How "Immersive" Are You?

Let me explain what I mean. If you consider your immersive self withiin sl, do you "go all the way" and live as your avatar or do you "hold bacl", constantly aware of your inner human self and your own real personality? Is this avatar you have become simply a shell from which the real "you" is "only a camera obeserving or are you entirely immersed in teh sl experience and behaving as your avatar dictates?

Do you "express" yourself as an avatar or as a human who has to be an avatar to be in-world?

Both.

I refer to my Avatar as "me" and believe that it does represent me, my choices and actions.

I am also aware of the interface and the limitations.

Surely this is something of an artificial distinction, Jig? Don't our avatars, however "different" from our RL selves, still express an aspect of ourselves?

In-world, I am, more or less, me, without too many discernible differences in personality, I suspect. But with a bigger wardrobe.

I usually aim for as immersive an experience as possible, so I generally roleplay even when I'm not 'roleplaying', if you get me. I guess that might annoy the shit out of some people, especially if they want the Facebook-type experience, but - meh. My world, etc., etc...

I agree with Scylla that we're presumably drawing on part of ourselves all the time, and happily I think we have the opportunity to draw on parts we might not previously have been aware of. The bits of me I access if I'm logged in as a male av, for example, can be very different from the 'me' that most people see in my offline life.

Going back a year or so in this forum, it was suggested that you couldn't sustain an av of the opposite sex, so I deliberately logged on with one of my boys as often as possible, as an experiment. While it felt awkward at first, I eventually became very comfortable in his skin, and now it's as if I shift into a different mode of thinking whenever I'm him.

A male friend created a delightful female av, and despite feeling that he couldn't be a convincing woman, he says it has helped him understand his feminine side. Interestingly, he can't quite bring himself to have a relationship with a known male - he has to be able to believe the person behind the av is female, even though he's not!

I suspect that the differences between the sexes are far fewer than we sometimes think. In fact, when I engage as a male now - straight or gay - I'm inclined to forget that I was born female. For me, gender is irrelevant in the relationships I have, but I guess that reflects an essential part of the 'real' me too.

You could say that it's more akin to a performance piece in which I temporarily 'forget' the everyday me, and perhaps having spent some years in the theatre has a bearing on that. Then again, I've been into roleplay most of my life, too. Each of my avs has a very distinctive and separate personality, and I adopt each individual persona when I inhabit their skin. This presents something of a dichotomy, however, when I log on more than one avatar at the same time...

I am an SL service provider. That is immersive in its own way. I take my time in SL seriously and the contacts I make are serious as is word-of-mouth about my service delivery. SO in that way I am completely immersed.

I think this is increasingly true overall, as RL gender roles become more and more blurred, and the socially-conditioned notions of what constitutes "male" and "female" fade.

In most cases where we think we have "detected" someone playing an avi of the opposite gender, excepting of course those cases where that person has made an obvious "slip," I suspect it is because we are responding to the vestiges of old stereotypes about gender that increasingly no longer apply. Judgments based on the idea that a "man" or a "woman" wouldn't say or think something, for instance, are particularly suspect.

I've had two very close friends who "came out" as the opposite gender in RL. They are still friends, and neither "sounds" any different now than they did before.

(Cue one of Pep's characteristically misogynist rants about how most women are incapable of "rational thought," etc., etc., etc. )

The physical, such as the difference in the thickness of the corpus callosum and hormonal differences have profound impacts.
However, there is no denying transgender and bigender brains.

I never tire of these types of threads.

Aside from presenting myself as a dog (which I consider a non-threatening avatar), I am really the guy behind the keyboard and I have even begun revealing my real name in certain circles. The avatar is me and vice versa - even to the point of being mortified if I don't feel a hat or scarf fits properly. To me that's total immersion. The avatar is not just a vehicle for the camera.

The only thing that breaks that immersion is the limitation of the chat windows. When too many IM's and local chat lines start mixing, my head starts to implode and I have trouble coping, getting really nervous with the attempt to multitask. I have to back out of those situations as it raises the blood pressure and I have to keep that under control at the moment.

