Stranger Than Paradise: Is Second Life Really Like This?

Having gone over to the CBC to watch this, I have to say: no, SL isn't like this.

I haven't seen a guy with nose-rings and eyes that bug open like that waiting at the bottom of a waterfall that I jumped off -- well, ever -- ROFL.

Seriously, is this story typical of SL? As a landlord in SL who has literally had tens of thousands of customers in the four years I have been in business, I would have to say: no, SL isn't really like this, and it's a crude sensationalism. People don't really spend the entire day glued to SL and leave their RL spouses and kids to pursue SL lovers -- that's an exotic exception.

This may come as a shock, but there are in fact a variety of things that people enjoy more in SL than they do cheating on their RL spouses with pixelated fantasies on poseballs. These include shopping, which I think outpaces sex as the most enjoyable SL activity, exploring and chatting with friends, which I think also outpaces sex for many people, and more "serious" applications like attending lectures, taking part in discussions, seeing art shows etc.

Of course, the SLintelligentsia is going to be preoccupied with more niche activities like the Education Faire or Metanomics, but take the average tenant in Ravenglass Rentals. They spend a lot of time, like nesting creatures, building or decorating their houses (mostly the latter, as most people buy prefabs), planting gardens, inviting friends over to show off stuff, watch movies and chat, then they go to clubs, malls, and other friends' houses, or organized activities like fashion shows or concerts, etc.

In all the years I have been doing this rentals business, I can only think of one case I know of a wife who left her kids in real life *and* her RL spouse whom she had first met in SL (!) for *another* SLer, a Gorean master. What a story. And that was a phenomenon I first became familiar with in the sims: that the marriages that are most likely to break up are those that themselves had started online or in games or worlds anyway. The kind of person who begins very addicted to this kind of relationship will want to repeat it again and again as the thrill wears off.

I've seen a few cases of people who "took it to real" and were very disappointed or simply left flat by the reality, but I've also seen a few cases of people who formed successful and lasting RL relationships out of SL that didn't involve some dramatic break-ups of real marriages that were either already ended, or the people were single. I think the demographics are such in SL, however, that most of the people forming online liaisons do not have them in RL, or are dating multiple people in RL. They are young, and aren't cheating on spouses because they don't have them yet. Or if they do have RL spouses, they have what they claim are "open marriages" where both parties are allowed to cheat and even mix and match online -- I've seen more examples of that phenomenon than the heart-breaking stories a la "Strangers in Paradise" -- although frankly, I don't completely buy them myself. I think there's always a party who is shafted in those "open" relationships, and it's often the woman who has to take care of the kids. It's interesting to see in the CBC story two women who force the males in their relationship to take care of the kids while they go "have a room of their own" online.

I don't know about you, but my impression watching and hearing this woman on CBC was that she was possibly suffering from mental illness -- depression, at one level, and a kind of hysteria and addiction at another level. She had a kind of strange hysterical laugh while talking about SL, and she looked terribly flat and depressed while picnicking with that RL online boyfriend -- who looked to be about half of her intelligence. Of course, CBC likely wanted to play up that angle. The contrast between that gray-haired Miss Hathaway type that the CBC had as the narrator, who could never say the word "avatar" without a perjorative drawl, and the vivacious young mother with the sexy avatar couldn't have been more pronounced. There's no question that most of the people watching this CBC show would look past the tweedy, judgemental shoulders of Miss Hathaway to the fun world of SL and plunge right in. Who wouldn't want a boyfriend with a nose-ring waiting for them at a bottom of a waterfall?

The aspect I found most sensationalized about this show was the concept of someone being able to stay on SL at 9 or even 14 hours at a stretch, with their beds unmade, dishes unwashed, children wandering around unfed or themselves glued to the computer -- that's extreme.

Most people that I see on SL are able to log on for a few hours in the evenings after work or after their kids are in bed -- much like TV. Occasionally, you do find a lonely housewife type who stays on for hours, but if she has kids, you find that in fact she's AFK for long stretches. Most people, when they put on SL, are only "half there". It's an accepted cultural custom of SL that real life comes first, and if someone says "AFK" suddenly or "RL calling" that you never complain -- because obviously, they have something more important! The frequency with which most conversations or meetings are interrupted in this way is the norm. The kind of hysterical, rapt attention for nine hours, ignoring children that you saw on CBC, strikes me as an extreme. I find most tenants, friends, etc. I run into tell you about their kids and spouses and go AFK to take care of them constantly.

