There is a really fascinating, and challenging, piece on Dusan Writer’s Metaverse blog today about the rights and wrongs, good and bad things, about having an alternative avatar in Second Life and other virtual worlds.
I’ll stand up and say, I have an alt. I had an avatar long before Heleno Nishi appeared, as I’d spent quite a long time in Second Life before No 7 appeared in there. In many ways, I am much more attached to my alt than to Heleno, and not entirely sure which one is the alt. Heleno is my work self, the spokesperson for the work of No 7 in SL, and actually the one who gets to spend a lot more time in SL these days.
That said, my alt has had more adventures, been more places and got a better wardrobe in SL than Heleno. They both wear No 7. Heleno has a lot more friends. So perhaps that’s the trade off. A few people know both versions of me, and know why I have two versions. For most, I prefer the degree of separation of my virtual and real worlds.
There is an awful lot to Dusan’s post, and it makes really interesting reading, as does Prokofy Neva’s comments. The role of identity is fascinating, particularly coming from a cosmetics background, an industry that has always given us some ability to play with our identities. It’s also interesting to look at the choices people make for their avatars, either original or alts, and what behaviour that either inhibits or liberates for them.
Which leads me nicely to Second Skin, a film to launch shortly. This is a documentary about people whose lives have been transformed by virtual worlds: about people who fall in love, people with disabilities who find new purpose and liberation, and those who are not liberated but spend their days in gold farming sweatshops. My DJ of choice, Nexeus Fatale, is one of those subjects, so looking forward to seeing the film.
A bit closer to home, a version of the same subject is being picked up in the new BBC series of documentaries, Wonderland, next week. Called Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace, it will explore one aspect of Second Life, and other routes to love in a virtual, wired world.
And, slightly bizarrely, this is another story from a Welsh paper about SL.
Tags: alts, avatars, Dusan Writer, identity, Nexeus Fatale, No 7, Second Life, Second Skin, Virtual Worlds, Western Mail
January 24, 2008 at 4:57 am |
[...] No 7 on Second Life Weblog The Place of Alts in Second Life Quote from the site – There is a really fascinating, and challenging, piece on Dusan Writer’s [...]
February 1, 2008 at 10:10 am |
[...] The more interesting background for me is on the Immersionalists and Augmentalists, which is really part of the background and debate around alts, and why we might have them. [...]