Breaking the fourth wall in SL

[JessiSweeney]

Breaking the fourth wall is a term used in motion pictures and on the play stage when a performer turns and talks to the audience. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the concept.

I'm wondering what others think of breaking the wall and revealing more RL into their everyday SL experience, the pro's and con's.

My view on it concerns while opening up to those you have the utmost respect and admiration, it could come back and bite ya on the back side. I've come close to opening up more and more but my head says "bad move, now shut up". My mind can be a very opinionated pain. I buy it some pepperoni pizza and it settles down.

Has anyone done this and is it just a wise move to just keep RL out of SL completely?

[Tari Landar]

Honestly, it's really just a personal preference. You're very likely to find mixed answers here. For some, most rl info is shared. For others, only some. For another group, no info is shared. It depends entirely on what each person is comfortable with.

Me, personally, I don't mind sharing some info, though I might be picky about what and with whom I share the information. I don't have a need to separate sl from rl entirely, so I don't. Others feel completely different, and that is perfectly ok for them too. Neither one is right, or wrong, really. Though some folks seem to feel their opinion on the matter is 100%, it really isn't, at least not if they're trying to apply it to everyone. I have friends in sl who share little to no info and friends who share lots. I don't think differently of any of them, to be honest.

Go with your gut and your own comfort level.

[LlazarusLlong]

It doesn't really matter, as anything you say is unverifiable, as I was saying to Elvis Presley on SL just the other day.

[Ren Toxx]

Caution needs not be specific to SL. Would you publish your name, phone, email, age, address, etc. to everyone in all social media sites, your blog, etc? Would you to strangers you meet on the street? To very casual friends (or mere acquaintances) or co-workers? Would you to somewhat closer friends? And to (apparently) very close & trustable friends?

It’s not a question of the platform, but of trust on each individual.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

people I have known for years and have formed real friendships/bonds with know exactly who I am.  I've got nothing to hide from my friends.   so do I break the forthwall yep, do I even do it in open chat yep,  why?  because SL is an extention of my real life. 

[KarenMichelle Lane]

That's an interesting query Jessi,

The sharing of information is a bit of a 2-way thing...

I find after 7 + years that I will share anecdotal  aspects of my RL with my listening audience [when I DJ] and even more with my close friends [those I've had SL relationships for over 5 years.] Several of my closest friends and I have shared our RL contact, phone and address information. This came after a long relationship that allowed our trust to be formed and verified over and over. This covers the total of my RL --> SL sharing direction at this time for me.

On the SL --> RL side of that coin I only have shared with a few of my RL friends that I participate on a regular basis in a virtual world. [so many of my friends would be clueless as to what a VW is] To those I coach it as a unique Social Media option. Even fewer know that I DJ in this world, just those who know what nights I'm not available for RL activities without prior notice and scheduling.

As I start to exit from RL Public Life [my current business needs cause me to keep SL a personal hobby as demonstrated by my 2 completely separate FB accounts], I may soon allow myself the luxury of meeting my local SL friends who have patiently awaited my decision to do so...

 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

I don't share RL with SL for the most part, however I have a few close friends who know about some of my RL and even fewer very close friends that know my RL name etc.  This is mutual as I know about them too.  What these friends have in common is that I have known them for years and they have earned my trust.

[Bobbie Faulds]

As a rule, I don't share my RL info..or very little of it. I do share OOCly with those I RP with that I am disabled so give me a bit to reply but beyond that, there are only a very few that know what part of the country I live in, and those are those that I've known for a number of years. Most are also admins in the sim I RP in as I am. I don't voice...or very rarely. SL is SL and RL is RL and that's the way I like to keep it.

 

[Phil Deakins]

Be very careful about who you share your RL info with or you could easily end up going through what I've been going through for some years.now. I shared my RL name and address with one person, and the fact that I don't put up any Christmas decorations at home, and, out of the blue, she sent me a fully decorated Christmas tree - all the way from New York (I'm in the UK) - that I have to put up every Christmas. It's only about 1'6" tall but I feel obliged to put it up every year. Sharing RL info can cause real suffering, so be careful.

That's true, btw. Hice, huh?

We all have our own views on sharing RL info, and we are all right for ourselves. Personally, I don't mind sharing my RL self with people because, as someone said earlier, SL is just an extension of RL for me.

[LlazarusLlong]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

Be very careful about who you share your RL info with or you could easily end up going through what I've been going through for some years.now. I shared my RL name and address with one person, and the fact that I don't put up any Christmas decorations at home, and, out of the blue, she sent me a fully decorated Christmas tree - all the way from New York (I'm in the UK) - that I have to put up every Christmas. It's only about 1'6" tall but I feel obliged to put it up every year. Sharing RL info can cause real suffering, so be careful.

That's true, btw. Hice, huh?

We all have our own views on sharing RL info, and we are all right for ourselves. Personally, I don't mind sharing my RL self with people because, as someone said earlier, SL is just an extension of RL for me.

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That's sick!

[Syo Emerald]

Well, a cute little christmas tree doesn't sound like a lot of suffering! :catvery-happy:

[Marybeth Cooperstone]

First, you should always be careful about information given on open on-line places such as Second Life, FaceBook, this site, etc. You should not give your home address, phone number, etc.

That said, there are many levels RL can enter SL. For example, many of us would not hesitate to say something like “Gotta go – need to get call on the phone”. However, if you are involved in RP in a time before the telephone was invented, it might be best to avoid that. Come up with some more appropriate excuse.

As for me, SL is an extension of my RL. (not the case for everyone). I have been engaged in conversations about raising kids with other moms. I have been engaged with other attorneys about legal matters (opinions about court decisions, discussions about law office technology, etc.) I “attend” church services in SL; as a part of that the congregation offers prayers for others.

