Just wondering

As I sit here at work...trying to AVOID doing anything this Friday, I pondered this question.
How do you see SL? For example, I don't see it as a game (nothing really to win per se). Rather I view it as another place to be, albeit VIRTUAL, but nontheless a place, where a virtual representation of real people are. For me, it's like going to a new state or country each time I discover a new sim, or visiting friends when I go where people I know are.

How do YOU see SL?

-Blu- (hanging 10 in Cybersurf)

A vitual place inhabited by virtual people but with a very real reality all of its own.

What Conifer said. SL is real to me because I'm very much aware that there are real people with real feelings on the other side of the monitor.

For me it's more "real" than not.

The people you meet are real and I think that's really the main attraction in SL.

I enjoy building and I really enjoy exploring and seeing what others have created, but without the human interaction I think SL would getting boring fairly quickly.

I guess what I am wondering is if you see it as a "real" place. When I try to explaing SL to non-SL savvy people, I tell them it is a place you can go to without leaving home. I have even used the term (shudders), metaverse.

-Blu- (trying to hide her inner geekness)

I will agree. I have had close to the same type of encounters that I have in rl. The surprising thing for me was is how I grew attached to some of the people I know. I have cried, been angered, joyous and felt of a series of acomplishments as well as disappointments. Much like rl I have set goals for myself in sl. I am trying to break the habit of calling it a game. Because it is not at all. My avie is an extension of myself and I also surprised that sometimes my avie comes out in me in rl. Its easy to get bold behind a screen and say things you otherwise say. Well sometimes I say what my avie says but in rl.

So my questions is what word do I use to call sl other than game.

I right back going to finish talking to my sl buddy that makes an ordinary day at truly out of the ordinary.

When I first started SL, it was almost completely a game to me. It took me about a month to *start* seeing it as something different. Now, for the most part, I see it and treat it like just another section of real life, even if it's, occasionally, the LSD trip part of RL.

In RL you don't often see a 10 foot tall dragon shopping for lingerie with his 4 foot tall kitten wife but, once I got over blinking more than once at things like that, I settled in to taking it seriously enough that I recognize that it's real people and real feelings but not so seriously that everything has to be exactly like RL or that my opinions, tastes, preferences or reactions towards things had to be the same as in RL.

So, basically, somewhere between total fantasy and total RL equivalent.

Interactive Virtual Environment..... I see it as real.. as real as a chatroom or Instant Messaging only in this virtual environment you can add activities into the mix.

How about watching a movie with a friend that lives across the country or in another country? Sure you can both connect and watch the movie at the same time, using IMs to make comments and such... but in SL, sitting in a representation of a Living Room on a sofa together, gives it more of a connection between the people.

That's just one example.. SL is soo much more than text/pixels on a screen.

My RL sister lives in the state of Wa, and I am in Cal. We never get to see each other in RL because of the distance. Sure we talk on the phone and even Skype, nothing (but RL) can compare to us both meeting in Sl to go shopping, or hanging out at each other's houses chatting, or crying on each other's shoulders. It is as close to being there as we can get right now. And I feel like we are actually THERE, even if it IS a location inside my computer.

-Blu- (Just DON'T ask me to explain cyber dating to the uninitiated)

The cyber dating I love. I have met so many interesting men. Even it they are a 7ft dragon or what not. When there a rl death in my family and the family member didnt have any insurance to cover the cost. I just happened to mention to a few of my close friends. When I signed back on the next day I was to tremendously touched by the outpour of offers of money to help defray some of the cost. Ecards of support was sent to me at my email address. When I was in a major car accident and confined to my home. It was my friends in sl and all the activities I was involved in that made my recovery so much fun.

I know people grip about the issues of this and that as I do. But when I get like that, I take a breath and say ok I'm not in it for the money I'm in it for the socialization. It has enabled me to have faith and trust again in the human race. Even it if consists of furries, dragons a bowl of jello with fruit in it. Yes an avie was a bowl of jello with fruit in it.

What is SL to me?

