Tag: My Second Life

Everyday I grow more and more impressed with Second Life.

Once I got over the newness of it all and I was starting to go sit in the corner when I went to parties, I had this ugly feeling about it. This is a waste of time. Why am I on this boring thing?

Then I looked at it “the game” and said, “I’m here for a reason, let’s explore and meet as many people as I can.”

Everyay I have an interaction with someone that leads me to find out a little more about their personality. There’s this woman that I met at the basketball courts on SL and at first she didnt even say Hi, those women on the courts aren’t friendly, but then she came up to me and custom made me a skin.

I mean…I felt like I was in some kind of high tech movie thriller because some kind of way, this woman’s avatar, stood in front of me, and she did something to her face so that I could see the skin she was working on. HER FACE MORPHED RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.

I was like..HELL NAW! That was scary!

Wait…listen. A skin on SL consists of the exterior of the body you have now, basically, your skin, facial features, etc. You can have a skin and then you need a shape which is the body type you want. So a skin and a shape must be worn together. And these two must compliment each other because certain skins look different on different body shape.

Isn’t that amazing?

So she made me a skin, which i LOVED the way my face looked, but I wasn’ t satisfied with my color. I want to be a bit darker than I am in real life but I can’t find any skins with the right color. I want that rich, shiny snickers bar color, with maybe some red undertones.

The skin I’m wearing now..I LOVE. But! She looks white to me. I don’t want to be running around looking like a white girl, that’s never been my fantasy.

So anyway, I’m weird today.

This same chick who made the skin for me, I saw her at the courts and she left and then sent me a TP (which is a teleport request) which invites me to come where she is. When I get there, it’s this old cruddy hang out spot with so many different kinds of avatars. The music was so different, I can’t even describe it.

People were running around, eating and dancing. I sat back and watched and poked my head into every tent they had pitched. It was a raggedy looking place with beer cans, bongs, people smoking and everything.

Wow..WHat a different side to see from the woman who gave me and Jadean a makeover.

On the surface, it’s a world, but really, it’s a world. Did you see Horton Hears a Who? It’s the same thing.

I have a house in SL. I have a job in SL that pays me a salary in order to pay for my house. I write for an SL magazine.

I joined a group called WISDOM and every person that is apart of the group, has an eclectic spiritual background. They hold meetings and every meeting is on a different topic like Chakra Opening and Men & Spirituality.

I feel like I’m learning so much. The other night I was invited to a rave party in the forest to celebrate the birthday of the guy who invested LSD. They were playing trance music.

Whic sounds a bit like African house music to me. Again..I’ve only heard about African house music because I was exposed to someone on SL.

I’m meeting people in Holland, North Africa and when you hang out with them, they show you what their people are doing and all of the recreation styles are unique.

I haven’t made any SL FRIENDS that make me feel, “OMG I HAVE TO LOG ON!”

No, none of that. But I do love to log on and see what spiritual meditation group or discussion they are having today. I also like to just walk my avatar around my SL House and look at things and smile. Then I go up to my bedroom and sit on my bed and stare at the picture of my imaginary boyfriend on the wall.

If you ever get to come to SL, I’ll show you who he is, the pic is of someone I know in real life.

Oh yeah..Almost forgot. I started a new blog (hahahahhahaaa!) because I needed a place where I could have fun. With all this writing for school and for the new gigs and what not..writing wasn’t fun anymore.

So I started this blog called SL BEST IN BLACK. I named it after a themed party I went to one time on SL. And it also has a double meaning, I’m showcasing the BEST of the Black Community in SL.

I ask questions, they are so open and nice enough to answer. I’ve gotten the profiles and inside story of people’s SL lives. This is my fun writing because even on this blog, I’m not really writing and growing, I’m just spilling out emotions through the keyboard.

It should be interesting. Check it out.

I was chatting with a guy today on SL.

He’s an artist and he just won an art competition. I thought that was pretty hot.

But today he was upset because a woman he met asked him not to contact him again on SL. He started going off about how he doesn’t even like her because she’s involved in SL slavery. He was trying to get me to say how wrong it is and how we should ban together to fight slavery on SL.

I was like… ~shrugs~

First of all, SL is a place people CHOOSE to be. And it’s a place where you can role play your deepest fantasies. Why would I war against people who are choosing to engage in slavery on SL?

He couldn’t understand my point of view. He tried to engage me in an argument that slavery is having no choice over your life and why would anyone choose that.

I shrugged.

They choose it because that’s what they want for their life.

He argued that they need to awaken their mentality and choose life.

I shrugged. I told him that I can’t fight anyone’s battle for them, especially when they don’t believe they have a battle to fight.

Then I told him that he shouldn’t be upset that she removed herself from his life. There were obvious differences in lifestyle and leisure activities. Everyone doesn’t enjoy the same things, why hold on to people if you have to change them to fit into your mold?

I’m kinda into non resistance, man.

If you wanna go away..bye.

If you don’t want me to stay..I’ll leave.

I’m not trying to infringe my lifestyle or choices on you, man.

If I disagree I’ll just fall back from you, man.

No biggie. We just aren’t headed in the same direction. It’s no one’s fault.

Don’t try to hold onto someone who is pushing you away. Though relationships should be a mutual agreement to give love and support, most relationships are built around power. You give away your power when you run behind someone who is not interested in you. They hold all the power because they will not compromise to keep you and you will, just to keep them.

When someone is yours they won’t walk away.

That’s it. Point blank. I know it’s hard to believe but it’s true. You don’t have to strategically position yourself or chase anyone down.

You are a powerful magnet for everything that is yours and you have to do nothing but be open to receive, believeing that you deserve every good thing that is about to come into your life.

This remarkable video was made by one of the Black women in SL. This is kinda how we play around in SL. It’s a real WORLD in there!

I had the most thrilling time on Second Life early this morning. I woke up in the middle of the night after I got a random phone call from one of my friend’s that is in town for Memorial Day Weekend.

I logged on to SL to see if any of my sources had contacted me and I got an IM from a person I met randomly one day.

As we chatted about SL and my experiences we began to reveal details about our real lives. When he asked about the meaning of my real name I told him that my name meant Powerful ruler. I asked him what his real name was and he said, “When I tell you my name you’re going to be shocked.”

“How so?” I asked.

“My name is Sharlene.”

It turns out that this ‘man’ is actually a Black woman. She plays on SL as a white man because she says, “People seem to take me more seriously as a male.”

There’s a lot of this going on in SL. After all, you can be whatever you want to be. I’ve interviewed a white man who says that he wishes he was born Black and plays a Black avatar on SL. I’ve also learned that one of the most successful publications on SL has a Black publisher and she is really a white man in real life. I’m about to publish these interviews on my SL blog as a series on people who change races in SL.

As a researcher and social studies junky, the most intriguing aspect of being on SL for me is finding out why people choose to play and how they spend their time on SL.

I used to spend time with a man who was married in real life. After talking with him I found that he has had several romantic relationships on SL and doesn’t feel bad about them.

I’ve met a man who is disabled in real life and his spirit is so bright. He plays a cat on SL and when I asked him why he said, “It’s just a body. A way to get around.” That made me think of our bodies and appearance in a new light. If the person we are isn’t defined by the ‘carrier’ of our souls, then it shouldn’t matter what we look like.
But it does….