Matthew’s Scribbles

This class was definitely an eye opening experience for the semester.  It is apparent that we had become ginny pigs essentially as a test for the communications department.  The overall experience was a good one contrary to how much people complained.  I did learn about everything i know of digitally mediated society.  Consequently, this is enough to make me avoid these networking tools for the rest of my life.  Dr. Gajjala did a great job for an experimental class, especially with the goofballs in our class.

After much anticipation of achieving new things on SL the excitement has slowed to a halt.  I not being that enthusiastic in the first place of the virtual world am not that surprised.  Exploring the landscape was fine for pure novelty a couple of months ago, however, now i would not use my spare time to explore.  The realization that actuality is more exciting is starting to feel our class through.  As much as humans want some place to be different and get away from the problems of there existing lifes this digital world can only provide a brief sanctuary.  As we continue with our projects all of the exhuberance of something new to explore has drawn weary and we struggle to complete this swim up bar without contact from other SL goers.

Now that we are all closed to finishing a class i take a step back and look at the events that filled the semester.  Since my previous writing i have since changed groups because Brent and I could not muster up a speeddating business with little resources.  Consequently, we were moved to the the swim up bar group.  This is fine, however, they have already finished most of the work correlated with the construction of the group place.  We were designated to run the marketing plan for this newly formed swim up bar.  This would be easy to partake in since we were working on much of the same for the speed dating adventure.  We took a group pic in front of the swim up bar and hope to pass it out to residents of SL in hopes of them visiting the place and maybe having a few drinks.

Today i discovered the boundaries and private space sector of SL.  In our swimup bar we are virtually on a thin line between the neighbors property.  When you cross this virtual imaginary line you get teleported out of that space.  I have switched SL groups because the speed dating premonition is not something that worked out for the group.  We googled how to make a notecard today so we can slowly attract people to our swimup bar.  Friday will be the telltale sign on how this project goes.

Today Brent and I explored the universe for consumers of our project.  We are looking for people to come to our speed dating organization.  It is still hard for me to talk to people considering i am not that attractive to normal standards.  Many more avatars are speaking with Brent as he is wearing a suit and smoking a cigar.  We are hoping to build a good fanbase and foster some good feeling so that when we open up this speed dating thing we can have many people open to the idea.

In Monday’s class we learned of the government set up by the creater of SL.  Linden controls the punishment in SL and he even has currency named after him.  This seems more like a monarchy than a democracy.  Can we revolt, and overthrow this dictator?  I feel that there should be a democratic set up for SL and  i am going to politicise my own beliefs.  Why? because i can.  In doing so i have figured out the hook that these people connect who are avid SL goers.

We spoke in class of today’s society and how to relate reality from virtual.  There is a fine line nowadays between these two instances.  It was much easier to differentiate between the two pre-internet days.  Growing up i thought of virtual reality as the next step in Video Games from producers like Nintendo.  If I would have known that years later i would be exposed to something like SL it would have changed my premonition for a loop.  I am not writing this to ostracize any those people out there using SL.  This in my opinion is Virtual Reality, it holds no concept of actuality.  However, I do have respect for the individual and there thoughts, It is all up to you to decide the line between Virtual Reality and Real-ity.

We had an interesting class discussion last week of the importance of Second Life in our society today.  It startled me to realize that SL has it’s own exchange rate.  When you can exchange American currency with something in a virtual world, somebody is taking this very seriously.  This is something i have respect for, as we poke fun at SL we have to realize that this is somebodies passion.  Whether it be designing clothes or starting up a music career, even though it is not in reality, it is a step in the right direction.

Yet another thing to amaze me happened on SL the other day.  You can obtain certain smoking apparatuses to do drugs.  Your avatar after smoking falls over and appears drunk.  I do no know who created the reaction to smoking virtual pot but I have been told that smoking marijuana does not have any kind of effect like that on a human being.  This inquires the question, why?  Much like all the questions i have about SL what would posess a person to add that into SL.  You could infer that it is a way to socially gather some people much like a ciggarette, however, you cannot pass or share this grass.

Furthering my experiences in SL have really sparked my interest into this 21st century phenenomenon.  I really have not given this virtual world credit because of the manner in which i see these people taking so much time to complete their dreams on SL.  I feel they could just use the time to work on socializing in reality intstead of through the digital world.  I understand that some people can be socially inept this way, however, that is one thing that could be remedied by using the time on SL to actually interact.