Yes, this blog is to help you find a way out of SL, if you find yourself addicted to it, or to learn about it if you are otherwise interested in this topic.
SL Boredom, as you read further, you will find that I call the final stage in a person's SL time the "boredom plateau" or the stage where she finds less and less exciting and intriguing things to do. I am happy to report that I truly found this stage. Perhaps this blog and ideas might be useful to someone else besides me.
Soon, the clubs become one really stupid use of time, emoting. "Yaays", "Yuhuuus", "Hurras" and other "I am having so much fun" gestures its quite annoying, stu$#, overplayed, overacting and in many cases false.
SL business is a total myriad at this point, as well as real educational purposes. I tried it both. I tried all the serious stuff, from visiting Universities, RL clients, and SL Business. While they provided fun and I was trying to crack it, it proved a waste of time and poor business.
Its a game, period I came to realize. LOL how stupid and innocent of me of taking so long to realize it, but I had noticed that people that from the beggining use it as a game are far less prone to addiction than any other groups. The ones that fall the worse are those that treat it like its RL, and worse of all, if they start love attachemenet affairs.
Yikes!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
A recount of the times - the jobs I took inworld
After some recounting of my times in SL... This is a brief remembreance of things that kept me busy in world.
The first "job" I took was of course saying "Hi" to people at a club "Welcome Mr. Druggie657...", etc. That job paid around 50-100 per day, I left that pretty soon, then I started taking pictures for my friend Siggs, that made me from 150L to 360L per gig, then started writting for the Second Life Herald and they published 4 of my stories I used to make like 1,500 per shot and, true, I had a private agenda since and I used them to promote my "politikal views" agai
nst Second Life Addiction, not to mention that the money was better.
Then -this was only for fun and for the nice uniforms they had- I joined one of many SL police departments. I wanted to hunt the perverts! In order to enter that Department, I had to pass an interview and had to go-trough a screening and selecting process (Yeah right!) at the time I knew it was not really-real, but I tought they collaborated with LL -I know what you must be thinking- How stupid and naive of me, but I have thrown enough tomatoes to myself for that, not to mention that work did not pay.
Of course I did some modeling, with this body who wouldn't? and of course I won that contest... I had to win that contest after all other contestants had ejected due to the poor organization. We ended the cat-walk under a griefer attack, lagged, I was actually the last person in the place. That thing was probably the worse thing I did in SL, but after weeks of pulling my friends to vote for me I was to finish that thing and I was getting paid. I made 1,000L that time I had to force the organizers to pay.
I almost forget, I of course started an office in-world to tell the world about the SL Addiction thing. I was an activist and I visited sims that pretended to be "real" and looked for "established" people and "SL opinion leaders", I was determined to let them all know about it.
After I left SL for weeks and sometimes months, I started doing custom shapes and custom kitchens. Then opened the large store, and yes I started a magazine: http://www.avatarmgz.com/ Yes a magazine about avatars.
So far. All I got its the assurance that I needed out of SL.
The first "job" I took was of course saying "Hi" to people at a club "Welcome Mr. Druggie657...", etc. That job paid around 50-100 per day, I left that pretty soon, then I started taking pictures for my friend Siggs, that made me from 150L to 360L per gig, then started writting for the Second Life Herald and they published 4 of my stories I used to make like 1,500 per shot and, true, I had a private agenda since and I used them to promote my "politikal views" agai
nst Second Life Addiction, not to mention that the money was better.Then -this was only for fun and for the nice uniforms they had- I joined one of many SL police departments. I wanted to hunt the perverts! In order to enter that Department, I had to pass an interview and had to go-trough a screening and selecting process (Yeah right!) at the time I knew it was not really-real, but I tought they collaborated with LL -I know what you must be thinking- How stupid and naive of me, but I have thrown enough tomatoes to myself for that, not to mention that work did not pay.
Of course I did some modeling, with this body who wouldn't? and of course I won that contest... I had to win that contest after all other contestants had ejected due to the poor organization. We ended the cat-walk under a griefer attack, lagged, I was actually the last person in the place. That thing was probably the worse thing I did in SL, but after weeks of pulling my friends to vote for me I was to finish that thing and I was getting paid. I made 1,000L that time I had to force the organizers to pay.
I almost forget, I of course started an office in-world to tell the world about the SL Addiction thing. I was an activist and I visited sims that pretended to be "real" and looked for "established" people and "SL opinion leaders", I was determined to let them all know about it.
After I left SL for weeks and sometimes months, I started doing custom shapes and custom kitchens. Then opened the large store, and yes I started a magazine: http://www.avatarmgz.com/ Yes a magazine about avatars.
So far. All I got its the assurance that I needed out of SL.
Stage 4. Matured Experience
Yes! Finnally here.
I am not writing in any rush, actually coming here to blog its very difficult lately mostly because I am so far off SL. I call this stage "the Matured Experience Stage".
When I wrote about the 5 stages in a player's life I was in what I call Initial Immersion, how I feel now, was a path I had not taken yet, now I am writting about it since I feel so close to the Exit Stage.
