My First Step Down The Rabbit Hole

Welcome to my introduction to Second Life. I’ve only been in this environment once before as part of an online discussion in a digital media class, but never before have I entered this world on my own. When opening the website, I am greeted by two attractive avatars and the slogan “Have fun, flirt, or simply flaunt your creativity in a world where you can experience and create anything you can imagine.” Immediately I am enticed by the possibilities of what I will be experiencing in this realm. If anyone can do anything in this realm, including creating and manipulating their surroundings, it seems like I am about to enter into a “utopian vision of cyberspace” as explained by Lisa Nakumura in her “Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet.” In fact, the title of Nakamura’s essay is quite apt in this case, as I am essentially a cyberspace tourist, stopping by the Second Life universe to see what pleasures I may reap.

I am presented with a selection of avatars, some human, some robot, some vampire and some anthropomorphized animals. Even though I am reassured that I will be able to customize my avatar, I am a little surprised that I have to make such a firm choice. I was unsure of whom to choose, but I definitely wanted to be human. I also chose to be male, since I identify as male in real life, and doubt that I could pass as female. However, when it comes to race, I, as a bi-racial human unable to fully identify with either race, I was unsure of whether I wanted to be White or visibly other. There was no one who was tan, like myself, or unclassifiable, so the racial binary was quite solidified on this page. I chose someone who was dark-skinned but dressed in very preppy clothes. I didn’t have much of a problem with my choice since I knew I could always customize him later.

As Nakumura states, 'by creating your identity, you help create a world." Most people in our culture have “a general awareness concerning the disjunction between online and actual identity, ” as stated by Mark Hansen on p. 111 in “Digitizing the Racialized Body or The Politics of Universal Address.” Thus there is not an immense threat when talking to strangers in such an anonymous venue such as Second Life. Culturally, we recognize the performativity of online identity construction, thus there is no threat “so long as the body is entirely constituted from text” (Hansen 111.) Since humanity now has the power of “controlling the conditions of their own self-representations in ways impossible in face to face interaction” (Nakumura) a danger is posed to the truth that lies in this interaction.

In Second Life, I had the option to be a free user or one that pays “as little as $6/month” to be able to customize my avatar with additional accessories as well as create a customizable virtual home. In this universe, one can “pay to accessorize their avatar with…specific visual signs…[illustrating the] commodity relation to race [and other visual signifiers] that takes place” (“Face” 57) online. While some Second Lifers create costumes that obviously are not what they look like in real life, some others choose to pass as either who they really are or are very convincing and are able to pass as someone they want to/are pretending to be, illustrating the “recreational purposes” (Nakamura) of online identity morphing.

After I downloaded the program and agreed to the terms of agreement (but did not read, since honestly, who still reads those?) I entered the world of Second Life. After I entered the Welcome Help Zone, I asked how I could change my clothes to the general group and I was answered by a winter.akiri who told me how to do so, after I changed my pants and removed some gaudy sunglasses, I realized that my skin tone was actually closer to mine in real life than it had appeared on the website. 

My avatar, in its initial and rough form.

The only thing I wanted to change, but couldn't really figure out how was my haircut, but I wasn't going to buy a hair pack, so I'm leaving it for now.  She then asked me if I needed any more help and I asked, what should I do when I’m finished with changing and she suggested that use the search function and explore. A task that I will do and document in my next entry. 

Works Cited: 

Hansen, Mark B.N. "Digitizing the Racialized Body or The Politics of Universal Address." SubStance              33.2 (2004): 107-27. Print.
Nakamura, Lisa. "Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the
Internet." University of California, Irvine Department of Humanities. Web. 11 May 2011.