Third Life Syndrome

Saturday night at my party in InWorldz (another grid) Wizzy caught herself almost saying (and stopped herself) ...”you look like the Real Soror”. Now, she meant of course that my avi in InWorldz was near identical to my avi in SL.

Had she said that I would have understood immediately what she meant.

...and that got me thinking.

Whereas I have often mocked those poor souls who think the only way to enjoy SL is if their avi is the same height and shape as their biological physique, when it comes to virtual worlds we all (mostly) have a Third Life Syndrome... (TLS)...

TLS is that strange condition where we seek to replicate our SL looks in other worlds. In fact, for many, and for myself in a small degree, our enjoyment of a Third Life is dependent on this replication of name and looks. A virtual Virtual Me.

Now, moving to a new world, new grid, could be the opportunity to take one of those poor neglected alts, dust them off and develop that forgotten side of our psyche to a degree that we don’t do in SL... but that isn’t what we do. It is our Principle Avi that gets to move and have work done on his/her looks first and foremost.

So ... something that springs to mind is that our Virtual Body Image is like our RL body image, a deeply imprinted inner picture of how we look or should look, only in virtual worlds rather than RL. If we have this Virtual Body Image then we are psychologically different to people who don’t have avatars. This would not surprise me. This makes us part of a group of people with cultural links, it’s part of our culture.

I was involved in a piece of performance art in SL a year or so ago....I have forgotten the names of those involved... where we were asked to change gender in front of the cameras, wearing the clothes we were wearing. It was a disturbing experience, and no doubt, highlighted this Virtual Body Image without me being fully conscious of what was happening.

Now, naming and recognising doesn’t explain what a body image is, much less what a virtual body image could be. Body image is how the brain perceives the body, independent of the fact; that is to say we may perceive ourselves wrongly (i.e. our body image may be divorced from reality.)

The discrepancy in RL between ideal and current body image leads to dissatisfaction. Obviously this discrepancy should be zero in the case of an avatar, as the ideal avatar (body image) should equal the current avatar......but....

....a Third Life has a tendency to throw all our hard work (on our avi) out the window and we have to start again from scratch.

The more the identity of your avi is dependent on specific shop-bought products, the more difficult it will be to move before your fav creators have opened shops in a Third World. This may be something you can help happen, of course, if you know these people as friends.

It would be a shame, however, to let this stop us from getting a Third Life, there are any number of tricks and work-arounds we could resort to.

a) if you are moving grid for a particular reason (i.e. to build) then the way you look may be secondary to what you can achieve.

b) think of your new avi as the younger brother/sister of your SL avi

c) make a skin from a template and use in both worlds....

d) dust off an alt (see above) and go in as your alt..

e) live with the difference until the shopping gets better.

I'm sure you will have other ideas, too...

"Paris, London, New York", are often printed on top designers logos....It would, as a side note, be clever of a skin designer/maker to open, say, in Inworldz, and tell their SL client base that they have a shop there. They could then sell a duplicate skin to the same people in InWorldz.... moving would be a lot easier if you can wear the same skin as the shape is usually mod in appearance.

...and...what of Dragons? Well, there are already some fairies and furries in InWorldz, but as far as I know we are still waiting for dragons.... market opportunity for someone??

It's a new frontier out there with little competition for the brave, step past your Third Life Syndrome and go for it.

:))