According to Lacan, to enter the symbolic is to learn to accept lack by becoming a subject, an "I," and thereby accept your own interchangeability with other "I's." This notion resonates heartily the the Second Life concept of an avatar.
In creating or logging onto your avatar, you become, through the mirror of the imaginary, a definitive subject, the control, behind you given actor. Yet in second life the interchangeability of the subject can be even more literal than the Lacanian understanding of subject. It is possible to imagine that the other subject you interact with, other 'I's" could not always be the same person.
When I was in second life I had a long conversation with a girl from Germany, which was weird, to be honest I still get a little creeped out talking to strangers over the internet. That said, it was pretty fun, through her sometimes broken English typing we chatted about music, the house she had just bought in second life, cars, and shopping. Anyways, the point was that as much as I was enjoying talking to another "I" in second life, the very concept of an avatar is interchangeable. I could've gotten up and let someone else control my avatar, or I could log in as another avatar, the fundamental subject is interchangeable. Bummer. Ultimately the effect is a dehumanizing one. Debby227 could be a sweet college student from Germany, or she could be a 40 year old sex offender or an undercover cop on "To Catch a Predator" trying to set up cyber stalkers. Everything is interchangeable. If modernism is the collapse and reordering of time into industrial society, and If Jameson cites Postmodernism as the collapse of distance, Second life must be and even further collapse of the subject.
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