I am Immy. (^_^)y

I Am The Walrus


I am he as you are he as you are me
and we are all together
See how they run like pigs from a gun
see how they fly
I'm crying
Sitting on a cornflake
Waiting for the van to come
Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday
Man you've been a naughty boy
you let your face grow long

I am the eggman
they are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob

Mr. city policeman sitting
pretty little policemen in a row
See how they fly like Lucy in the sky
See how they run
I'm crying
I'm crying, I'm crying
Yellow matter custard
Dripping from a dead dog's eye
Crabalocker fishwife
Pornographic priestess
Boy, you've been a naughty girl
you let your knickers down

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob

Sitting in an English garden
waiting for the sun
If the sun don't come you get a tan
from standing in the English rain

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob

Expert, texpert choking smokers
don't you think the joker laughs at you
See how they smile like pigs in a sty
See how they snide
I'm crying
Semolina pilchard
climbing up the Eiffel tower
Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna
Man, you should have seen them kicking
Edgar Allan Poe

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob
Goo goo g' joob
Goo goo g' goo
goo goo g' joob goo
juba juba juba
juba juba juba
juba juba juba juba
juba juba

Implicit in this question is the assumption that everyone here (or even everyone in SL) endeavors to put across a portrayal of an invented personality or persona.

I know it's human nature to assume that others do and think and feel as we do (and I'm certainly not claiming that I'm above this myself).

But the fact is, not everyone here chooses to construct and present a Character. For many of us, our 'own real personality' is what we express both inworld and in the Forum.

I am certainly not Alvaro.

But I play him on TV.

I have 4 avatars. (I refuse to call any of them alts because of the stupid, irrational bigotry toward alts. They are all age verified, pmt info on file, fully developed persons. Two are premium accts. None was created for any "malicious" purpose.)

Usually, 2 of them are on at the same time. (If I had 2 good computers, all 4 would be on.) They all have different, fully developed personalities. They are an older couple, a young boi (tomboy) warrior, and a playful pixie (Stormy.) So I have to constantly shift who I am playing.

All of them are me and none of them are. Anything that happens to them affects me, sometimes very strongly. But it is not total "method acting." I am aware of the RL me too.

So far as I know, no one has ever guessed that any of us are anything other than what we appear to be. It is like writing a novel. You write one character's lines, then another. It doesn't seem hard to me. But then I did fritter away my college years studying acting.

Thanks, Jig, for all of these thought provoking questions.

First off, I am reminded about the use of "Real Life" (or "RL" as a distinction separate form "Second Life" (or "SL". Anything I do in "SL" is being done by my "RL" self, simply using an avatar on a screen, Ergo, "SL" *is* "RL," or at the least it is an extension of "RL."

That said, my avatar is an aspect of my RL self. In RP situations (which I'll include the "light roleplay" that often accompanies me around the grid when people seem receptive to such), you are getting the child-like, playful, sometimes silly side of me.

At the same time, when I am building/running my store/doing "official" stuff for The Magicians, Livingtree, or other groups and/or locations I may be involved with, you are going to likely get more of the RL person.

My AV is me in all my personality. My AV will not do or say anything I am not myself comfortable saying or doing, or would say or do in RL

Rawr!

I get very immersed and RP my ava without having to think about it. If there are no RL interruptions for a while then even more so.

My Av is me, that is why I chose my RL first name.

That said, I am mostly occupied with running my businesses, including building new stuff. Roleplaying I do not participate in, when I chat with people, they chat with the RL me through my SL avatar.

Of course my RL self is better looking

Me too!
Well, I call my 2 regular ones (which are both verified and premium) my two accounts, it does not feel right to call either an 'alt'. An alt is one of those accounts I use for a day or so then forget about.

One is mostly an extension of me .... a lot of the same features as RL me, but a few different ones. Sometimes more immersive than other times.

The other one is pretty immersive. The bubble only breaking when talking with some friends of both accounts who do not grasp the concept that this is a totally different person in front of them.

I became my avatar, obsessing over her SL cost me a RL relationship (which was going nowhere anyway so no biggie there). After two years of learning the hard way that SL is just a frigging cartoon and 99% of the people in it have no concerns whatsoever about how their actions affect the feelings of others I finally decided to back off a bit with the "omg I'm in love" stuffs and play around with putting prims together in silly ways. Which is much more fulfilling than SL relationships as well.

Its me no difference!

SL relationships CAN be deadly or wonderful; isn't that the same as RL too ?

I have been Argent since before I met my wife... in an online role playing game in the early '80s. I was a hologram before Star Trek invented the Holodeck. I was a dog on the Internet before "nobody on the Internet knows you're a dog". I was turning people into otters back when all the virtual worlds were purely text based.