 Most people simply wouldn't be able to pay their bills or get anyone else to take their kids for 9 hours at a stretch.

I recently got into a big debate on Twitter with a gamer about the addictiveness of games and virtual worlds. Oh, I'm a big believer in the fact that they are indeed addicting and even in some isolated cases, responsible for violence in real life. I think indeed you can blame the makers of games and worlds for making them deliberately addictive to make a buck. When Ed Castronova writes in his books about games tapping into visceral nerve centers for "fight or flight" and such, he is confirming, not discounting, the deliberate addictive quality of games, whatever the constant rant on Terra Nova from the game gods and gurus that games aren't addictive. Of course they are. And this is an increasing reality of our world. Just as with drugs and alcohol, not everyone becomes addicted to them, but there's a type, possibly even a genetic type, that does.

One of the narratives of society that CBS lays bare is a narrative that people seldom seem to see in real life, and therefore it seems particularly more stark when hooked up to a game or world. And that is the narrative of the woman who leaves her kids, and goes off alone, or with another lover. There is an enormous stigma against such behaviour in society, of course, and yet, if you live in a big city like New York, you will simply be familiar with real families that have experienced this story, without any World of Warcraft or Second Life in the picture. A father -- or more likely grandmother -- forced to take care of kids while a mother goes off to "find herself" isn't a story that only happens because SL pried her loose and lured her through a pixelated waterfall to hook up with bikers in the UK or Alabama.

The reality is, even with the exoticism of Second Life, most people are rather tame in what they do. They are creatures of custom and habit. Perhaps their online flings, if they have them, don't go very deep -- they seldom lead to cross-global treks and dumping of kids forever at grandma's while biking off into the sunset.

Most people that I see in SL in my communities, even if they have wings and flashy cars and are dressed up like hos and gangsters in fact seem to spend more time with groups of friends than with lovers. Maybe they don't always get lucky. Or maybe it gets boring jumping on the poseballs. I suspect maybe it's more fun to buy the island and the house, get all dressed up for the boyfriend, and tell your girlfriends about the cool boyfriend than it is to actually have that boring AFK boyfriend there on your fabulous satin sheets.

I'm not trying to make up a PG fanboy narrative here about people's other pursuits in SL, either, because I think there are significant demographics of people in SL who have fun there and make friendships and socialize but who find the cybersex options are boring or not a substitute for real life. I won't claim they are a majority -- I haven't scientifically studied it -- but I find it a rule of thumb in SL that groups of friends sharing houses and pursuits last far longer than couples; the group of friends who share your RL day with you are more important than the sexual partner who you can't even be sure is the gender you think. I bet many people in SL would be willing to delete the friendship cards of their fickle and cheating SL spouses, but they'd never want to lose their SL bosom buddies to whom they have confided everything.

The combination of SL and television shooting, which always exaggerates reality to make it "come out looking real" is unbeatable, of course. How they got those cars and jet skis and whatnot to cross sims without jerking to a stop is a minor miracle.

Comments

[Mitch Wagner]

Wow! Outstanding post, Prokofy. All your observations about SL are the same as mine.

When I was wrapping up my article on sex in Second Life (hard to believe that was two years ago), a SL friend remarked that it wasn't so much sex that was popular in SL -- it was romance. People (and I think they tend to be RL women), like to have their huge, lavish SL weddings. It's all fun, and nobody gets hurt.

As you say, most people who get into trouble in Second Life (or anywhere on the Internet) are messed up to begin with. SL and social networks are not the problem.

[Deirdre]

I've actually seen this behaviour before in real life with both males and females who have never been able to accept the responsibility and boredom of the real world. They move from partner to partner and briefly live the storybook fantasy. I've heard every excuse used in this show in real life(its fun, its a game.) Second Life allows you to play that fantasy out on a grander scale.

On the other hand, no I don't see very much of this blatant sexualized behaviour because I only hang out in education worlds, so the program does sensationalize because it doesn't discuss the bigger world.

[HatHead Rickenbacker]

This kind of national media coverage (I am in Canada) makes it difficult to sell SL to my corporate clients. It is hard enough getting past the flying phallic griefing legends and convince them that there is more than just romance and shopping.

To make matters worse, Linden Lab themselves are spamming my customers with xstreet shopping emails. I guess LL doesn't want any kind of corporate presence in SL, forcing me towards OpenSim for my projects.

[Ric Mollor]

It seems as if Second Life is the sole online social experience where people seem very reluctant to reveal or even acknowledge their real life selves. Look at "1st life" tab on 100 random profiles and the majority are blank or very vague.

