An Alt Pretending She is Not?

I get accused of being an alt all the time.

I'm not. I don't even *have* an alt.

I take an avatar-based approach and so if an alt has a different name it is a different personality, even if it has the same RL prompting it.

I do get a bit freaked where an individual avatar takes on different physical shapes (not counting animal costumes etc - like what I mean is if someone called, for instance, BloggityBlip Bloggington, is a guy one day and a little old lady the next.

Maybe we should introduce some new terms:

A rellist: Someone who sees their avatar as a representation of their real self.

An immersionist: Someone who sees their avatar as a character in a virtual world, distinct from their RL self.

A bottist. Someone who has no interest in their avatar beyond needing to have one in order to deal in land, build, sell stuff or even to go griefing.

My RL agent HAS now employed an alt. but this alt is just a functionary to sit on group committee and hasn't even changed from basic newbie appearance. The alt seems very boring and in now way would I consider them to be meeeee!!!!

I'm shocked and appalled that people would create alts.

I dated my alt once - was shocked when I found out so I don't date anymore...

Lego's are fun though!

/me looks for the rainbow pill

I have lived through 5 separate cases of people using alts to manipulate me in one way or another:

- In my submissive days I had a Master who used an alt he claimed was his "RL brother" to ask me how I felt about Master, and to encourage me to do things that pleased him.

- A friend I brought to SL from another game had her own "RL brother" who used to do the same things. Would tell me how much my friend liked me. And then the original avatar started encouraging me to do more with her "brother."

- Another friend I imported to SL pretended to be two different RL submissives, as well as their supposed RL mistress. She actually confessed to me once and disappeared from SL. A few months later she resurfaced as another avatar, as well as her new RL mistress and a male character who is a supposed friend of the family.

- There is one particularly troubled submissive in SL who has approached me as at least five different avatars, and was never up-front about it at first, but usually ended up admitting it if I didn't figure it out first.

- The most blatant case was an SL mistress who would talk to me in SL while her alleged "RL roommate" would speak to me in Yahoo, and coach me on how to speak to the in-world person. If I said something that displeased the Mistress, the roommate would say, "so-and-so looks mad. What did you say?"

I don't care who you are behind the keyboard. Please just don't play mind games with me. That's all I ask.

I have never had an alt so its difficult to know if she would be any different from me and guess probably not. I do think people from similar parts of the world can sound alike or speak alike, its the cultural thing.

By the way, definitely want to meet Bloggityblip Blooggington

I would agree with you Wildefire - mindgames aren't good, no matter who is doing them or whatever tricks they use.

The reactions that you see here and in the other related threads show a lot about the types of people who come in-world.

oh the other thread that discussed this was at http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=217216 in case you are interested - some great points made in there, I think.

and that would be what?

/me is also curious about that..

I agree with whoever said it only really matters if you're planning to mix SL & RL.

1. A casual girlfriend had me friend her RL brother and show him the SL ropes. They were never on at the same time, and both left SL last year at the same time. They were both decent sorts, but, I've always wondered if they were the same RL person.....

2. Grrrr - I managed to hit on an alt of a casual girlfriend at a seedy club - she burst out laughing after I was 4 lines into my schtick.

3. I have a few alts, but they don't hang out with my friends unless the friends know who they are.

Bradley, I just meant that those saying "I think it's wrong to create alts" and such things are obviously the "realists", the ones that see their SL avi as an extension of their RL selves. Those that say "there's no harm in it" are of the other school.

Thanks for clarifying. Can't argue with that.

Tidd Kidd: "What's going on here?"
Tid Kidd: "It's a discussion about alts"
Tidd Kidd: "Ooh, what's an alt?"
Tide Kidd: "It's another avatar created by an existing resident"
Tid Kidd: "And a lot of people here are talking some of the biggest load of rubbish you ever heard"
Tide Kidd "But you can say that - you're only an avatar, so no-one is going to take offence in RL are they?"
Tid Kidd: "Oh but some people think an avatar is just an extension of a RL self"
Tidd Kidd: "But surely, some people are exploring and role-playing aren't they?
Tide Kidd: "Oh you mean like a mixture of reality, fiction, exaggeration, fantasy, all rolled into one?"
Tid Kidd: "And THAT's the most sensible thing anyone has said here yet!"
Tide Kidd: "But you won't get the 'avatars are just pixels' people to agree with it, so you're on a loser there from the start"
Tidus Kidd: "Listen folks, why don't we just say that there are as many approaches to the SL experience as there are unique residents?"
Tid Kidd: "Only don't forget to add to that number..."
Tidus Kidd: "Add to?"
Tid Kidd: "Yes, the residents who successfully manage to play two or more distinct personalities within SL, and no-one sees they're the same person"
Tidd Kidd: "And, don't forget the alts that are identical to another resident and no-one can tell them apart!"
Tide Kidd: "Single White Female? Oo-er..."

