Greetings, fellow Heterotopians! So, if you've been reading this journal for the last couple of days, you will of course already know of my growing obsession with the alternative-reality videogame Second Life: how I saw a video last week by the company's founders, at the Google campus, finally explaining to me how the game works, which got me kind of excited; and how then the next day, after reading through most of the extensive documentation at the game's site, I learned that there are in fact free memberships available as well, which got me even more excited. And so sure enough, on Friday I got to actually play SL for the first time, which I found even a more magical and surreal experience than I was expecting (and I was expecting it to be pretty magical and surreal). And so then I played it all Saturday as well, literally having to force myself off it every couple of hours to do things like eat, expecting this to fully turn into my newest online obsession, and in this case one that could actually make me money in the real world (but more on this in a bit). Ah, but then I learned something Saturday night that made me realize that in fact, no, SL is probably not in my destiny soon after all, not until something major happens to my system at home. So today, the entire long story, peppered with actual "snapshots" from the game atmosphere itself; and like last Friday, if you're not into either gaming or alternative realities, you might just want to go read Salon today instead or something. Oh, and there are actually 42 photos total that illustrate today's story; the ones not reprinted here can be found at my Flickr account, displayed there in chronological order.

So first of all, say hello to Miller Copeland, which is who I am in Second Life; it turns out that everyone has to go by an alias there, in fact, that no real names are even allowed. Granted, I didn't look like this when I first woke up in SL, but rather as a generic surfer dude; but that's one of the first things you're told when you wake up, that you can easily go in and change your avatar's appearance (by right-clicking on yourself, to be exact). And wow, there are just dozens upon dozens of customizations and controls for how your avatar looks; ten just for the nose alone, for example, ranging from nostril width to tip sag to mid-bridge arch. This is one of the first things you learn in SL, that you just keep get reminded of over and over, that things don't work the same way here than they do in other videogames; things here are infinitely more complex and customizable, every single step of the way, than anything you're likely used to.

So why this particular look? Well, for one, because regular readers know already that it kinda looks like me in RL (real life) as well, although maybe a bit sexier and more severe, as if Willem Dafoe and I had had a love child or something. But then of course another part of it is that I really want to give myself a distinct look in SL, something that people will really remember, and recognize quickly when they see me again; and considering how many people I've already seen, floating around like perfect 22-year-old Japanese sex bombs, I figured a guy who would make himself look like Miller will definitely be remembered, simply for injecting a little reality into their avatar. (When outrageousness is the norm, it's the minimalist that's shocking. Never forget that.) And then of course I chose this particular look also for what I'm specifically trying to accomplish in SL; what I'm expecting to do there professionally, in other words, that could possibly make me real money in the real world, that I can cash out through a Paypal account. And to understand all that, you need to understand three things I learned quickly about SL when first reading about it:

1) That it's possible to marry an avatar there with a Shoutcast streaming audio signal - so at a virtual club there, for example, a real musician can be playing somewhere in real life, and have a feed of it coming into the game, so that others also sitting in the club can hear it too, through their own computer's speakers. And not only that, but the musician can interact with you too; they can read your IM, for example, off their own computer screen, then respond to it out loud in the Shoutcast.

2) That because fun social interaction is such a necessary part of enjoying the game, the owners of Second Life (Linden Labs) actually pay the people who throw successful and popular events of their own within their virtual world.

And 3), that there are apparently a ton of people in SL looking for cybersex hookups, and sometimes ongoing fetish relationships (BDSM, for example, is apparently huge there), just like you might find at a group chat system, but that so far no one has set up a good way for these people to find and communicate with each other. And the only places that do offer such things are get-rich-quick megacompanies, operating casinos and whorehouses and danceclubs and the like all under one gigantic roof, who really have no interest in actually organizing such things, but instead simply fleecing you of as many Linden Dollars (L$) as they can. (L$250 equals about US$1, or 0.50 pounds, or 0,80 euros.)

So, this was my idea - to be a professional, full-time social-event producer within SL, to make it an entire small business, one that would hopefully bring in enough of a profit to equal actual US dollars at the end of each month as well, after paying my in-game bills. Specifically, I'm thinking of doing the following:

--Open SL's first hipster artistic club/cafe - one specifically for musicians, poetry slammers, intellectual speakers, novelists on book tours and the like. Build myself just this super hipster-looking space, after mastering the Linden Scripting language used to build all objects within SL. (That is, it's completely free to build any fantastical thing you want in-game, as long as you're willing to teach yourself the programming language Linden uses. Most people don't want to take the trouble, though, which is why there's such a lucrative trade in pre-made objects - clothing, buildings, weapons, specialized body parts, specialized hairdos, etc. It's the second-largest industry in SL, in fact, after real estate.) Sometimes we would actually just pipe in the physical live events CCLaP will be holding here in Chicago, but with a SL host in-game since we'll all be busy with the actual event here in real life; and then sometimes they would be exclusive in-game events, like SL musicians, an entirely in-world poetry slam, etc.

Anyone who wants can get in for free; but then I'll build this cool-ass VIP section as well, like a whole second floor or something, that people could become paying cardmembers to enter. People love doing this in SL, I've learned; paying just a little vanity money to have exclusive access to things in-game that others don't. And the most beautiful part of this - from all the conversations I've now had, not a single other person in SL is doing this. Which is ridiculous, because just think how many members of SL are cutting-edge hipsters - most of them, in fact, or they would've never heard of SL! I bet they're all sitting around just praying for something cool like this to do in the evenings, a place to come back to again and again; and if I can be the first person to get in there and do that, it most certainly means money coming in hand over fist for me.

