Growing up in the middle of nowhere Midwest, I spent countless hours of my early schooling on AOL chat rooms. Pretending to be different characters, out of boredom and curiosity, and giving myself the questionable name of ‘Cindy’, I would join chat rooms and lie through my teeth as a way to escape reality and meet people that live all around the world. Eventually this led me on a journey into interacting with virtual worlds that carried more than just text. Avatars take Internet anonymously to the next level, while you can still pretend to be whomever your mind can create, now the option of turning your creation into a walking, living being is presented! Hallelujah! Though eventually my obsession with the Internet has calmed, an interest in characters remains and followed its way into animating (my focus) and brought me into this class.
My experience so far with Second Life has been spectacular, flying through fields of digitally sculpted flowers, riding roller coasters, and now beginning to create my own objects for others to interact with. Second Life allows the user to do literally anything imaginable. Illegal fantasies can be lived out without consequence, one can run through the streets naked, ride a giant tampon among the planets, and even mimic their current life through this incredible medium of digital technology.
Learning how to animate using second life has its advantages as well. The moment you create something it is up for view, giving the creator feedback and inspiration to model more objects. Looking around at different creations, what others have no doubt spent much time on, whether they are ‘an artist’ or not begins to fade. Judgment is lost and what lies before you is accepted as a reality. The only thing that matters is this second world, waiting for you at the ends of your fingertips.
