Read this please...seeking your help

I think that is certainly true; this forum and its debates are evidence of the spectrum that exists between those who are immersive, and those who treat SL more or less as a mere extension of their RL. The former group probably includes the "game players," the ones who treat SL as though it were something like World of Warcraft, but it also would comprehend those whose SL sometimes seems as "real" (albeit different) as RL.

I think I would still argue, however, that for ALL of those possible positions, SL still constitutes a "real" experience. The KIND of experience, and one's responses to it, will obviously vary according to one's attitude, as you note. But I guess what I am suggesting is that, however you approach it, logging off doesn't wipe your brain clean in the way that it empties the computer cache: whatever has happened in-world, and however you have responded to it, remain very much a part of your RL self.

PS. You can edit posts (and add missing tags) by pressing the "Edit" button on your own post. It's probably easier than redoing it from scratch.

Scylla, you are absolutely right when saying that logging off doesn't wipe your brain clean...
Me, in my rl I think about sl, sometimes I wish I could tp to another place within seconds, or go somewhere flying...It may sound kinda stupid...but has happened to me several times.
Once I was watching TV and suddenly I 'caught' myself looking at the top of the screen for the moving arrows...I just wanted to see beyond the image on the screen..see the surroundings...Hope I am not the only one who has experienced things like that

Just occasionally, I wish it did. Perhaps it should be an option in preferences ... right under "clear cache" you could have "bleach brain"

All the time! Photoshop's the worst for this.

I think my favourite "bleedover moment" was back in my early days, when I was spending far too many hours inworld. I had dozed off in front of the TV and when I (half) woke up there was a man and a dog on the screen. Bleary-eyed, I turned to my RL partner and asked, "which one are you?"

Seeing builds in RL, and mentally counting prims, looking at an outfit in a store window and mentally hovering your mouse over it to see how many Lindens it costs, feeling the urge to right click on a rl person who is annoying you, to click the 'Mute' option, seeing an area and thinking , gee that looks just like......(insert name of sim) arriving at a campground and wondering if you 'wear' your horse there, what your avatar rendering cost will be. Or if the land owner will ask you to remove your HUDS because your bling and attachments are lagging his place down. All of these have happened to me at one time or another and I just smile to myself and dont tell anyone, cause, they wouldn't get it. Except for here of course.

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/34889-you-know-youve-been-second.html

You know you've been in SL too long when you see this and think "way too many prims"...

Oh, I am kind of relieved that I am not the only one 'seeing' and trying to do SL things in my RL

Any other similar experiences out there maybe?

If there were any RL brands in SL, I would purposely avoid them. Does that help Grace?

I would too, and so would a lot of us based on many prior discussions. There are, I think, three factors driving this:

1. RL goods don't translate to SL goods. Mercedes may make superior cars, but they are made of glass and steel and plastic. Second Life cars are made of prims and textures and scripts. Someone skilled at making a Real Life car does NOT automatically posess the skills to make a virtual world car. This was proven by some RL brands that came in here and offered SL versions of their stuff. The items were poorly made and became a laughingstock. They couldn't be *given* away. L'Oreal offered some free skins featuring their makeup...those were actually pretty fair quality, but they just were not of the same caliber as our top SL skin makers' offerings.

2. Even if the merchandise is of good quality, it may not sell in SL because of different cultural norms. We've all noticed that we don't dress here as we would in RL. Since most of us have taut, perfect bodies, we tend to show them off more. I wear stuff in SL that I would not be caught dead in, in the real world. Conversely, most RL fashions look stuffy and far too conservative here in SL.

3. There's a strong consumer backlash against RL brands advertising in SL. The prevailing feeling is that the corporations are already bombarding us with more hype than we can stand. Billboards, junk mail, catalogs, radio, TV, magazines, movie trailers, telemarketers, and the Internet. We come to SL at least in part to get away from the constant blare of commercialism (of course, we have our OWN set of brand names and commercialism in here, but that's Our Own Folks, people we know, brands we've created or participated in creating through our purchases). Above all, we don't want to see ads in Second Life hyping goods and services for us to purchase in Real Life.

There you go, Grace, I've just outlined your thesis for you. Expand that to a couple hundred pages, with statistics, graphs, and citations, and you're in. You may list me as a co-author.

On my sim, which caters to Deaf and Disabled, we have a Deaf Chat Coffee House. Deaf Chat Coffee is a Starbuck's owned Deaf socialization program, nationwide, USA. There's at least one, associated with a Starbuck's, in every major city. So, because of that program, I do have a 'major brand' showing in my sim builds. It works for us because Deaf people in the USA know what it is, they're familiar with it, have attended them in rl and are easily attracted to it when they see it on Cape Able. Other than that, I agree with you about brand names, and don't seek them out. I do have legal permission from Starbucks to use their Deaf Chat Coffee program in SL. I've seen others though, Coke, and Colgate come to mind, oh and the Coffee-mate freebies, which was a promo a couple years ago. All the things that I've seen, that are brand names, don't have anything to sell, just have freebie folders with tshirts, hats, promo stuff.

Mercedes actually came in and made a sim with a race track, but you had to buy the cars. They did give away a nomex racing outfit... no mod, and you had to agree to a license not to denigrate Mercedes while wearing it... yes, really.

Nissan set up four sims with a really nice racing track and a huge free car vending machine that dispensed full sized cars by dropping them from a rack... and actually drove OK. That was actually pretty cool.

CompUSA came in and tried to sell (yes, sell) unscripted prop copies of Alienware PC cases.

Sun Microsystems came in and gave away free prop versions of workstations, LCD displays, and servers.

Kudos to Sun and Nissan. Sorry, Mercedes and CompUSA.

Coke... Coke said "we think it's cool that people are making coke branded products in SL, and if you're cool about it we're not going to stop you".

Kudos to Coke.

Thanks for your post Ian
It's not all about RL brands in SL that interests me actually. I am also interested in shopping behaviors in SL as in RL, any crossovers, avatars' appearances and how they may influence how residents interact with each other etc.

I talked with Lindal the other day, so she may tell you how she found our discussion.

Thanks,
Grace

Lindal, Treasure and Argent thanks a lot for your posts

PS Lindal, about the co-author thing we can discuss it

Hello all...this is my first time posting, although I've been reading through the forums for quite a while now and I really enjoy it There are some really interesting ppl and opinions here.

Grace, about the experiences that we have even when logged off SL...I've been dreaming about sl all the time...I keep dreaming wandering around familiar SL landscapes and talking to other avatars. Once I told a friend about it (she is not in SL) and she called me crazy and freak, meaning it...Since then I don't share any of my so SL realistic experiences with anybody, apart from ppl who are regular residents in SL.

Don't know what to really say, maybe I am crazy...time will show

When the guys in the white coats come, see if you can get a room near mine and we can talk SL.

And welcome to Resident Answers.

Sure Rhonda...it would be my pleasure to have you near me, so we can talk SL...just LOVE IT

To be honest, I m waiting for these guys any minute now

Grace and I had a nice time sitting and chatting. Her questions are about brands and the like, certainly, but she also has a knack for phrasing some of the basic questions about virtual life, and how, and why we engage there. A very thoughtful person, doing very useful work.

Thanks a lot Evie for your post. I really appreciate your help on my work
We had indeed a very interesting and nice chat! I am very happy that you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Regards,
Grace