--And then second, open SL's first-ever decent swinging club; that is, where hookers and strippers aren't utilized, but rather SL members themselves hooking up with each other, having private and sometimes group cybersex encounters, each of them paying a membership rate per month to have access to the place. And the secret of pulling this off, of course, is to not let just anyone join; for me to be very selective, in fact, to pick only people who are good cyberers, who have sexy and detailed avatars, who are in-game a lot, who have a healthy sense of sexuality, who are social creatures, etc. And then of course with the ignoring of physics like you have in a virtual world, I could again build just this really cool-ass building for the club to actually be in; with social rooms, intimate rooms, themed rooms, little private chat hubs built off into a floating wing, whatever. Whatever your mind can think of in SL, you can create, which is the beauty of building a sex club within an environment like that. And then this would be strictly a money-making venture; to hopefully sell a decent amount of memberships at a decent price (100 at $10 a month would rake me an extra $12,000 a year, for example), and then to also have a retail wing attached, where we sell customized fetish clothing for avatars, sex toys and other scripted objects, etc.

So yeah, combine this with the artistic events, done solely to gather a crowd and in-world reputation; and you're suddenly talking about the prospect of me maybe making, what, $20,000, $25,000 in a year from this? From a fuckin' videogame, man! And with my "job" consisting, of course, of being a super-hipster badass, who all the men want to be and all the women want to change, who throws these legendary parties that people trip over themselves trying to get invitations to. Yeah, right on; a much better way to make a living than being a fucking administrative assistant, I think. So hell yeah I'm taking things seriously within the game, knowing from the start that these are my goals. And so that's yet another reason to design my avatar to look as he does; because I want a sense of world-weary edginess to him, as if he's already seen everything there is to see in the world, and there's nothing left to shock him. As we all know from real life, after all, these people throw the best parties, because they just no longer give a fuck about anything.

(UPDATE: Funny - one of my friends I've been talking with about this just emailed and said, "Sounds like maybe you want to be the Oscar Wilde of Second Life." Yes, that's it, exactly! Thank you for putting it in such succinct terms!)

Okay, enough of that! So it turns out that SL has this really interesting way of introducing new players to the game universe, one they just implemented not that long ago; there is an entire island there now, in fact, where first-time players get automatically sent, instead of simply into the maelstrom of the "mainland," as it were. It's called Help Island, in fact, closed to regular citizens, and is such a cool way to get introduced to this endlessly complicated game! The first time you wake up, for example, you're at the top of a hill at the top of the island, in this little ring of trees. And there's a green hand there that says "Click me," and that in turn loads a notecard to your inventory (sort of a handbag, but infinitely large), telling you how to go in and change your appearance. The beginning tutorial for First Dayers, then, is literally like a big Zen garden planted all the way down the hill, this wood and stone path you walk down, with more green hands explaining more things along the way. Fucking BRILLIANT, man, I don't know where to even start, you know? What an amazing way to get people immediately used to the graphic-intensive, virtual reality of it all, than to literally plot the help guide as a maze you walk through.

By the end of the tutorial you've learned all kinds of basic things; how to move, fly, and change camera angles, how to change clothes, how to talk with others and give/receive things. And then that takes you into Help Island proper, which has been set up as this six-section landmass, each section teaching you in more detail about one specific aspect of Second Life (like objects, scripting, land, etc, along with a large "sandbox," public pieces of land where anyone can script and practice "building" things). And wow, where do I start with this interface? Well, first of all, the shit you're seeing in the air there twists and rotates in real time, while you're actually playing the game. They have images and videos on them, too; if I was on a screaming-fast gaming computer, for example, I'd see them in perfect resolution. And there are other people, of course, coming and going all the time, each of them controlled deliberately by a human, all of it updating in real time on your screen as well. Oh, plus, even the details of other people's avatars hold up, when you scroll in tightly on their face; that is, if I had one of these tricked-out gaming computers and did such a thing, I'd even be able to see freckles and tan lines that person might have deliberately added.

Wow. WOW! Did you even know that we were at this kind of point of sophistication with computer graphics? I certainly didn't; when even home PCs (albeit only the newest, most powerful ones) can faithfully render such an infinitely complex 3D environment in real time? It's mind-boggling at times, and definitely has a way of just quickly and totally sucking you into the virtual world of Second Life...ooh, and especially when playing in full-screen mode, of course, as you can well imagine. And then that suddenly leads to a change in the way you dress, present yourself, even what you consider priorities, which of course is what lets people get so obsessed with this stuff and spend $5 million in real money last year on virtual clothes, houses and real estate. It's very easy to see why this happens to so many people there, even after playing for just one day.

Well, shit, look at all the stuff I didn't even get to today, yet am starting to severely run over my usual limit at this point. Okay, so I'll finish up this ultra-nerdy field report tomorrow; and I do, do apologize to all my readers out there who couldn't really give much of a shit about videogames, alternative realities and the like. I swear, back to naughtiness, Lost and the chewing out of corporate executives in just a couple of days.