Of course, I have no way of knowing that the others are who they say they are. That tempers the way I converse and the level of detail I give. The same is true on any other open venue. In addition to above, I never reveal the name of my law firm or the city.

I know that others, even those who do not RP, keep their SL and RL lives separate. But some of us do not.

[Dillon Levenque]

You have to use your own judgement, Jessi. When I was new here I instinctively kept my RL self to myself and when asked, "How old are you?" by complete strangers would always answer, "In SL, 29 and holding.". If asked where I was from I'd answer, "West Coast, US.". I felt right from my first day in Second Life that RL details had nothing whatever to do with our avatars, later on when I found myself asked those kinds of questions I considered the people asking to be out of line.

I learned as I progressed that my instinctive response matched the opinions of most of the people I met; that asking for RL info was considered gauche in the extreme. That's not to say that I haven't shared a lot of RL info with people as I've come to know them (and vice versa) but nobody asked. It's just that we get to know people and after a year or two talking to someone on a regular basis, you get into a comfortable enough place that you can share things you'd not share with just anyone.

If in doubt: keep it to yourself. I consider the default condition for SL is that RL info is private. It should NEVER be asked for, and it should only be given voluntarily.

[JessiSweeney]

Very insightful answers.

I guess the bottom line is trust your gut feelings.

It's all up to the individual.

 

Thanks all for the response.

[irihapeti]

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JessiSweeney wrote:

I guess the bottom line is trust your gut feelings..

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^^ that ^^

[LaskyaClaren]

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JessiSweeney wrote:

Very insightful answers.

I guess the bottom line is trust your gut feelings.

It's all up to the individual.

 

Thanks all for the response.

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I think, in a sense, that the premises of the question are wrong. In part this is because it assumes a sort of static relationship between how we represent, and how we see ourselves in RL, and in part because those things are perhaps not as distinct as we often think.

To begin with the last first, your metaphor suggests that you see virtual representation as a form of "acting," of assuming a fictional role. One problem with your analogy to the theatre is that plays are conscious artifice. When we watch a play, we know, always, however much we may get lost in a play, that it is a fiction. Were this not true, we'd be utterly horrified and traumatized watching murders on stage in a play such as, say, Macbeth, rather than entertained. When the fourth wall is broken in a play, it is really just highlighting an artifice that we already know exists, but that we allow ourselves to conveniently 'forget" as we watch -- Coleridge's "willing suspension of disbelief."

In SL, on the other hand, we don't have a proscenium arch or stage that separates actors from audience. There is no "fourth wall" in a sense because the three others aren't there either: we are all performing, simultaneously.

Additionally, I don't think we are "acting" something we aren't in the same way that an actor takes on a role in a play. For one thing, we are not mouthing someone else's lines: our identities in SL are of our creation. And secondly, I think that identity in SL -- even when apparently at its most distant from our RL "selves" -- always reflects something about how we see ourselves. If I represent as a robot, or, say, a bisesexual furry skunk, in SL, it is not because those relate to who I am in any literal way, but because they in some way "speak" to how I see myself, sometimes quite subtly. In other words, if I chose to represent as something "different," I am likely doing so because it allows me to give expression to part of myself that may well not be evident in RL.

To take up my first point, about how we represent and relate to others not being "static," I know very few people who are pure augmentationists or immersionists. Most of us can be located on a sliding scale that changes according to context and the person with whom we are interacting. For the most part, for instance, I am probably on the "immersionist" side of the scale. But there are certainly some people to whom I have revealed a great deal about my RL, and even a handful who know exactly who I am, or have actually met in RL. And the additional thing is how willing I am to share that kind of information with an individual can, and will, change over time or according to context.

I wonder if it isn't more useful to think not in terms of binaries -- our RL vs. our SL selves -- but rather in terms of dynamic performances of self unfolding over time and changing according to context?  

[Paul Hexem]

I've never had an issue crossing RL and SL.

I'm a gamer, and a lot of the people I play games with, even though we've never met in RL, we call each other by universal or RL names that extend across all platforms/games. We talk RL casually- I don't think any of us give it a second thought like you see here in SL. So when I came to SL, I did the same thing.

It's actually sort of interesting sometimes, seeing people react to RL the way they do here in SL, compared to that.

That said, I'm also an adult male that owns firearms; I'm the scary thing people hide their RL identities from, so I have no issues sharing mine.

[LlazarusLlong]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

 

I think that identity in SL -- even when apparently at its most distant from our RL "selves" -- always reflects something about how we see ourselves.

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Speak for yourself.

You can't speak for others and in my case you are definitely wrong.

If you wanted to omit "how we see" from your comment I would have to agree.

But you didn't say that, did you.

 

[Coby Foden]

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Syo Emerald wrote:

Well, a cute little christmas tree doesn't sound like a lot of suffering! :catvery-happy:

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Unless Phil's got a cat. Then even a small tree can make him sweat profusely.  :smileyvery-happy:

 

But there's a solution for cat owners...

:matte-motes-big-grin:

[irihapeti]

[OoXCookieChanXoO]

I like keeping my SL and RL seperate with strangers or people I hardly associate with. When I start to know a person longer and feel comfortable with them, then I don't mind sharing some details. It all depends on whom you speak with or hang out with. Can you trust them or can you not?  A friend on SL once told me, Friends are Friends no matter where you meet them. It is up to you in the end of how far you want to take that relationship and be real. They may live thousands of miles away, but behind each avatar is some sort of person. It is up to you wether to break that fourth wall or not. 

[Coby Foden]

:catlol:  :smileysurprised:

[Anthonybull]

Hi I am Anthonybull recently sign-up- I read that you are interested in fire arms. so am i -i used to live in the states.

maybe we could message each some time soon

 

            a/b