You know which cloud I am talking about? The one that shows up before your avatar has rezzed. The glowing mass that floats and soon enough (providing that asset servers haven't gone to hell again) will get its shape and textures and become a nice looking avatar.
But before that, it can be anything. It can turn out to be anything at all. Millions of possibilities that glow right in front of your eyes. Why am I telling you this?
Because that cloud truthfully represents what the human being on the other side of the monitor might be. Just as the cloud can rezz into avatar of any shape, behind that avatar can be any of all sorts of humans. And you very rarely, if ever, know who that human in fact is.
But let's forget the facts for a bit. Have you ever played that game of placing different possible humans behind the avatars you know? Imagining them? Not guessing who is behind really, that's a fruitless job, but imagining people that are not likely to be there? Yes, all the people I met in second life were at least once imagined as truck driver in mom's basement, student procrastinating their studying for the exam, celebrity enjoying their anonymity, wife cyber-cheating her neglected husband and a whole range of less stereotypical roles. OK, now I have confessed my dirty little secret.
That game have another effect beside fun. Once you get carried away, you realize that virtually anyone (no pun intended) can be behind the avatar. It throws a completely different light on the scene. It's something like scramble suit from Dick's Scanner Darkly
It's a question old as our civilization, question of the essence versus the appearance. Since ancient Greeks we tend to think there is something behind what we see and perceive, something that we like to think is truth contrary to what our senses might lie to us. So we try to take off layer by layer of what we see, aiming to some inner truth. Like an onion. We peel layer by layer. And, while peeling the onion, we cry and the onion gets smaller and smaller. At the end, there is nothing, just a pile of leaves. There is no "real" onion inside, no truth, no essence. Onion is made of its leaves.
So you have reached the glowing cloud from the beginning of our story. Pure glowing existence of some avatar near you. And nothing but the existance. Only thing you know is that somebody IS there. Who? You'll have to wait for the avatar to rezz to know that. Yes, to show you all the layers you've tried to peel off. That cloud has a story to show you. That's your truth. What you see is what you get.
Interesting, but instead I think that people starts being a blob, hidden behind a lot of glitter, and as you know them better then the onion grows more and more layers, until you get a good idea of who they are.
Of course being a gay truck driver that cheats his husband, while at the same time prepares anonimously an exam about celebrities I am not really the one to… dande, did you really think once about me like that? Anything else ok, but mom’s basement! *shrugs*
Anyway, she lives in a flat.
Wow…
I think I have to re-read this a couple of times before I can say something about it that makes sense (or ignore the 5 drafts that I have waiting and blog about it – it’s been long since one of your posts directly inspired my writing :P ). Terrific thoughtful post!
/me makes a mental note: No London in the basement anymore. :)
Seriously, going in that direction (from the glowing cloud to the idea of who somebody is) is a good way to go. bad scenarios are those that doesn’t include both states.
Zipp, you lazy kitty, come back and give us your thoughts!
I really really enjoyed this post.
I do the opposite of you though, in that I rarely wonder what or who they are on the other side. In fact when they mention something that gives a hint or direct info it always suprises me.
I never forget that there is a real person behind every avatar, real feelings, real thoughts, but I don’t visualize them in any way. Maybe I should do it this way though.
Lovely an’ thought-provoking analogy!
(I like to pretend that everybody I talk to might really be Dick Cheney, or the Pope, trying to expand their inner horizons…)
Oh dande, it’s a lovely analogy but there is more to you than your leaves. The most important aspect of you cannot be seen but must be felt by those with the sensitivity to do so. But take heart, for that aspect of you can also move me to tears.
[...] 29, 2008 by London Spengler A little ago dandellion Kimban posted about the human behind the avatar. Then there was the annoying thing about Vint Falken’s gender (I still wonder why everybody [...]
Great meta-phor :)
We are a foggy onion aren’t we?
It’s not easy being patient, peeling the layers…and in retrospect - sometimes it wasn’t worth it, but for this one special onion…all those tears are a small price to pay.
I wonder if LL visioned the fog cloud as a symbol of the avatars’ soul, but it’s pretty accurate, except there is no avatar out there, only us.
Well, I guess maybe there is an avatar…and maybe he’s thinking the same;
- there is no foggy cloud inside of me, there is no user, that’s just a myth.
Maybe the avatars got it right right. Maybe there is no user, maybe we’re all gods of one layer, avatars in another.
But maybe, holding that big onion, there’s this one, unique user (or avatar?), sees all, knows all, you know the type :)
and maybe this user-person is wandering all layers, just looking for…whatever it is we’re looking for…
Maybe we’ll meet one day, that would be cool.
Hey! could this user be me?
..umm…no….it’s probably you.
Really thought-provoking!