Royal Purple

Issue date: 4/2/08 Section: Opinion

Vlisides [Click to enlarge]

What if I said there's a place where you're free to meet, converse with or challenge anyone regardless of age, economic status, physical attractiveness or intellect? It's a place where gravity is suspended and physical limits are absent and a place you can leave and return to at any time. Would you believe me?

What if I also told you, despite these previous unrealistic attributes, in this place, after giving your credit card number, you can purchase your own island for $1,675 with $295 in monthly rent. Is it getting more real now?

This place is not a physical place at all but an alternate world that exists exclusively on the Internet in a virtual reality called Second Life.

Second Life, created in 2003, is a 3-D virtual world where people from anywhere in the world can be anyone they please-and it's free to download.

Upon downloading Second Life, a subscriber creates an avatar. These avatars are usually a human figure, generic or customized. There's even options to be a non-human avatar like a fox.

"Avatar" is an Indian word based from mythology, meaning "different presentation of yourself," said Madison Area Technical College Instructional Technologist Dennis James.

In Second Life, the possibilities are endless … until you get off the computer. People can engage in conversations via text or audio, go into virtual bars and have a drink or have the ability to fly. Members can even engage in sexual activities in Second Life.

That's where it starts to get a little creepy. The idea of engaging in many intimate and personal actions within a virtual, uncertain world is unsettling. The character could literally be anyone, a teacher, a rapist or a co-worker.

Second Life represents another form of social networking that is even more involved than what are now household concepts like MySpace or Facebook. Though Second Life is not yet as widely spread as MySpace or Facebook, it's well on its way.

It does something the other 2-D social networks don't: gives the user the ability to spend and make large sums of money.

The currency used in Second Life is called Linden Dollars. Earning enough Linden Dollars can be cashed out into real currency. Likewise, users buy virtual items such as land space with real money.

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