Lesley Anderson

Virtual Worlds and Citizenship

I joined second life on Sunday 18^th July 2009. 

My first task was to create an avatar with a suitable persona and name.  I was thinking about using the meaning of my first name to create my avatar name

After much deliberation and searching, I finally decided to use a combination of my first and last names to make Lesander.  When I put these together and did a search for the meaning (if there was one!!) I found Lysander, Lisander and various other forms of the name.  I discovered a whole myth about Lysander and thought it a reasonably intriguing name to use. I realised I am more serious about things than I thought and the whole exercise of finding a name for my avatar has shown me that I am somehow compelled to do things with a purpose!!!  As I was creating my account I was offered a list of last names to use with my first. Again, I thought about which name I would use. I am certain that other people must complete this task much more easily and quickly than me. This particularly affected me when I read that you can’t change your avatar’s name.  I didn’t even think at the time that I could make another account/avatar if I wanted to - who would know??

I chose a starting “look” and my avatar became Lesander Lexington - I thought the names sounded ok together.

I downloaded the software without a hitch - my laptop has the required specifications etc, so that made it easy - don’t have to use another machine for this activity, which might have made it tricky.

I created my avatar and tried to make it look a little like me (although better, of course!!). The colouring, eye and hair colour, similar height and build etc.

I decided to play “safe”, of course, with my first experience of SL and chose the Big Pond Island environment to visit first.  I was amazed at the amount of work put into the environment. Terrain, features and general infrastructure is impressive. I know little about how it is physically set up and put together, so it was all a little over my head and I felt a bit awe-struck.

I played around for a couple of hours, all up.  After about the first hour, I found I was fairly bored as there were very few people around to chat to and I am not all that big on playing online games etc - this was an option in one section of the island.  I discovered the map would show me where other people were so I decided to fly to a small beach within the island. 

Ok, so people here were partying on the beach. I had no idea what to do. It was a little confronting to have to ask the others what to do etc. Thankfully these first experiences are set up just for “newbies” like moi, otherwise I would still be standing there wondering how to get my avatar to move and dance.  There are other people within the environment who ask you if you need help and asking general questions gets you lots of answers.

I did realise, however, after seeing all the other avatars, how plain and ordinary mine looked. Mine was wearing jeans and shirt, while the other avatars were in very “trendy” clothes.  As you are only given a limited number of “freebie” outfits etc, I wonder how many have actually bought Linden dollars(the SL currency which you can purchase in Real Life-RL, to use in SL) in order to buy items to make their avatars ‘look good’?

They all looked like on-line Barbie dolls to me. Bodies were long and lean, as were legs, hair was trendy along with the clothes. Having created an avatar that reflected me made me feel a little uncomfortable. A bit like walking into a trendy club after carting bricks all day.

I resisted the temptation to change my avatar, though. By leaving it the way it is, I wonder how many people will actually approach and talk to me? During my first 2 hours, 3 people spoke to me and one of them was the co-ordinator of the beach party and I presume that was their job.

Finally SL ‘crashed’ on my computer and I really didn’t feel compelled to restart it as it was late at night and I wasn’t all that intrigued by it. I will return, however, to try it again and see if my experiences differ.