Me here now

It has been so long since that first day I found myself here, in Second Life, unsure of myself, not even knowing why I was here at all.

It was a radio program I heard way back on 2008 where SL was mentioned in glowing terms as being “the next big thing” in virtual reality since when it was launched back in June 2003, about five and half years before I discovered its delights. Not sure if I did so out of curiosity or maybe even boredom, although I hardly ever, if ever, get bored, but I was going through a rocky period in my life so if I’m honest, that was probably an impetus, an escape from the real sometimes seemed a good idea at the time.

Apparently, by 2013, SL had over one million users of which I was one, and still am, and now this year, in fact this month on the 23^rd it’ll have reached its 20^th anniversary. Nowadays its user-numbers bobble around 800,000 to 900,000, so they say, though how many of those are active, as in log in at least once a month of not more frequently, is hard to say. I know for a fact there are numerous dead accounts, avatars that still exist ‘on paper’, so to speak, or inworld, but are no longer accessed by their real world selves; effectively abandoned. People move on and don’t bother or remember to actually delete their inworld avis (avatars), simply walk away or even lost their password and rather than faff about trying to find it again they make a new avatar, while some people seem to drop in once a year maybe for whatever reason.

Whatever, many I think, we can become quite attached to our avatars, our inworld selves. The longer we’re inworld with our inworld persona the harder it can be to just erase it from existence. The thought of doing so might elicit feelings of grief, the idea of maybe losing a part of yourself, this you that is you while at the same time isn’t. It’s a weird psychology and potentially a huge personal dilemma.

Now, I know of some who make avatars and throw them away regularly, never get attached, move on, and seem to have no problem with that approach. Personally, I’d find that impossible. Is it healthy to become so attached to something that’s on the face of it little more than pixels, ones and zeroes? I don’t know.

I was SL born on the 8^th February, 2008 which makes me, as I’m writing this blog, 15 years and 4 months of age, a total of 5603 days since I first ever logged into this alternative world created, founded, invented, whatever, by Philip Rosedale. It feels kind of like time in a bottle. Even though for now I seem to do less inworld I’m in no rush to leave, it’s still a part of me.

I remember how I felt when another virtual world, Inworldz, actually closed down completely, and quite suddenly, so much so most of us had little or no time to properly finalise our affairs there or even say goodbye to our inworld selves, many actually lost real money. As with SL I’d invested quite a lot of myself, not so much financially but emotionally, and as such felt, in a way, grief-stricken. I know some people might think it potty to be like this, but it’s no different from anything you put a lot of yourself into to have taken away.

These places can get under your skin, you have to be careful sometimes to get the balance right, which as I’ve said in previous blogs I’d got wrong numerous times, but I think finally I’ve found a kind of equilibrium, for now anyway.

Then again, I seem to keep changing my mind on this, some days I want to get more involved again, others am happy to keep connected but also a distance. Either way, RL rules! For all it being stressful and not being able to fly unaided, like you can in SL.

© Anan Eebus 

to name but a few

 

   When I joined SL way back in 2008, five years after it started in 2003, choosing a name was different from what it is now. Your first name could be whatever you wanted it to be, you choose it, make it up, whatever, a normal regular name, one with random letters or numbers, or a combination of both, a made up word, you could even name yourself after an object, wherever your imagination took you at the time of signing up, but once you’d done it that was it, your name, no changing unless you got a new account.

Your last name was chosen from a select list provided by SL at the time of signing up. Some of the names would have been familiar like real-world ones, while others completely made-up. This list every now and then be changed, some surnames would drop off it and new ones added. Whatever you chose that would be your inworld name, as in my name, ‘Anan Eebus’. The surname ‘Eebus’ wasn’t around very long I’d discovered and was lucky to choose it from the list at the time as now when I search there aren’t many with it. These names are now sometimes referred to as ‘legacy names’, so not only have I got a legacy name still, it’s an unusual one in that not many people ever chose it.

