geek so this does not come as a surprise to her.

Great thread! I am a notorious dork for tech in my RL and all my friends and family know and accept this. Thankfully I also have a reputation amongst then for being on the cutting edge of whatever is hip and new and gonna be the next big thing (I think that is debatable but they are hopelessly behind the times so I at least appear to be light years ahead of them) so they dont give me much flack about whatever I am into at the moment. Most of them don't get the SL thing - the few I have demo'd it to - after careful screening to detect if it was going to be a massive waste of my time - have actually signed up for accounts and come on maybe a dozen times a month.

In my RL area of profession however my SL activities have been a screaming success. I am a RL mythic artist and have kidnapped a whole load of RL artist and creative type friends and we all now live like some sort of glittery gaggle on my isles Brythony and Caer Llyr. Some of them just come in from time to time and tool around - but a good portion of them have dragged in their mates and friends and have started learning to make content.

I have made many lovely friends via SL - but I find I really really cherish the ability to keep in touch with those I know in RL via SL. What a pleasure to hang out drinking tea with a friend who lives in Scotland while I am here in my kitchen in the US.

I think that there will always be a disconnect regarding things such as SL for parts of society and for people in general. Some folks just don't understand model train obsessions either. I have a whole load of friends that are Live Journal addicts - I don't get it (and on a side note I can't freaking stand it when a close friend in RL with sad or exciting news calls me and instead of telling me the news says -"Did you read my LJ?" - effing tell me the news - we are RL friends!!! spill it!)

The principle behind SL that makes it so successful is here to stay - I have faith in that - in the future it will be as common as shopping on amazon and email - and there will be people who use it for those sorts of activities only - they will spend an hour dressing up their little av - and walk into the bookstore and buy a few things - participate in some live events when it suits them and it will be as commonplace and natural as using email - but it will not inspire their soul or unleash their creativity - oh well - we comrades in pixels will always find each other!

Dork? Me? there are worse things to be than a dork ..... I could be alone.

/me looks around and smiles. What wonderful company I've found.

I was the first staff member here to get into word-processing. It was on an Acorn BBC model B Microcomputer before PC's became mainstream. My friends and family always respected that I was near the leading edge .. to borrow Brigid's phrase, "the next best thing". The three friends I introduced to SL a year ago are still here. I met Morgaine and Arwen on the Starship Titanic back in '98. Morgaine is now my fiancee.

I think my mum would have loved SecondLife.

Anyone who doesn't 'get' SL is deluding themselves. Hello and Welcome ConductorX

Geek Gurls Rock... pardon the pun. ^^

We all have our interests and hobbies that puzzle others. Besides my insane passion for footwear, I adore Trains, Rotary Wing Aircraft, and My Kitchen. I get absolutely starry eyed at a bseball game, from Little League on up. Tell me you are redecorating, I'll be there with a truck to help you buy the stuff. Tech, forget about it. I've owned 2 computers in my life, the one I currently have and the previous machine, which I bought in 2000. I actually enjoyed the fact I had to leave the house to go to the library to do research, or I would stay late at work, rather than take work home, something I still do. I still use cd's, someone gave me an MP3 player about 3 years ago, it still hasn't been opened. I'm so not cutting edge, the knife handle is too sharp for me. In a way, I'm probably a great advertisement for SL as I am the least likely person to use it, but here I am almost a year later.

According to slashdot ...

Actually, I've managed to get many of my friends into SL.

Mari

Just tell your friends that you have women sending nude or nearly nude pictures of themselves to you, and that they want you to "rate them". Begging you to rate their pictures. Would they still think you were a dork?

I'm thinking that if the photos are of naked avatars, the answer is very likely to be yes!

Yes. And it involves panties and penguins. We all must worship the panties and the penguins. And the pie.
---
I've mentioned seeing great music through SL. From the glazed eyes, I do not think they understood what I was saying.

"Pardon me, miss, but I've never done this
With a real live girl.
Straight off the farm with an actual arm
Full of real live girl.
Pardon me if your affectionate squeeze
Fogs up my glasses and buckles my knees,
I'm simply drowned in the sight and the sound
And the scent and the feel
Of a real live girl.

Nothing can beat getting swept off your feet
By a real live girl.
Dreams in your bunk don't compare with a hunk
Of a real live girl.
Speaking of miracles, this must be it;
Just when I started to learn how to knit.
I'm all in stitches from finding what riches
A waltz can reveal
With a real live girl.

Real live girl.
Real live girl.

I've seen photographs and facsimiles
That have set my head off in a whirl,
But no work of art gets you right in the heart
Like a real live girl.

Take your statues of Juno,
And the Venus de My-lo.
(Me-lo.)
When a fellow wants you-know,
(We know.)
Who wants substitutes? I'll o-
Verlook everyone in the book
For a real
Sexy Sally or Suzabel.
Take your Venetian or Roman or Grecian
Ideal,
I'll take something more "uzabel."
Girls were like fellas was once my belief;
What a reversal, and what a relief.
I'll take the flowering hat and the towering heel
And the squeal
Of a real live girl.


Real live girl.
Real live girl.

Go be a holdout for Helen of Troy,
I am a healthy American boy.
I'd rather gape at the dear little shape
Of the stern and the keel
Of a full-time vocational,
Full-operational
Girl.

Real Live Girl, by Cy Coleman.

Wait. Just naked avatars? He is a dork then. I did not know this, thank-you for informing me of my mistaken assumption.

haha brenda that's great! never heard that before.

ROFL

I wish people I told about SL thought I was a dork. Sadly, as I baseline at dork, adding a mention of SL generally gets me looks that are best described as mingling of horror, disgust, and utter confusion. Ahh well. I gotta be me , but I have learned to keep my SL habit to myself.

It's an oldie for sure. I remember doing it in a musical skit back High School. where the guy was Frankenstein singing to The Bride.