Isn’t it
strange how some in SL just want to mimic exactly what’s happening in RL, which
I find a bit baffling as I see SL more like a bit of an escape, of a sorts, or
a holiday from it.
I think the
oddest thing lately is facemasks. I don’t enjoy wearing them in RL even though
in some circumstances in these times of lockdown and Covid and
social-distancing I have too, so why would I wear one in SL, especially as
virtual worlds are pretty much the only place on the planet, apart from
Antarctica, where there is no coronavirus. We should revel in that freedom to
move, explore, mingle, ‘touch’, not
have to socially-distant and not get locked down there too.
Although there
are times in SL when one feels incredibly isolated, exploring lands where there
is not a soul, or at best some mannequins or bots, but no actual ‘real’ people. It’s eerie, although it
can be fascinating too traversing these shadow lands, dusty corners, forgotten
swathes. Apart from ‘abandoned land’ it’s obvious someone somewhere is paying
for it and yet there’s no sign of life, activity or anything. This is when it
really feels dystopian, even more so than those sims that actually are meant to be and designed specially as a dystopian-theme.
It’s these accidental and inadvertent ones that truly have an atmosphere and
ambience of some kind of nowhere, end of the world scenario, probably because
they weren’t intended to be so. They sit like a shock on the landscape, a
moment frozen in the last moment anyone spent there, an intimate anonymity.
I still wish we
could travel between sims without
having to teleport, to actually, walk, or drive, or fly, or sail. I know this
can be done with many on the mainland where they are joined together, but,
there are still what feel like huge expanses of nothingness, impassable. What a
shame they aren’t connected by the same sea and sky, because if they were then
any new sims could appear
tectonic-like kind of simulating volcanic activity, as in Iceland, throwing up
new land in dramatic ways.
I suppose
that’s probably a bit too much to ask of SL, who seem a bit stuck in their ways
and still mostly unimaginatively focused on making money rather than making
experiences. We may have funky new skins and mesh Christmas pubic hair (it’s absolutely true, the other day I found
this for sale!) but the ground on which we stand still seems stuck in its
ways.
I am still here
though, isolated and not, still me, still looking like me, not yet turned into
a dragon or a walking tree, still got blue hair as I have had from my very SL
birth, pretty much, give or take a week, and here I still am, gosh, how many years later? Over 12
years! Madness!
© Anan Eebus 
