Just as I get signed up and figure out how to move around life, my roomate asks me if I'd like to watch a movie with him. Lately, I've felt bad about choosing work and school over hanging-out, so in the spirit of roomately comradeship, I told him I'd join him with the caveat of multi-tasking. I'd seen Werner Herzog's "Invincible" before, so I figure that the pictures across the room won't be too distracting from the sights and headphone enclosed sounds of "Orientation Island." As I hone my body-shape in the islands booth, I find my eyes wandering more and more towards the screen of my roommates laptop, even succumbing to the urge to take my headphones off, just to remind myself of what is being said in the movie. I find the appearance adjustment process to be repetitive and it brings about unsettling questions about the shape of my face. Is my nose a 54? A 67? What about the bridge. Being that the movie that is my distraction has messages of Jewish pride, I self-consciously shrink my nose. In being so distracted I don't realize until I am almost done, that I am at a female body station.
The process stirs intense vanity. I can't help but admire how handsome I'd look in theory. But eventually the urge to make a joke of it takes over and I endow my character with a beard, and consider purchasing an eye-patch. I fret over the pukah shell necklace that is a part of my "city chic" clothing set, I desperately want to remove this, as I would never wear jewelery, especially jewelery that conjures memories of frat-boys. I can't figure out how to take it off, and am afraid go out in "public", to initiate conversation with an intelligent animation with such a gross misrepresentation of my fashion sensibilities. The only way to learn is to experience, so I abandon my vanity and fly to a more social atmosphere. After I finished my tutorials, I decided to go to where, I'd go to meet people: a night club. I found it charmingly realistic; the music sucked and people criticized my avatars dancing. I thought that the fact that they had a tip jar was charming and a sign of how far people will go to continue illusion.
As I explored looking for someone to talk to, like the traditional avatar based chat-rooms of my youth (the palace), I found that the emphasis on making Linden dollars made most of where I went a commercial wasteland. Everyone was selling something, whether it be food, fashion or "fake" estate. I went to a kitchen chat room in hopes of talking food and wine, but found that the avatars there were busy mopping the digital floor for 24 LDs an hour.
Finally, in the most random of rooms, I met a friendly soul who helped explain a few things to me and told me about "money trees," where newbies can get a base nest egg of Linden's to get them started. We also discussed the safety of this program, the social functions of it, and misrepresentation. After making introductions, he took me to meet a friend at a land that was designed after some village in Star Wars (not a fan, don't know the particulars). I got so wrapped up in learning about what people do on SL and speculating (somewhat critically) as to why they do it, that I completely abandoned the movie and stayed plugged straight in.
In my inexperience, I got disconnected and accidentally lost my conversation, but was able to find my tutor and he sent it to me.
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