My Matured Experience stage came after I had hitted the breaks hard. I ended my sweet SL affair with my best friend Siggs, I was aready loggin in much less and frankly I was starting to find SL quite dull and utterly booring.
Here is when my best friend (I have 3 best friends) Merry came to me and to
ld me she could give me some land to start my dream of a store, when she showed me the "land" I could have for free I was in awe she gave me lots of land, I dont remember the size, but it was huge, like 4x the basic parcel.
I am not writing in any rush, actually coming here to blog its very difficult lately mostly because I am so far off SL. I call this stage "the Matured Experience Stage".
When I wrote about the 5 stages in a player's life I was in what I call Initial Immersion, how I feel now, was a path I had not taken yet, now I am writting about it since I feel so close to the Exit Stage.
My Matured Experience stage came after I had hitted the breaks hard. I ended my sweet SL affair with my best friend Siggs, I was aready loggin in much less and frankly I was starting to find SL quite dull and utterly booring.
Here is when my best friend (I have 3 best friends) Merry came to me and to
ld me she could give me some land to start my dream of a store, when she showed me the "land" I could have for free I was in awe she gave me lots of land, I dont remember the size, but it was huge, like 4x the basic parcel.So I setup to live the "SecondLife Business Dream" and get ready to join the rich and famous. So I started Divine Faces and threw a bunch of the marketing It like to think I know in real life. And it was fun.
We sold "shapes" fighting a very complex market with lots of marketing challenges, for instance "how easy it is to make a shape", or "what really counts its a skin".
But still we managed to make some business, I had over 12 salesmen, they received fees automatically with each sale. We had wonderful product I had one designer. Everyting was looking up but....
Did I mention this happened during my Matured Experience stage?
Well this has many sides, on one side since I was experienced in SL, I was able to do lots of things, like negotiation, finding business partners, etc. But I also was very aware than REAL LIFE comes first so I actually did not have the time to look after this new venture. I was in such a rush to make it happen because I knew I was to start stuff in rl.
So I was away from SL for days sometimes weeks as I was giving all my attention to my real life. And the store needed attention, the people willing to work in it needed me to be there. And above all Merry was payin the land fees and she was getting very little from an idle store. So without many considerations we decided to pull the plug quickly.
I dont know what the future of this would have been. I know had I undertaken this months earlier I would have devoted countless hours to it and perhaps I would have gotten something out of my gainings in SL.
Yes, SL can be a nice experiment, a nice lab to try things out, but for me and I fear, for many its a very costly trap. BTW, thats my friend merry, aint she cute?
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Stage 3. Full Immersion
I have posponed this one for months, in part I have been away from SL a little more and in part I did not want to talk much about this stage. Perhaps I can write since in some ways I must be doing much better than the sorry-lame person I used to be. Letting my life slip into this "game" so much.
However as its names implies, this stage its when the full deep addiction is taking over a player; in my case I gave way to some of the temptations available in SL, specially those with a deep soul searching attachement to another human being. Yes I had a special one in SL one of my best friends we got too close and ...one thing leads to another... but this is terrible because I have pledged not to do anything like that with my time in the game, that way I failed to one of the many rules my family and I had established for me here.
You see, after we -my family and me- saw how much time this was consuming and affecting me, we set some ground rules for me to play SL, I was totally ok with, one of them being "no affairs".
I used to use my time day dreaming about SL, and then come running to it to try the stuff I had envisioned. Few things were more important than friends, projects and games we were playing inside this virtual land.
I hope this words that I write do not hurt the feelings of my virtual friends when they read it, new and old. I understand they looove their SL and my words might feel negative, a friend once told me, "you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar", but this addiction thing has no sweet side.
I whish I had the time back I wasted in SL. This keeps me writing this now and then and reminding me of that time when I was fully immersen in that place.
However as its names implies, this stage its when the full deep addiction is taking over a player; in my case I gave way to some of the temptations available in SL, specially those with a deep soul searching attachement to another human being. Yes I had a special one in SL one of my best friends we got too close and ...one thing leads to another... but this is terrible because I have pledged not to do anything like that with my time in the game, that way I failed to one of the many rules my family and I had established for me here.
You see, after we -my family and me- saw how much time this was consuming and affecting me, we set some ground rules for me to play SL, I was totally ok with, one of them being "no affairs".
I used to use my time day dreaming about SL, and then come running to it to try the stuff I had envisioned. Few things were more important than friends, projects and games we were playing inside this virtual land.
Full immersion for me meant, letting the horse run free, living the SL with noNow I enjoy calling SL a "game" and playing it like that, now many months after this happened I can see how much I had fallen for the fantasy of it. I tought stuff was so real, a total self-induced fantasy.
remorse, caution or control. I was a complete freak, lying to my family, an fantasy running free.
I hope this words that I write do not hurt the feelings of my virtual friends when they read it, new and old. I understand they looove their SL and my words might feel negative, a friend once told me, "you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar", but this addiction thing has no sweet side.
I whish I had the time back I wasted in SL. This keeps me writing this now and then and reminding me of that time when I was fully immersen in that place.
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