IMHO it boils down to this: it's a game. We ought to play fair; it's fun to get personally invested in it; but it's still just a game.

It'd be a shame to let suspicion erode the enjoyment of a person's company. The fact that she wants to come around should be enough. To speculate about if and why she's an alt invites whatever unrelated drama might have brought that on. Who wants that? Just play fair and enjoy the game.

I think I've said it about 100 times in these threads and I'm sure I'll say it at least 100 times more....

If you accept you are friends with the av and not the person then you are much less likely to be hurt. The person behind the av could tell me anything they want and I would never know the truth so why would I ever bother to ask. I have lots of wonderful friendships in SL...wonderful friendships with avs.

Oh and there's an obvious alt user who frequents my money tree. The entire avatar name is only different by one character, and if you look in my transactions history one always follows the other. This person never talks to anyone though.

That sounds like ARable "Alt Abuse"

Try hanging out in the RP sims, where "Name That Alt" is a favorite pasttime

There's nothing inherently wrong with creating an alt (in fact, Linden Labs allows for it to a certain limit), and there is nothing inherently wrong with using Second Life for roleplaying, and there is nothing inherently if you use different alts to associate with the same person even if that person doesn't know the real-life connection between the alts.

But if you know that a particular person does not want a friendship/romance with someone who uses alts like you do, but you do it with that person anyway, you are just dishonest and uncaring, and that's all there is to it. Either (a) admit the connection between the alts, or (b) stop associating with that person using your various alts, or (c) continue being a jerk because there's no law against being a jerk.

+1 for Lindal.

Remember, to many, SL is a role-playing game. A chance to be someone they'd LIKE to be, but aren't or can't be in RL. That's one of the great things about SL! (Well, not for me personally, since I'm pretty much the same except for my abs -- they're much harder and more rippled in RL. )

I think it's perfectly reasonable for someone to act as different people in SL. However, I also believe that, though it's not easy, it's worthwhile to always be truthful. The easiest way is to simply say "Gee, that's an RL question -- see my RL tab!" (Which says "Don't ask" of course.)

However, some people use alts in intentionally deceitful ways, and I don't condone that. That's not role playing.

What about the person who plays an alt to see if his or her allegedly faithful partner really is faithful? Hmmm, that's definitely deceitful -- but no doubt revealing. I'm glad I feel no need to play this kind of game, either in SL or RL.

Incidentally, I'm an alt. It's no big secret -- the same stuff is in both avs' profile RL pages, so anyone who wants to know can figure it out. But when I first made him, er, me, I introduced him, er, me to my gf and we chatted for a bit. I just wondered how long it would take her to figure out it was me. She was NOT amused, and I apologized. She was right, I was wrong. No big deal though.

Have you considered the tendency we all have for being attracted to people who are quite similar in many ways?

My Halloween gig was rather effective, actually. Perhaps it was that she danced up a storn, and ended with a strip-tease.

Then, too, my sexy female avatar keeps a menacing male av in her inventory to switch when noobs hit on her. Also rather effective.

No, it just wouldn't be the same to use the little old lady in both cases. Noobs don't seem to care about age.

I find it difficult to comment on this post for fear of being thought unkind, and I do not mean to be either unkind or offensive in saying that your choice of role-playing is, in its own way, playing mind games. BDSM is a mind game. It is unfortunate that some of your "friends" seem to play at the level we would have expected them to grow out of after first grade.

IM me in-world, and indicate which av you want to meet first. My non-hunk normal self, or... (I also can appear as a fat, cigar-smoking d.o.m. - that's dirty old man, not a DOM) But the little old lady is crustier. Then there's the sexpot the little old lady morphs into at the end of her strip, (That'll cost you.)

And apparently, not so obviously, alts themselves.
LOL