Is your poor little avatar like an imaginary friend?

[MoiselleErin Teardrop]

Or do I need packed away to the looney bin. :D

I think I care for that thing more than I care for the RL Erin.

 

When I first got to SL, the person who invited me said something about not insulting someone else's avatar cause people get mad. I laughed and said - "OK I won't insult someone's cartoon"

But then I find I care for MINE almost as if it were a person.

Do I need carried away in a straight jacket?

[Audra Siemens]

I don't think you need a straight jacket (or perhaps maybe a lot of us do). I take care of my avatar as if it were a precious item. I log her in every day, dress her, change her style and look, and I care about her reputation in world. I care what others think about her and how they see her. And.. she's always there (Baring some catastrophic "login failure" message that LL every now and then likes to throw).

I think that's the draw for many. Its a great social platform, but at the same time, how many of us ladies have ever owned a "Barbie" doll when we were younger? We find the same joy and fun making our avis look and talk, have storylines, friends and drama as we did when we ere 7 and hanging out with our besties in our bedrooms.

So, no. You don't need a straight jacket. Anyone who's lost inventory can tell you, most of us are very attached to our SL avatars.

[Astringofcharacters]

SL is a revelation that way, isn't it? That little avatar is an imaginary friend and an imaginary you and she lets you discover who you really are. Cherish her.

[MoiselleErin Teardrop]

So it is like a digital Barbie doll...

Except our big brothers don't try to destroy them.

[Astringofcharacters]

Be careful with Barbie.

Big Brother is still around ...

[Lanas Criss]

This title caught my eye and I really sat back and thought about it a bit...

In my case, ‘my’ avatar is me, but I do have two SL imaginary friends.  I got started here quite a while ago after seeing a blurb in a magazine that was sitting around the house during a winter vacation time while I was home alone.  I went through a “what in the world?” phase for the first couple days after being pounced on quickly with the “hey baby, wanna do the… etc… etc…” that quickly introduced me to the poseballs and other friskier activities out there in the wild.

I was shocked, intrigued, fascinated at every turn, but quickly became uncomfortable with the straight forwardness toward ‘intimacy’ that surrounded me.  Without boring everyone with my whole story suffice it to say that I married my high-school sweetheart, am still ridiculously in love, and I just wasn’t ‘feeling’ what I was being invited to participate in.

As I was trying to give SL ‘one last try’ by exploring all sorts of new places I ran across some really clever and nice people in sandboxes, and some other ‘new resident’ type locations.  They inspired me to try my hand at animations since I did get a kick out them, but some just didn’t do what I wanted, or just looked uncomfortable.  Long story shorter, by the end of my free time for those few winter days I’d made a couple fun animations and a couple new wonderful friends.

Fortunately the frisky poseball people didn’t give up easily and since I’d ‘friended’ waaaay too many of them during my manic first couple days they kept at me to come out and play.  Eventually they clothed me nicely, painted my face, and made me look and feel great.  They also learned that I could, and was making animations… flirty ones at that.  I was introduced to some ‘themed sim’ owners and amazing builders, and the rest is my animation history.

But… back to why the title caught my eye… because I make couples anims (and occasionally threesomes ) I brought another man and a woman anim to life so they could do the work of sitting, spanking, shaking, sleeping, rubbing, kissing, or whatever the clients required.  Those two are my imaginary friends!  The very few people who know who those two are snicker whenever they know I’m not working but one of those two avatars is out and about… everyone starts to wonder whether they’re being naughty or nice…

While ‘my’ avi really is me, the happily married, well behaved animator, my other two imaginary friends are occasionally out entertaining me and everyone around them.  They do a few of the things I wouldn’t (although it’s all in the name of ‘market research’), we debate their spending habits, and the fact that the girl just can’t keep her prim numbers under control so our sim owners are always telling her to take down most of her newly found furniture.  I suppose those two are actually imaginary friends of everyone in my group of owners, builders, and sims, because we talk about them as if they were their own little personalities and we all get a great therapeutic laugh out of it.  Those two do ‘think’ and act much differently, so they really are fun to have around for me… hence the imaginary friend connection.  (maybe I need the straight jacket)

Probably more than anyone wanted to know, but I can confidently say that yes my avi is me, but yes SL has provided me with two wonderful imaginary friends… now if I could just get them back to work!

[LilyMcKinney]

Hey! We are two students who are interested in researching on what grounds people on Second Life choose their avatars. We would very much appreciate if anyone would be willing to answer us some questions for our project! We would like to talk to you in Second Life or on Skype? Please reply to this message if you would like to help us!

[Canoro Philipp]

not at all, this is an expereince that many residents face day to day, more common than it seems, specially if you are an immersive user

immersion is a high level of integration with the world, and they way you percieve you avatar, is the perfect immersion state, beyond roleplay