Well, well, well, look who finally came back. I guess history really does repeat itself, because it seems to take me forever to blog about anything. I'll do it right after I go on SL so I won't forget anything, I say to myself. But then I have to go to the bathroom, so I log off "for a few minutes, I swear" and decide I better have a snack as well. Then I figure I might as well watch t.v. while I eat because just sitting there chewing is boring. Before I know it it's midnight and I'm way too tired to blog at this point, so it's straight to bed for me. I'll do it tomorrow. Rinse and repeat. Before I know it three weeks have gone by and I haven't blogged a thing. Then when I finally get to it I blog for the entire opening paragraph about blogging! Enough already! Get to the SL experiences and simple insights. Fine, I'll do it now!
Since my last post a lot has happened. This is to be expected over a three week time period. The Falkland Islands War could have been fought a half-dozen times or a fruit fly could have lived its entire life in the time it takes me to write a new entry. I've attended a tour and a book club meeting or two since my last post and a presentation on disability that was really good (I also missed two presentations today, which was disappointing. I forgot they were happening and didn't check my email until it was too late). All of those things were pretty fun. However, it's really strange to be with other people in a virtual world. It's like being close and far away at the same time. Other people's avatars are right next to yours even though the people controlling them may be thousands of kilometers away. I feel sort of "spiritually close" to the other avatars. I don't mean this in a religious way. I mean that I can tell I'm interacting with another human being and we're taking part in a shared experience, so I'm "with" them. I'm "with" them because I'm communicating with them and experiencing the same thing as them. However, I don't get as strong a feeling of being "with" others as I do when they're physically present or even when I watch someone on t.v. I can't "feel" the other people's spirit as strongly online. By that I mean the experience of interacting with another human is somewhat muted and fuzzy. Typed chat doesn't come close to conveying all the information given by a physically present person. The environment itself, while it often mimics actual physical landscapes, is often surreal i.e. objects twirling in mid-air. This further adds to the disconnect I feel while interacting with people online. Avatars are often dressed in bizarre clothing or are not human at all, reinforcing this feeling of being removed from reality. When I'm typing to a robot wearing a dress amidst floating slot machines it's hard to take it seriously. All these things-the chat, the crazy locales and avatars-come between myself and the people I'm interacting with. They all serve to distort the interpersonal interactions. It's like having a person to talk to right in front of you and then putting several pillows in between the two of you and trying to talk through the pillows. The conversation gets muffled and less clear. I know there's a person there, it's just more difficult to interact with them.
What is my point in saying all of this? I am trying to express the feelings I have while interacting with others in a virtual world. It feels different, yet slightly familiar. I wasn't expecting that. I don't know what I was expecting, I think maybe I thought it would feel completely unreal. Interacting (I say interacting instead of communicating because part of the experience for me is walking and flying together with other avatars, not just talking) with others in a virtual world feels fairly strongly like an RL experience. For example, when gathering to meet for a virtual presentation I still like to sit my avatar down facing the "speaker" and I don't want to "talk" over them or make a scene. I think I'm carrying over RL social mores and norms into the virtual world, even though there are far fewer, if any, RL consequences. I think bringing my social norms and values to the virtual world gives it a feeling of familiarity to me. It seems like everyone else I've met in SL holds to most of these unspoken social norms as well. No one has talked over me or shot me with a virtual gun. I think this shared attitude about how to act and talk helps make me feel like I'm "with" real people. However, when I get too comfortable in SL and it feels like an RL scenario something will happen like someone moving jerkily because their internet connection is bad or there'll be an indecipherable chat message. Then I'll lose that feeling of "closeness" I have with the "people" I'm with and remember that I'm interacting with them through an avatar and a sometimes clunky and dense interface. We're back to talking through pillows instead of face-to-face. I guess I'm trying to say that while SL can be quite immersive, it also imparts strong feelings of alienation. I mean that in the truest sense of the word. It consistently reminds me that I am an alien in that place, whenever people teleport next to me, create materials out of nothing, or crash out of existence. I am not a virtual being and that is not my space. My avatar is not me. It is precisely that, an avatar. It is a tool that I can use to interact with others. I guess I was surprised at how well it can work sometimes.
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