I just finished playing Second Life for several hours just exploring. I found this amazing city I want my avatar to move into called Insilico.
I suddenly remembered all my goals and dreams from the past when I would frequent these types of places, before I was so worried with my career path and my master's and trying to survive living on my own. When I was exploring SL, I wanted to create. That was my initial reaction. I wanted to create my own outfits, furniture, home, store, products, brand, buildings, cities, etc. I wanted to "DJ" at one of these virtual clubs. I then realized... My goal in this virtual world wasn't to be the VP of Marketing at some corporation, it was to create. To create a store, a business, art, fashion, music. This is what I want to do in real life. A virtual world gives you freedom to do whatever you want, and when you're in this world you get to find out who you truly are because there are no restrictions. I miss that...
In the 90's and early 00's, the Internet was all about anonymity. Being whoever you wanted and doing whatever you wanted. Before social networks, there were forums, chats, hubs, fan sites, etc. In these communities, people typically represented themselves with a character from their favorite anime or a symbol that represented them or sometimes even a character they made up. It was all about "image." You weren't bound to your real face and your real job. You could be who ever you wanted to be and you only gave as much info. as you felt comfortable with. When I played one of my first online games, The Sims Online, I remember there were people of all ages and countries, and I actually had great conversations and even befriended these people. People are not worried about their body image, age, sex, location, occupation, education, etc. You are whoever you want. Even during the interstitial phase of MySpace, you still had freedom to put whatever you wanted on your profile, even if it's horrible neon-colored animated gifs with clashing comic sans font. People were able to express themselves more freely.
I still remember during that time I was preoccupied with creating for myself an "online identity." An online identity and a virtual one too. It's almost like I forgot about all of that.
Facebook, Linkedin, and related entities are the new era of the internet. It's all about who you are in real life. What you look like, who your friends are, what you studied, what your job is, and what you "like." This is a horrendous reinforcement of mass-consumerism and materialism. You are your job. You are what you buy. You are your friends. And literally, many of Facebook's algorithms use your friends to make suggestions, recommendations, options, decisions for you. It's almost like an inferred "groupthink" rather than the boundless, infinite individualism of before.
This is something I really want to get into. This and video games. Although it seems like "real life" gets in the way.
Looking back, I am glad that I have developed my "real life." Before when I was living in a virtual and online world, I wished for a better "real life" that matched what was going on in my computer screen. But now I can say I'm closer to being self-actualized and bridging the gap between my virtual, online, and real lives. Hopefully they can all work together so that I can be a fuller, more holistic person with more options and ideas.
The virtual world teaches you and reminds you to be yourself without societal constraints. With the "virtual" philosophy under my belt, I can now hope to be more myself, and not worry so much about "societal norms" and things like that which impede with who I really want to be. Like I said, I want to create, I want to be creative, so I need to remind myself of that before I become a corporate zombie.
Although, I need to find a balance between such an immersive experience as SL and my first life. :)
