Second Life is basically the poster child for the concept of living out alternative lives in virtual worlds. The whole you can be a woman or a man, or a bear. Frankly I don’t get it, can’t I already do this on the web? I can set up fake accounts all day with Gmail and join other services. I can build fake profiles and say that I’m a bear. Of course people will know that I’m not a bear, but they know that in Second Life as well.
I’ve been around the internet for a while and they were talking up how you can live out alternative lives online way back in 1999. This begs the question – how many of us are living out alternative lives on the web today? Sure I have multiple email addresses with unique profiles, but I use these as spam accounts or to test things on Digg and elsewhere. With none of these accounts do I attempt to live out an alternative life. I have a work email account and a personal email account, but both are still me.
Granted Second Life allows for a more immersive experience than a text based chat room. Which then brings up the age old debate of immersion vs augmentation. People who have always liked or longed to live out alternative lives finally can a la Second Life. Christian Renaud mentioned at the recent Virtual Worlds conference that companies have trouble conducting job fairs in Second Life because most applicants don’t want to give out their real address – which makes sending them a real check a little difficult. Second Life is the poster child for living out alternative lives in virtual worlds.
However, how popular is this desire? If mainstream users aren’t using the capability on the web, how many are going to do so in virtual worlds? I’d say not that many. And stalled user growth in Second Life would seem to support my assumption.
If it’s only a niche desire, Drew Carey’s guided tour of Second Life for Reason TV probably doesn’t help. The video highlights the living out of alternative lives and libertarian nature of Second Life.
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I disagree with the premise that people enjoy being a bear or having extra emails so that they can live out an alternative life. I think that people find these things interesting because they offer a sense of anonymity that the real world doesn’t offer. Alternative lives are just a side dish to the plate of anonymity.
Exactly, anonymity is what I’m seeking when I use various email accounts as spam accounts. I however doubt people are going into Second Life for anonymity.
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