Normaling

After I watched Taboo, I was struck with the idea of, if people love to play out fantasies in Second Life, is anyone trying to do the opposite and just be normal like in the episode of 30 Rock titled “The Tuxedo Begins?” The idea of being normal, otherwise known as “normaling,” to the gender-bending and kink-loving Jenna and Paul is a concept that encompasses the idea of using normal roles as a tactic to add another level to their kink and it made me realize that I haven’t really seen a group of people who were just normal, instead, they were usually the outliers who stood on the sidelines of a group of people. I decided to go into the Second Life universe and see if I could find a large group of people who were just normal. After doing multiple searches in the destinations toolbar, I came up short. In fact, the moment I logged on and arrived at the area where I logged off from yesterday, this small avatar was shouting and harassing other users, saying that she enjoys eating dead babies and other things that are too uncouth to say. 

Trolling for Responses

When I chatted to the group that she was disgusting, one user just advised me to ignore and don’t engage such an obvious troll. When compared to the beautiful beach setting the avatars should have stood out like a sore thumb in their Goth or futuristic or pixie dress, but in fact it was the normal setting which seemed weird. Maybe it was because users in Second Life that are looking for a normal life online could easily just shut down their computers and find one in their real lives. As Rupert Neate stated in his article for The Daily Telegraph called “Second Life’s Span is Virtually Over as Firms Decide to Get Real,” the worlds within the game are “still beloved by [freaks,] geeks and the socially awkward…it has been ‘virtually abandoned’ by ‘normal’ people and businesses,” a fact which is illustrated by a 4% rate of those with an account vs. those who log on in a week. Even the majority of the avatars who are in the safe welcome centers are mostly dressed in untraditional wear and it seems like everyone is a wannabe vampire.

I guess that I should have assumed that I wouldn’t be able to really find anyone who was seeking to be normal since everyone I have encountered so far has made a point to negatively comment on my outfit, a pretty normal outfit for a 22-year-old guy, but not for one in Second Life. I went to one of the spaces for new players called “London City Regent’s Park and SoHo” looking to find avatars like me, but unfortunately I couldn’t since most of the people were dressed like princesses, witches or exotic otherworldly beings; however, I did notice something very interesting here. 

Other Than The People

While the place was made to look very realistic, that was where the realism ended. There was just too much going on for it ever to feel real, and when I went into one shop there was a British radio station playing, but when I went out into the main park, there was American country music playing, something I would not ever expect in real Britain. I wasn’t sure how to reconcile this dichotomy, but it only solidified by assumptions that whoever designs these worlds aren’t attempting to make them extremely true to life, but are more interested in creating fun and interesting fantasy aspects.

Works Cited:

Neate, Rupert. "Second Life’s Span Is Virtually Over as Firms Decide to Get Real." The Daily Telegraph [London] 30 Mar. 2009. Print.

"The Tuxedo Begins." 30 Rock. NBC. 16 Feb. 2012. Television.