Immersed? How can a fish tell if it's immersed? The question implies the possibility of not-being-immersed, and that's inconceivable.

PS: I think Jig would make a great otter.

Bec is me and I am Bec,

Every time I rezz in world it is me rezzing. Even down to my fear of heights, my general worries, insecurities, my respect towards others and their things, my shyness, etc etc.

My friends are just that, my friends, some say hey it is just pixels.... no it isnt. There is a person in there, and I have formed a strong friendship with many.

Just Bec S is alot cuter looking and can fly and build and hmmm.

My alts are well.. this weekend they are considered alts cause they were wanting to go shopping and explore when I wanted them to clean their inventory closet. But they are a part of me too.

I am definately not a character. I'm simply...me. For that to be true, must I act in SL exactly as I do in RL? Gods I hope not. RL is full of suppressed feelings and social pressures to act or think certain ways. I have discovered more about myself in SL than I could ever hope to in RL, because I am free to truly be me here. In all my crazy variances.

It goes even beyond the word immersed, in my opinion. It's just part of how I exist now, in both worlds. There is no 'RL must come first' to me, that phrase doesn't really mean anything to me. It's all life.

Riseon smacks Jig's toosh. "You never call anymore."

Hummm. I look at "immersive" somewhat differently - as an opposite to "Realist".

To me, someone who is a "Realist" projects their real self as their avatar. John Brown in RL may be Johann Bermann in SL, but he still acts and responds exactly like John Brown, and most likely has no issues with telling friends that he is John Brown, in Tulsa OK, and is a 32 year old single college professor who teaches art classes. (Just an example. No such person or avatar exists).

To me, "Immersive" means you create a role, and immerse yourself in that role, becoming the character. Like an actor, actress, or fiction writer, the real person is playing a clearly defined role as a fictional character. That character may, or may not, share characteristics with the real person. More often than not, these are roleplaying characters, and are seperate to at least some degree from the real person's characteristics. For example, someone playing another species (furries, dogs, wolves, aliens, elves); someone playing the opposite gender or different sexual orientation; or different in other ways. So if John Brown, above, wants to have an avatar as "Trixie Vixen", and plays her believably as a 18 year old female anthropomorphic fox from London, who is straight, single, and very much into Art history and making things in SL, he can be quite "immersive" by playing that roll accurately and believably, without passing through much, if anything, of his real life personality or information.

So, on those definitions, I am a pretty solid Immersive Roleplayer.

I log on as Ceera Murakami, and I am a bisexual female Kitsune, over 700 years old and still in her prime, who once was a diety-level nearly-immortal Human mage, before the Kami Inari blessed her and changed her species to match her true love in SL...

I log on as one of my alts, and I am a 30-something male Human seafarer from the mid 1600's, relatively celebate, who is trying to live in Edo period Japan and learn the local culture.

I log on as another of my alts, and I am a 27 year old female anthro wolf who once was a Tavern Wench in a medaeval-period culture, and who was transported to another reality to serve as a cook and housekeeper in Lady Ceera's household. She has an elaborate back-story as well.

On another account I am an anthropomorphic male fox, who serves as a castle guard in Edo period Japan.

Realities of SL that can't clearly be explained within the context of the character are simply accepted as oddities of this "reality" in the virtual world we all share. Such as my 1600's Human being able to teleport and Fly, and my main acount being a content creator who builds, scripts, and creates textures. In "the realm of Second Life", being a Builder or Scripter is as "normal" as being a brick layer or a sea captain.

None of these is precisely a match to my real-life self. But with each of them (and many other roles that I have), while I am on-line in that role, I am "on stage" and "In Character" as that role. Even if I choose, with close friends, to speak of out of character issues, like my RL daughter having a concert at school, or my RL mate needing me to make a grocery run, that remains in the context of the character. So my male alts refer to themselves in RL as male, and to their RL mate as female, while my female alts refer to their Player as female, with a male mate in RL.

My various characters are all fictional characters, with clearly-defined boundaries between themselves and the "real me". Within their defined bounds, I do 'become' that person, responding as dictated by their character and history. They have pre-defined attitudes, beliefs, and speech patterns. They may be very different from each other, and very different than the real person. One does not have to be a Mongol Madman to play the role of Genghis Kahn. One does not have to be an educated English drug addict to play the role of Sherlock Holmes. But a skilled actor, actress or storyteller can make any role live and breathe.

I am an actress, and Second Life is my stage...