I started out SL as Robbie Clarity. That was short lived once I heard complete strangers saying my name in voice chats. I have a thing with people know my name when I don't know who they are. I find it interesting because I really dislike the idea of singular identities, so why does people knowing my name bother me? I don't know, and that's a whole 'nother blog entry. So after another 15 minutes of decision making, I went with Eno and chose Cyberschreiber, which I think has a nice ring to it.
I worked on designing my character and decided to make it as realistic as possible. I didn't find the character design engine as difficult or tedious as my fellow classmates did. After maybe 15 minutes (seems to be a pattern) I was off to explore.
I started out by checking the maps in SL. I zoomed out and looked for populated places. I ended up at some freebie places, buying ugly green shoes (which several people on SL made fun of), some ugly shirts, some ugly pants, and some ugly accessories which I quickly ditched. Everytime I encountered someone, they would automatically respond with "Hi, you new to SL?" or something along those lines. Therefore my first objective became clear :How do I not make myself appear to be a "noob" to others? Here we go again, as much as I hate to fall victim to this, I have to start caring about what other people think about me.
So then, off to more populated places to explore. I found two people from Austrailia named Jezzy and Luns. Jezzy is a SL photographer, meaning she takes pictures within SL, and displays them in SL. Luns was in them middle of making a sort-of museum for Jezzy, and I got to watch the erection of the building. Pretty cool. It turns out the photography Jezzy takes is quite racy, but if you want I can send you a landmark on SL. Just ask. If you see Jezzy or Luns, talk to them!
They were really nice and answered all my annoying new-user questions. I was even shown what Weapons do in SL. Very cool, but it could be frustrating. If you ever find yourself inside a KFC bucket, or inside a huge ball of fire, or trapped in an ice cube, don't freak out. Just sign out and sign back in. Simple.
I then wandered down the road to a club and met more really nice people. I started to ask them how to not appear like a noob, and one girl in SL really took a liking to me, so to speak. She offered to take me shopping, and told me all about how to not be a noob. She bought me a shape, which give you a body a little more realistic then the default ones you receive. She bought me a skin which give you a detailed skin with muscle definition and better facial details. She bought me two sets of really cool eyes. She bought me a really nice hair design, a new outfit, got me an Animation Override and some walking and posing AO's (1) and lots of other nice things. It was really really nice of her to buy all of those things for me. What I appreciate the most is that she took her time to take me everywhere and show me the ropes of how to not come off as someone new to SL
The reason I don't want to appear new is because I want to better disguise myself within SL. New people stick out and are subsequently treated differently. Now that I blend in I can explore SL with confidence. No more "are you new here?" and more "Hey Eno! What's up?"
While exploring, I did come across my fair share of sexual oriented places. My friend Glenn joined SL with me last week to explore. We came across the Gorean S&M places (it was one of the more populated places in SL; go figure) and it was quite interesting. There were female slaves, and they would come up to you and ask you to tell them to do whatever you wanted. There were sexual pose balls and various furniture geared towards the sexual nature. We then found a cheese and cracker table and enjoyed some complimentary snacks.
I don't think there is a problem with things like that in SL. People can do whatever they want to do in their spare time. I won't judge them. The only weird people are the ones you don't know, or so I've read. It doesn't concern me if someone wants to be bound and gagged in a virtual world.
Age play might be another story. I'm not sure exactly how I feel about that. I don't think people should be pretending to be little kids with sexual acts done to them in a virtual world. But by saying that I contradict myself. Hitler didn't get his ideas from playing in a virtual world. Ethically it's wrong. I would never do it. Does it cause it to happen in reality, or reinforce a potential normality with that type of behaviour if it is performed in an online virtual world? Does killing people in a gun simulation reinforce that behaviour in real life? I'm not arguing that it is ok do perform these kinds of sexual activity online, but I am not really sure how to argue against it without sounding hypocritical. It's morally and ethically wrong. But is that where it ends? What do you think?
(1) Animation Overrides are little bits of programming the give your character distinct animations the differ from the default animations. They can be different walks, poses, jumps, fly's and others. These are one of the biggest tip-offs that a person is somewhat new to SL. If they stand different, then they've figured out how to use AO's and therefore have invested some time into the virtual world.
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