Second Life is a "literary" environment

While SL is many things — a 3D modeling platform, social media (Facebook on steroids as I like to say), a tool for creativity — I note that with profiles and IM chat, it is also a "literary" environment. While we can voice, most, if not all, of our communication is done via text. We write. We read. With the help of others, we are composing an interactive story. I could say that everyone in Second Life is, in one way or another, a writer.

I jokingly say that in SL, a man's prowess as a lover is judged not by the size of his manhood but by the size of his vocabulary.

In SL, we never touch. We only communicate. Consequently, how we communicate, how we write, is of the utmost importance. Not everyone knows how to write. Not everyone knows how to communicate. While SL is different from RL, it is in many ways similar. I like to point out that despite our avatar, despite our new identity, and despite anonymity, we remain irrevocably our RL mind. I've said elsewhere that anonymity is a gift that allows us to say or do anything we what without fear of criticism or condemnation. What do we do with the gift of "total freedom"? If someone is kind in SL; they're probably kind in RL. If someone is a jerk in SL; they're probably a jerk in RL.

The old joke is that the brain is our biggest sex organ. Stimulate it, and everything else falls into place. In my blog I Never Touch You, I describe a hypothetical scenario in real life where I set up two chairs back to back. I have you and your lover sit down. You can talk to one another and listen to one another, but you can't see each other or touch. In other words, you can only communicate. Can you chat, share, laugh, and cry? Can you make a connection? And finally, could you make love? Could you have sex? How truly open and honest are you willing to be? Can you be truly naked in front of another person, I don’t just mean physically, but intimately as in revealing your true self?

Welcome to Second Life, the new you, the fantasy you. You can be anything you want, both literally and literarily.

References

my blog: Anonymity and Total Freedom

my blog: I Never Touch You

my blog: Mind F*cking

2021-02-02