I have never played an online game before, so I have trouble relating to Julian Dibbell in his book, Play Money. I have difficulty understanding the type of people that basically live in a virtual world and thrive in Second Life. Corbett author of the article “Portrait of an Artist as an Avatar” describes Second Life as, “It being all just a digital swirl, a series of scripted animations and graphically sculptured landscapes that can seem hypervivid and at the same time totally surreal” (1). I have never even played video games for more than twenty minutes because growing up my brother would never let me play. As I get older the interest to play virtual games is slowly disappearing, as I do not have an abundant amount of free time anymore to play or dip into a virtual world. I know that people fall in love, build houses and make money online in these virtual worlds, but yet I have trouble understanding it because I don’t know what it is like to have such a disconnect from the real world. I think that living in a “digital swirl” would be confusing distinguishing between when your real life basically becomes your virtual life. I have trouble believing that the person you meet in a virtual world is someone you want to marry and the money you make online is a real business venture. I think Second Life is like a drug in a way, so addicting and consuming that the decisions you make in the virtual do not always make sense like getting married to a total stranger. Living a virtual world means you can be whoever you want to be regardless of stereotypes. You can invent a whole new life equipped with a new body, house, significant other, and income. I realize that this new technology has literally changed some people’s way of life and wonder how long it will be or if it will become the accepted norm to lead a completely separate life online, separate from the natural world. A future of disconnect scares me a little as I yet to experience the benefits of living in a virtual world, but I look forward to learning how Dibbell is able to survive by trading online goods and creating an entirely new job for himself in Second Life.
Jeff, the artist from the New York Times Story, leveraged interest in SL to make his real paintings sell. I met him once in SL. To him it is a both a marketing tool and a new medium.
ReplyDeleteSo artists are not a concern to me; they just have a new canvas. There are others, however, who are spending too much time in these spaces, and that social issue will be sorted out in years to come.