So what brought me here to Second Life? I'd heard of it a few years back through a friend (RL of course) but had never taken the plunge myself, partly because I always think I'm too busy and partly because I figured that my PC's obsolete spec and slow internet connection would just have made it annoying anyway. Not to mention that people who hang out online are apparently scary types who only want to have sex with you or rip you off, right? That's what the media always seemed to be telling me so it must be true. Best just to stay away entirely and stick to updating my Facebook page with faintly amusing status messages instead.
And so it remained for a few years. Time passed, the (real) world turned, people grew older, I had to start buying jeans yet another size up.
The catalyst to changing my mind was at home one October morning in 2010 watching my daughter playing Little Big Planet on the PS3. She never plays any of the actual platform levels, just spends hours and hours endlessly changing the appearance of "Sackboy" (effectively her Avatar) and decorating/building stuff in her offline level (effectively her Avatar's home). Something about how much fun she seemed to have doing all this suddenly made me feel like I was missing out, though it would probably have been considered bad parenting to kick her off the game in order for me to have a go.
It then occurred to me that there were more than a passing similarity between what she was doing and what I'd heard about Second Life, something which hadn't really crossed my mind for years. Maybe it would be fun (as long as I kept a low profile to avoid those swarms of sex-crazed con merchants of course) and since I had this shiny new iMac to test run, why not give it a try?
So as I come to write this, after just a couple of short weeks in SL, what are my initial impressions? Well so far nobody has tried to rip me off or have sex with me, but then if we're totally honest here I have no Lindens and still look like a tragic noob so this probably doesn't prove much. In all seriousness though, I've been pleasantly surprised, nay overwhelmed, by just how welcoming people have been to me, not to mention how helpful and infinitely patient they've been with my noobness (which I'm still telling myself is "charming") and my near total incompetence. You guys know who you are and you're the best!
All of which brings me to this blog and why I'm writing it. I recently noticed that a few of the people I'd met thus far have blogs which chronicle the daily goings on of their Second Lives. Most of these were centred around or linked from the Moonletters.com site - go there and take a look, it's great!
Hold on, don't go right now! Wait till I'm done at least. I'll try and hurry it along....
These diaries and commentaries helped add a huge amount of extra colour to what Second Life means to a wide range of people in a short period of time, playing no small part in making me feel that this might be the kind of place I'd like to hang around in for more than just a couple of weeks. I'm also notorious for having the most abysmal memory in the known universe, so left to my own devices I'd be unlikely to remember anything of these first, tentative steps into SL beyond Christmas.
These two factors made me think that recording my experiences and musings in written form might not only be interesting for me to look back on in years to come (or, let's be honest, next week) but could potentially be read at some point down the line by others just starting out in Second Life and wondering what it might hold for them.
So if you're reading this and you're a future version of me - hello, I hope this helps jog your memory (oh, and don't forget to put the bins out). If you're reading this and you're new to SL, welcome and I hope you have as much fun as I did in my early days.
Oh, and get some decent hair for heaven's sake. Both of you!
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