Coming of Age in SecondLife: Chap. 5
In chapter five, Boellstroff talks about the identity that one creates, or the person on creates, while joining and being a member of Secondlife. Many people when they think of virtual worlds they do not see the individual person but they see that they are members or users of a particular group. Sometimes people are not even using their birth names and are using ones created themselves. Boellstroff says that they are, in a way, creating a role for themselves and that by being on Secondlife you are in fact role playing with the character you create. For example, in the book it said that people had two distinct identities such as a celebrity going on without revealing their real self which made them able to have an everyday interaction with strangers that they could not do in real life. He then goes on to say that by creating this new self and world they are actually gaining from it because it would make their actual world seem more real because they could understand their selves more.
Boellstroff goes on into the chapter to talk about how people create their virtual self on Secondlife. for example, many people do not use their real names and rarely ever give it out to other residents of SL. Once creating a name they were then taken to learn the basics of SL and one could tell, once the new member were exploring, that they were new because of their dress and not being able to grasp the concept quite yet. Once they were past this beginning, they were then known as midbie which is based on the amount of time spent on SL. This section also brings up about what people began to feel once on SL. For example, some people thought SL took away from their real life because they were spending too much time on it or because of something happening to them in their actual life such as an illness. In the end, if people stayed on SL they were a member by their avitar which was an embodiment of themselves.
The embodiment of a person on SL is best described, according to Boellstroff, by the fact that the people’s avitars were what they saw themselves on the inside which could be physical but it can also be based on experiences as well. This usually means that one would not be judged by their actually self as they would be in the real life. Some members on SL who also had a good experience with it were people with real world disabilities. People with permanent, minor, or psychological disabilities found SL to be a way different experience because they were able to live like someone without a disability which they have always had in the real world. In dealing with gender and race, SL has never had an issue because they allwoed people to be whoever they want to be. However, there are some people who express their opinions about race that could be reported. Overall, people felt that their avitars affected their behavior because, for example, people who were shy could also become more social on SL. Overall, people could be on avitar or have multiple alts but they still had their own individual experience.
Overall, I thought this chapter addresssed some of the issues I had all along about SL. For example, I always thought that by being someone else virtually was kinda weird and that people who did this were people who had a lot of time on their hands. However, after finding that some people who come on use it to help themseleves out and be something they cannot get away from in real life I realized it was wrong. SL is much more being than that, it is able to give people confidence as well as meet people with similar issues. I actually now think it is cool that you could essentially someone else, it could relieve stress and help people settle problems they had in real life.