Sunday, November 16, 2008

Cyber-self

Amy Taylor and David Pollard are divorcing three years after they met, fell in love and married - all on the Internet. As well as their cyber-wedding on Second Life (a computer generated world where your cyberself aka avatar can interact with other avatars) the couple also had a real world registry office wedding. But their life has taken an unexpected turn - unexpected for everyone but them I suspect. Amy found out that David was cheating on her - having sex with a Second Life prostitute. Even though Amy hired a cyber PI to look into the matter, and despite her hurt, she and David, still insisting he had done no wrong, patched it up and all seemed well until she soon after discovered he had allowed his avatar to become intimately involved with another, female, avatar in Second Life. When confronted David confessed he had been talking with the player for a couple of weeks and that their marriage (that is David and Amy's) was over. The next day she went to a real world solicitor to file for divorce.
On reading this tale I found myself wondering about people living their "other" life in Second Life. Where do they find the time? What do they do there? And how do they decide on their avatars - and whether they are going to resemble their real life identity at all: case in point - David and Amy's avatars bore very little resemblance to them in real life. But maybe that's the point in a youth and beauty conscious world ... chances are that if you're unemployed, middle-aged, bald and not in peak physical condition, and you get a choice, that's not the image you're going to choose to project to a pretend world.

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