So I spent three hours on Second Life last night! One hour was delegated to customizing my avatar’s face and body so that it “looked” like me (it doesn’t…at all). Five minutes were spent flying (obviously). And the last hour and 55 minutes were wasted on my trying to figure out why I was bald on the back of my head! I could not for the life of me figure it out. Eventually I had to wake up this morning and google “how do I change my hair in Second Life.” After all of that, I still only managed a lousy ponytail.
Why did I care so much that my avatar look like me? Isn’t the point of Second Life to explore an alternate structure of being that is inaccessible to us in reality?
Now that I think about it, I think it was more that I was immensely frustrated with the medium. Sitting, walking, even looking took manual effort whereas in life these actions are second nature. I cannot ignore the fact that I find technology immensely FRUSTRATING. Does anyone else feel like technology is more trouble than it’s worth? Or that technology never works the way it is supposed to?!
What do these glitches mean? Are they innate to the system? Are they the gaps that distinguish between personalized experience and totalistic structure (Jameson)?
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