Compare that to other virtual worlds that have user profiles and the difference is tremendous. And if one includes other social sites (Facebook,MySpace,etc) the difference is even larger.

There is _some_ reason that the majority of Second Life users are hiding their real life identities and trying to keep their SL and RL lives apart. Perhaps others would care to speculate as to what those reasons are.

[Sigmund Leominster]

It's unsurprising that the sensational or prurient aspects of virtual world living is what gets picked up on by the mass media. In defense of the BBC (who did the original version about a year ago), the consumer - and that includes all of us reading here - enjoys it, despite any protestations to the contrary.

To quote Truffaut, "What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out." This is how TV shows, movies, even articles, work; distill the long, boring, absurd truth and provide a bullet point summary.

Second Life, or any virtual world, is, like real life, full of dull, boring, repetitious activity that if it were shown life on TV would have folks flipping channels faster than Rush Limbaugh pops an oxycontin (gratuitous political jibe duly noted).

Still, I noticed this Friday that over 70,000 people were logged on so I guess there were a lot of Canadian tourists checking out the sex. I'd love to here (a) which business in SL did well this weekend and (b) penis sales - flying or otherwise. I'd like to be able to say, "Yes,I was there during the Great Penis Boom of January 2009."

[Jane2 McMahon]

@Ric: Perhaps some of us aren't "hiding" our real lives so much as avoiding overshare: I don't publically wear a sandwich board with my bio on in RL, so why would I do the equivelant in SL?

And Prok, the description of Hana Gartner as Miss Hathaway is spot on...she's been annoying Canadians for decades. I see on the site there are links for gaming addicts...oh so "Fifth Estate".

[Dirk Talamasca]

It doesn't matter what the environment, people are going to do stupid things. Sure these stories happened and they filled a news spot. But, it could have happened in a MUD, on AOL in Yahoo, in Twinity or wherever. It is a weird stigma that we place on things when it happens over the computer but it happens selectively. Ads for Match.com and other relationship sites run in prime time and during soap operas and they are filled with bright white backgrounds, shiny logos and smiling faces. What the hell is the difference?

[MItch Wagner]

Dirk has a good point. The gist of this story is: Married people go off somewhere without their spouses to hook up and commit adultery.

"Somewhere" is sometimes Second Life. Sometimes it's the workplace, sometimes it's the bowling league, sometimes it's even church.

[Joan Kremer]

Let me see if I get the point: there was NO such thing as adultery before the Internet ... right?

Seriously, Prok, this is the best response to that piece of tabloid journalism I've seen so far. Excellent! It matches my experience of SL quite closely.

@Ric: My theory is that hiding one's physical-world identity was part of the cultural mystique around SL in its first years. I have no proof, but my anecdotal, informal survey of profiles shows that the "older" SL-ers are far more likely to hide their identities than are the newer ones, for whom the sharing of identifies on Facebook and MySpace makes it a non-issue in SL, too. I've seen so many similar "I want to be mysterious/don't ask"-type profile comments among the 2005-2007 crowd that it makes me wonder if it wasn't just a trendy thing to do. Or not -- I'm sure not the expert!

[AlterEgoTrip Svenska]

The comparison contrast to this story is that there are people who seem genuinely upset about how the govermental agencies in Sweden have spent a relatively small amount of money for the Virtual Swedish Embassy.

In defence of the goal, an offical on the documentary remarked "that it is we who bring the content", so don't scare good people from the media but rather bring in more so that people can aspire to something aside from new story sensationalism and wreached heart breaking stories of broken homes and time spent of people with something they now may call an "internet addiction" or a "second life addiction"

Lets face it, maybe there is ONE thing we could possibly agree upon Prokofy and that is that if one assumes something those assumptions will colour the perspective on how one sees things.. an illustraition of this was when you mentioned how a person on E-Bay is an entreprenör but a person who runs a buisness on SL is considered a "fool".. playing with fake money.. (that so called FAKE money really adds up damnit)

Freak shows are in the heart, twisted and dark, but real people and good people are definately a part of SL..even if you yourself are not one of them.

The problem with SL is natually like the deepest of all essence that makes the temperment and emotional make up of a human, its hard for anyone to just walk into someone's subconsious expressions, and yet within SL its an everyday occurrance..sometimes you don't want to know about your secretary's ideas of what is fun on her free time and what in her wildest dreams that lady wishes to wear..some things are better left to the imagination, but walking inside of the imagination is just what we do in SL, even if some of it is just unimaginative.