That is a hard one to put to words, because SL is many things to me.
It is an artistic outlet for my creative side, it is a place I can be me and not be judged on what I look like in RL, it is a place I can meet people, make friends, and even make enemies (yes it happens LOL)

It is a place for me to run a business (albiet not a large one and nothing like running one in RL but still it is a great way to find out things about one's self)

It also holds a special place for me as SL is where I met my husband, we have been married for a little over a year in RL, but met first in SL.

He is my soulmate, my friend, my lover, my everything.
SL brought me to him, nothing will ever compare to that.

The cynical part of me sees it like high school, except that there is no expectation that we will grow up, get more mature and thus responsible...

* * * * *

On a more serious note, it's a very Sartrean sort of impression I get.

No purpose, everything is an illusion, no need to eat, drink... everything and nothing rolled into one.

We cling to familar forms - the metaphor of land, having a body, being localised in a 'place' and yet - there is no reason, really, not to let go of all of it.

We prove the world to be a Heaven or Hades that we create for ourselves - even more so, when we have no physical needs.

Our personalities are laid bare, our behaviour largely dictates our happiness - and thus, no ascension or damnation is possible unless we manage to change who we are inside. Changes that aren't always good, sometimes.

The most dangerous of monsters lurks on the grid, also. Love. It makes liars out of honest men, destroys longtime efforts, and so typically strikes unexpectedly and uncontrollably. And even in the wake of its devastation, still often fails to release the lonely victim.

The grid is a dark jungle of the soul, mysterious and revealing at the same time.

A place to go for escapist entertainment. It's a self contained world with it's own reality, which begins when I log on and ends when I log off.

Second life is a place. A world as real as the consentual one we exist in every day. It can contain our fondest dreams or our worst nightmares -- or both. At the same time, it can be whatever you wish it to be: it can be a realm of amazing fantasies, or it can be your office cubicle. It can even be a pile of pixels in a virtual video game. It's a world, and it's our imagination -- for better and worse.

Place, not ness an escape.

I have been involved in online communities since the early 80's, so having acquaintances, friends, and yes, even significant others online is very natural and real to me.

I am the same person, with the same feelings, emotions, personality, etc. online as off. (I really prefer the terms "online/offline" as opposed to "RL" because I am very much "real" wherever I am.

SL goes beyond any other online environment in which I have participated due to the ability to purchase land, build homes/businesses, travel to (virtual) places I probably will not offline as well as having the social aspect of other types of online mediums.

The difficulty with any online environment, especially if one chooses to enter deeper friendships/romantic relationships, is making sure the other person/s are on the same page.

It reminds me more of a hobby. Different people putting differing amounts of time and money into it, a variety of people, and the same sort of occasional drama you see in model railroading or quilting clubs.

I dunno. I've been in some pretty nasty quilting clubs.

Have those old ladies ever forgiven you for carpet bombing them?

I suppose, to me, it's just another place to hangout and socialize for the hell of it, as well as a place where I can be semi-creative by building small-time objects and accessories.

You reminded me of a favourite quote, Desmond:

Stat rosa pristina nomine; nomina nuda tenemus.

Regards,

Kate.

Blu, I think I see SL pretty much as you described it in the original post.

And I like any thread that quotes Bernard of Cluny.

Bernard of Cluny aside, I'd say Desmond wins the philosophical laurel crown for the day.
but as the OP said "don't ask me to explain cyber dating to the uninitiated".

And 'though I award philosophical laurels, I take issue with Desmond's ingenerosity at not mentioning the flip side of his "dangerous monster":

Brief or enduring, carrying over outside the "metaverse" or not, in the full flush or calm contentment stages, the perfect love of a perfectly beautiful avatar representing the flawed but loving human beyond our reach just simply cannot be surpassed. Woes and disallusionment be damned, I'll take love anytime and bless the devastation, too.

For me, Second Life is a place where I can be someone I'm not in real life. I look like Johnny Depp, have a kickass wardrobe there's no way I could afford for real, have the coolest job ever (DJ), and I have a collection of pet drakelets that would probably get me tossed out of my real life HOA.

It's an escape for me, as well as a place were I can meet people and get to know them, and also a place where some of my real life friends can "meet up" with me if I'm out of town. It's a great way to keep in touch. Even better than email because you can "do" things together.