Analyzing “Second Life” through the theories of Weinberger

Lauren Charley

Analyzing “Second Life” through the theories of Weinberger

“The internet represents a new world that we are just beginning to inhabit. However, unlike the real world, cyberspace has few rules of behavior and fewer lines of authority,” (Weinberger 42). My experience with Second Life in our Cyber Communications lab was very different to anything that I had really experienced before. Although the avatars and world looked similar to the online Sims game, the fact that I was one character who lived and communicated in a functioning, virtual world was a unique experience. A lot of the characteristics and operations of Second Life related very closely to both the concept of immediacy discussed in lecture, and also to David Weinberger’s article A New World (Small Pieces Loosely Joined).

In the commercial advertising Second Life that we watched in class, the website is advertised as, “A place to connect, a place to shop, a place to work, a place to love, a place to explore. Be different, be yourself. Free your mind, change your mind, change your look, love your love, love your life,”. The second life experience ties in very well with the concept of “immediacy”. Immediacy erases reminders that the media is a representation of what you are experience, and makes the audience feel like they are part of the experience. Second Life advertises itself as a place to “love your life” and creates the illusion that your fantasy life in an online world is your reality. It is necessary for online users to be critical of their online surroundings and make sure that it does not consume too much of their real lives, as sites that portray this immediacy often become very addicting.
Weinberger states that the web is an unnatural world, one we have built for ourselves,” (Weinberger 43).When in second life, it is easy to get caught up in what is happening and the virtual surroundings, and you become immersed in what appears to be reality. This fantasy cyber world is almost like a perfect version of how the users envision a perfect reality to be. When I became frustrated with Second Life and trying to figure out how to get a job, it was overwhelming until I leaned back in my seat and looked at my classmates around me. It was like snapping back into the real world.
In Weinberger’s story of Michael Ian Campbell who sent a girl a cyber threat as a joke threatening to shoot up her school, the idea of the web as a new world means that “new worlds create new people,” (Weinberger 45). Campbell had never been the type who would ever send a threat, even as a joke, but with being so involved in cyberspace, he adopted a new personality. This is similar to Second Life in the way that we can choose who we are and who we want to be. Users can even use their real money to buy space, commodities and clothes in the virtual world that they can’t buy in real life. What I find interesting about Second Life is that you have no idea who is on the other side of the screen. A rich, good looking, entrepreneur in Second Life could be the guy who pumps your gas in real life.
Weinberger also brings up the question of whether being sociable on the web is different from being sociable in real life. He uses the example of .Zannah, a female user with a web-blog who is very mysterious about her identity online, but has many online friends and followers. “Is she being sociable on the web?” (Weinberger 47). One could argue the same about Second Life. Are these relationships that we have with other users in the world real relationships, or are they something else? Is there anything different between someone who lives an extraordinary life in reality, and someone who lives an equally extraordinary life on second life? Different people may have different answers. I personally do not think that virtual worlds like Second Life are real experiences or real relationships, because it is all fake. Your husband on Second Life may have an entirely different ego; but you’ll never know.
As Weinberger quotes, “Just as the opposite of democracy was aristocracy, the opposite of the virtual world of the web is the real world,” (Weinberger 48). I agree with this statement one hundred percent. The real world and the virtual world are two binary oppositions, yet it is very easy to confuse the two when we are so immersed in these types of virtual realities like Second Life. The tougher question is also when we consider social networks like Facebook. Do our conversations and time spent on the website count as experiences? Although Facebook provides a link to a sort of virtual world and the real world, the defining borders of what exactly counts as a virtual reality become very unclear. As users of the web, we need to be very critical of what we are experiencing and to not let it consume our lives. Of course we need to enjoy the web for all the unique ways of digitally communicating that it has given us, but we must not let ourselves fall too victim to immediacy.


Works Cited
Second Life - The Online 3D Virtual World. Dir. Kerria Seabrooke. YouTube. ILL Clan Animation Studio for Linden Lab, 25 Aug. 2009. Web. 30 Jan. 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3gHCupXSMs.

Weinberger, David. "A New World (Small Pieces Loosely Joined)." Living in the Information Age - A New Media Reader. By Erik P. Bucy. Second ed. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2005. 42-49. Print.