The Alphaville Herald

Shuless – Episode Three

by Alphaville Herald on 15/05/08 at 7:46 am

Music, Poetry and Tasteful Vulgarity

by Iona Nikolaidis

I am not a novelist. I am not even a creative person. When I tell a story at a party, and I do, it has a logical beginning, middle, end. Prologue, Epilogue. There is an order to things. People need to be able to follow the lines. SL isn’t like that. Blogging isn’t like that. I have never blogged before, and in writing this blog for what, 2 days now, I understand that it takes discipline to stick to a linear narrative (not that anyone is forcing me to).

This blog, like Iona’s Second Life, is a living, breathing, shifting thing, as elusive as a wave breaking on the sand, the pools of water left in shallows. But if I don’t try to stick to a linear narrative, I will spoil the big reveal. And to my mind, a good story teller needs to be able to communicate the story to the greatest number of people at a time (not everyone is going to understand Finnegan’s Wake….). I have to resist the terrible urge in me to jump ahead, to pull back the curtain. So, I won’t let you jump to the end of the book either, and you will have to see the movie.

People enter into Second Life because of real life compulsions. There are no casual players of SL. You either want to play (me) or you see no value in it and have no interest in it (French Fry). For some, those compulsions are rather base – the free pecker crew. I am not judging this. Picture some man (yeah, although I can make up any reality, I will go to my grave knowing that every avatar I ever met in a sex Sim – “male” or “female” – was a dude IRL….except for me. Trust me!) For others, they want to participate in some community, and may do so by organizing behind a specific idea.

Picture the L Word Sim, where I used to play Trivia and seriously kicked ass at it. A lot of those avatars are actual lesbians or women who don’t want to get harassed by male avatars in SL……and a lot of them have made real life connections. I judge this favorably. It is just another way of meeting people, and I would never say those relationships forged over high-speed connections don’t “matter.”

Still others enter the game as a result of more pressing real-life needs….Grief, for example. I place myself in that camp. SL afforded me a wonderful escape, a dream, a distraction. It was like dropping acid and the trip lasted for days (I am not suggesting I ever did acid, mom and dad!) There are, of course, less pathetic reasons for entering the game. Some of us suffer from an overabundance of imagination, like the excessive amounts of squash, zucchini and tomatoes spilling from gardens in late summer. These folks have a lot to give, and they need to give in order to get. And others of us, Iona included, love them some tomatoes.

Iona was not the best-looking avatar in Second Life (Iona has a myspace page with some pics, www.myspace.com/ionanikolaidis; take a look-see and make your own judgment). And, for better or worse, Second Life holds a mirror to real life in that regard; people will decide to talk to you based on your avatar’s appearance, the things you say in your profile, and the conversations you may have in public chat (ok, none of this matters in a sex Sim. The standard in a sex Sim for striking up a conversation is that your avatar is female and that your avatar is there).

So, as I said, Iona didn’t get a lot of Instant Message action, at least at the start. First of all, as I have said, I am not the most creative person. Styling and design are not my things. Hell, in RL, I go for days wearing the same pair of pants, and I have at least 12 pairs of the same shoes. If I could wear a uniform, and if everyone else had to wear one, that would make my life easier. But, eventually, the sheer force of one’s personality will come through. I think the guys on Law & Order Criminal Intent call such things associated with your personality “tells.” If you are loudmouth know-it all in real life (guilty!), that’s what you’ll be in SL. If you are a chameleon in RL, that’s who you will be in SL. If you are a narcissistic, overly confident and not-too-bright person in RL, that’s who will come to play in SL.

That brings me to Vhaera Sands. Vhaera Sands was a “hostess” at the Witches’ Brew. Her avatar was created sometime in early April, after Iona. But her eye for design and styling was light years ahead of where Iona was or ever would be. Maybe she had played SL before with a different avatar, maybe not. This ability either buttressed or fortified her ego, because whoever Vhaera was, she one of the most self-obsessed and self-absorbed avatars I met in SL. And, of course, because I like shiny new things like most people, I fell for her, if only briefly. Along with how many other avatars, I don’t know. Vhaera was the first female avatar Iona cybered with in SL (and it was only once). She was obviously very skilled at it, much more so that Iona was at the time (and probably still). And she was able to do it, through IM, with multiple people simultaneously. Talk about your multi-tasking!

In April 2007, Vhaera was one of the reasons why the Brew was a hopping virtual spot (that changed later, but I won’t get ahead of myself). Every night, I’d log into SL for another round of sexual innuendo in public chat and the occasion grab ass in IM. But eventually (and we’re talking like within a week here. I think that’s two months in SL-time), I had enough talk about taut bodices and black corsets (I like Bauhaus and the Cruxshadows, but I am too old and too boring to have been a goth). So the public chat became my playground. And because I am the life of the party in real life, that’s who I was in SL. I would start rousing games of “So who’s a man?” in the public chat. This would lead to rampant speculation and catcalls, and it was really, really funny to watch the banter slinging around the room in real time. More than once, then and still, I have sat in front of my computer monitor with tears running down my face. There were two people who were particularly good at playing “So who’s a man?” Vhaera was not one of them, and that ended my interest.

One was ursula Rustamova. Ursula was one of the other dancer/hostesses at the Brew. Ursula was also very well-designed, and had an aggressive sense of humor. She would talk about arming herself with her AK-47 and blowing shit up. Check out ursula’s profile in SL to see what’s up with her now. RIP Ursula.

The other avatar who caught my eye and interest during the “So who’s a man?” bouts was Alexandra Shu. Alex’s avatar reads hip young college student, to my mind anyway. Alex was one of the quickest in the repartee, and would proudly claim she was an 87-year-old man from Detroit. I can’t remember the name she gave. It was a hoot. Iona liked her. Not as much as Vhaera, at the moment, but enough.

Trinity Cole, Publican, however, did not like Iona’s game. During one heated session of “So who’s a man?”, Iona got an IM that, for the first time, elicited the feeling you get when you are pulled over by a cop (unless you are a psycho).

“Please stop,” she said. “You are violating the club rules and the Second Life terms of service.”

“Are you kidding?” said Iona.

“No. The terms of service prohibit an action that would violate another avatar’s privacy. What you’re doing could get you banned. Please stop.”

Now, did I mention I am a lawyer? My immediate reaction was to find the Terms of Service, point out that she was wrong (and, although it is a pointless argument, she IS wrong about what the TOS say, but it’s her club, so her rules), and slap her with a virtual lawsuit for violating my First Amendment right to free speech.

My actual reaction, for the moment…..

“Ok, sorry. I’ll stop.”

And so will I. For the moment.

[Shuless appears courtesy of http://soshuless.blogspot.com/ and is reprinted here by permission of Iona Nikolaidis]