After a few years of being on SL, they changed the naming process to you only choosing one name, your first name essentially, which could be a single name or a compound of say what you might want your first and last name to be. Additionally they took away the last names lists completely making all new accounts be whatever you chose as your first followed by ‘resident’. For example, my name would have looked like this: “Ananeebus resident”. As it is I think I was lucky to get in before they made that change. I thought this was a bit silly, and I think it was at a time they were trying to take more control or something. I actually have no clear idea why they did it.

Moving on yet another couple of years and they have since abandoned the ‘resident’ surname in favour of you just choosing one name, whatever you want but it can only be a single word with no spacing, hence, if I were to join now it would be ‘Ananeebus’, and nothing else, or of course I could just have gone with ‘Anan’ as long as there wasn’t another already inworld with that name. That’s always been a rule, no two avatars with the same account name.

Just prior to dropping the 'resident' in favour of what we have now for new accounts they introduced an additional naming option, that is an ‘alias’. This is a name you can unofficially change you name too in your account so your avi, or avatar, will show up as that name inworld even though officially you’re still the name you originally signed up with. This means you can one more have two names, or more, and even symbols in your name, you can in fact if you know how get quite wacky and inventive with it or choose one which fits you character better for inworld roleplay.

I’m still pleased I have an original name, or what they call now a legacy name, and I’ve never used the alias option as yet, I’ve felt no need. Some people change theirs as often as every week, just for fun or for whatever, perhaps just being bored or a bad case of nominative attention deficit disorder. Those who do can make it tricky when looking for them in your friends list to IM or something as when they use an alias it shows up first and can take an age to work out who is who.

So that’s two things I’ve never changed since I joined, my name and the colour of my hair, it’s always been blue, since my second week here I may choose different styles on and off but the colour remains an obvious shade of particular blue.

~Anan Eebus

the inbetween between

As of today I have been in Second Life (SL) for, would you believe, 11 years and 6 months, a total of 4,202 days. OMG! Surely that is madness. I’ve actually been here since the 8^th February 2008.

Quite honestly it’s too hard to get my head around when I think of the time that’s past and what I’ve done in both SL and RL, my real life, my first life. I sometimes wonder if I’m sane or not, but rather than answer it and drive myself even crazier most probably going around in circles I’ll put it in a small jar in the back of an old cupboard, inside an even older wardrobe in a shadowy corner of a room I rarely go in at the end of a corridor I even more rarely dare to walk down behind the kind of door one meets and think, woah! No way am I going to open that!

As SL time is so different to RL time, something which those who have never used SL would fully understand, it doesn’t at all feel like I’ve been there that long but at the same time I’ve done so much there I’m surprised I’ve fitted all the experiences and changes and ups and downs in the time I have.

Most of my time in SL has been spent as a vampire, which is one of the few consistent things I taken with me throughout this journey, along with my blue hair which strangely I’ve had from the very start, and my shape and size and essential appearance which has changed very little and in some cases like my height not at all.  I’ve obviously updated myself as things got more clever and available inworld, like my skin though that has also, despite tiny changes, stayed the same.  I think I was lucky I finding myself and who I wanted to be inworld very quickly, without weeks of joining in fact. Some people seem to take months and even years going through constant morphing and changing with many giving up sooner than later.

Because of this I’ve enjoyed myself there extracurricularly as myself without having to spend all of my time, apart from like I say occasional tweaks, making who I am. I basically decided I wanted to be as close as possible to me, happy in my own skin, more than I am in RL.

Through my years there I only now see looking back how much has changed, some monumental, some very challenging, some for the better for sure some most definitely for the worse, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the market-economy culture. Although you can quite happily live in SL without spending a penny, and I don’t mean needing a wee, as there are loads of free stuff in everything, skins, body parts (sounds gruesome!), clothes, avatars of all ilk, furniture, trinkets, toys, vehicles, building materials and even roleplaying materials and stuff, you name it it’s there and as much for free as there is at a price. It still remains though that a lot of the best things and some games require money and unless you can pay from an RL account into your SL account you have to think of ways of making money inworld which can be anything between fun to frustrating to near-impossible. Hence, shopping is big inworld and it takes practice, cunning and experience to sometimes tease out the best freebies.

Soon it will be 4,203 days and I will be one day older, not just inworld but here too, as me, the real me, older and probably a bit weirder.

© Anan Eebus