15th Thing: Second Life

I have an account in Second Life. I've had it for well over a year now. My Second Life name is Friday Pontoppidan. I have visited the site several times but rather than finding it interesting and engaging I've found it a little weird at times and occasionally creepy.

On one of my 1st visits to Second Life I learned to fly. That was really fun. I liked soaring high over the landscapes and across the ocean. Then I landed on a island. There were lots of buildings but no people, so I explored. I went into a building that seemed to be under construction and I fell into a hole. A very deep hole. I couldn't climb out; I couldn't jump out. I yelled, "Help" -- or at least I typed it. Maybe I should have typed it in ALL CAPS because no one heard me. To save my virtual life I could not figure out how to get out of that hole. So I just quit the program.

I came back several weeks later. This time I visited the ALA site and a virtual library. I was given a t-shirt - virtual, of course -- for stopping by but I couldn't figure out how to put it on. I was also very confused by the bonfire on the roof of the library. Live fires in or on library buildings just seem like a bad idea to me. But I guess I'm just not thinking virtually. Anything is possible in Second Life.

I know that part of the supposed draw of Second Life is the chance to interact with people from all over the world in this virtual world. Social interaction. The problem with that is that I'm not that great with social interaction in the First World. So when I see other people in Second Life rather than go up and chat with them I tend to walk away. Once I ended up on another island -- there are a lot of islands in Second Life. I heard drums and I saw a large group of people in the distance with torches. That time I didn't walk away, I ran. Until I remembered that I could fly; then I took wing.

The last time that I visited Second Life I was attempting to show my husband the interesting world and the people there. We were in a park. There was a biplane flying overhead. There was also big gray bunny person and several cat people. Then a figure dressed in black dropped in from the sky. I said, "I think that fellow has a gun." My husband, ever the optimist said, "I think it's an umbrella" just as the fellow started to shoot his "umbrella." By this time I've become fairly adept at getting out of Dodge quickly.

I haven't been back since then. I know that there must be less strange places in Second Life but I haven't had much luck there. I also have doubts about the lasting usefulness of Second Life to libraries. The program requires a lot of computing power and a high speed connection to the internet. Some of our patrons have neither in their homes and even some of our branches would have difficulties running the program. I think that Second Life, at least in its present form, won't have a major impact on how we provide liibrary service.

I should have known that Second Life was going to be a struggle for me when I created my avatar Friday Pontoppidan and she somehow ended up with a bald spot. Apparently female pattern baldness is a problem even in the virtual world.