>Bald and Topless in the Virtual World

>I’m standing in a city park, wearing a hoochie mama outfit I ordinarily wouldn’t be caught dead in. Around me, people are sitting on benches or gathered in groups, chatting. No one seems to notice me, so I decide to take off my top and search for more modest one. Within seconds, a gaggle of onlookers has surrounded me, laughing and jeering at my bare breasts. I desperately try to cover myself, but I can’t find my shirt anywhere. I can’t even move my damn arms.

I log off my computer, feeling strangely violated. If I thought I was socially awkward in real life, my Second Life is a total disaster.

For those of you who don’t read Wired Magazine, Second Life is an online virtual world with more than six million real-life “residents” from around the globe. By downloading the free program on your computer, you can create a virtual version of yourself (called an avatar) and use it to socialize, shop or explore the many lands created by other users of the program.

“It looks like a video game, but you’re not trying to win anything,” my friend Heather’s husband Tony explained to me after I convinced him to give me a tour of Second Life on his computer. “Basically, anything that happens in real life happens on Second Life. It’s like the best book you’ve ever read, because you get totally immersed in that world and the story you create.”

Tony’s Second Life personality is named Cypress Rosewood and he’s something of a celebrity in the virtual world, with a fan club consisting of more than 200 people. As Cypress, Tony holds regular live concerts in Second Life, playing guitar, flute and keyboard into a microphone hooked up to his home computer while at the same time in Second Life, a flowing-haired Cypress, wearing rich velvet robes, appears to play music in exotic locales like Stonehenge for attentive crowds of virtual alter-egos.

Cypress Rosewood

I want to see one of these concerts for myself, so I gather my courage and log back onto Second Life on a night when Cypress is scheduled to play inside a Second Life cathedral. Although my shirt is back on my body, my hair is mysteriously missing. After about five minutes of walking around searching for the cathedral, I fall off a cliff. Bald and trapped in a ditch, I eventually log off in disgust.

Even if I can’t make a decent go of my own Second Life, plenty of big names seem to think that the rest of you can- and will. Presidential hopeful John Edwards has set up a campaign headquarters in Second Life. Ohio University has established a Second Life campus. Nashville’s own Bluebird Café built a virtual nightclub in Second Life just last month, with live performances streamed inside for customers willing to fork over a few Linden dollars (that’s Second Life currency, which can be purchased with a real life credit card).

Tony’s hoping all his work in Second Life will eventually help pay the mortgage, but right now, he’s only making about $125 per live Second Life concert. “I know of at least one guy who’s a millionaire off Second Life, though,” he told me.

“What does he do?” I asked.

“Real estate,” Tony said. “He buys and sells virtual property.”

I can’t help but wonder what my friend Heather thinks of all this. I e-mail her to find out. She says that at first, it was hard to deal with Tony spending so much time in the virtual world. Now, though, she has her own avatar and enjoys shopping for clothes in Second Life and chatting with her real life friends.

“I do feel that Second Life and other virtual worlds are the harbinger of the future,” she wrote. “I see it being a necessary tool in the future for learning, business and the arts.”

But if Second Life sorely tests the average person’s computer skills, I wondered, how can it ever really catch on outside the technogeek community?

“There are all kinds of groups set up to help newbies,” she wrote reassuringly, “and there are psychiatrists there to help with avatar anxiety.”

Psychiatrists? Damn. I just want my hair back.