The Virtual World Postcard Project: Tiny steps
Dear Friends,
Everybody talks about the liberating power of online anonymity. It seems so intoxicating to know that you can pretend to be anybody you want, and nobody you interact with will be the wiser.
That’s the fantasy, but the not, in my opinion, the reality. In fact, my 20 years of online observation and participation strongly suggests that the real headiness for many people is the power to be even more authentic, more themselves, than they can be in real life.
That’s not to say there aren’t dirty old men posing as 13-year-old girls, or weaklings wearing cloaks of muscularity. But those deceptions can obscure the rest of what’s happening – and the rest matters.
Case in point – a talk I gave recently raised the ire of many Second Life denizens who felt I misrepresented their community. They responded swiftly, firmly and generously, inviting me further into their world so that I could get a sense of what was really happening.
I took up the offer of Honour McMillan (whose recent blog post on Second Life identity is especially worth a read) for a tour.
Everyone in Second Life, of course, came there from the real world, but Honour MacMillan is about as close as you could get to a Second Life native. In the hour we spent together (the first of many, I hope) the two of us teleported here and there across Second Life’s 8,000+ square kilometres, visiting sites filled with elaborately designed works of art and archetecture – steampunk, deco, quasi-gothic and styles whose classifications I wouldn’t dare to guess at.
Because my headset mike was broken, I could hear Honour talking, but could only respond via typed message. Despite this awkward, asymmetrical communication, and despite the fact that the only thing I ever saw of her was her avatar, I knew almost immediately that I trusted and respected Honour. She was articulate, good-natured, passionate, knowledgeable, and generous.
In real life, you often must wait longer – especially when you’re a stranger in a strange land – before you make up your mind about a new acquaintance. Something about the online world, though, helps to cut that process down to almost nothing.
This isn’t about anonymity – it’s about cutting straight to authenticity.
It’s counterintuitive, both because of the awkwardness of the technology, and because you would expect a more mediated experience to be less, not more intimate than meeting in real life. But there it is.
Honour and I went traveling.
As we moved from location to location, even more striking than the imagination and beauty of in-world creations was the immense time and energy that had to have gone into creating them.
The last place Honour took me was the Tiny Community of Raglan Shire. She called it “One of the most tightly knit communities in Second Life.”
The community’s tagline is, “Friendship, creativity, silliness.”
Tinies are a special kind of avatar. As the name suggests, they are very small – Tinies can’t be created through normal avatar channels, but must be made with special in-game coding. They are often animalian, lovingly and elaborately detailed, friendly, quirky and weirdly complex.
Honour knew many of the Raglan locals and introduced me around. I forget why it came up, but they invited me to check out the local bowling alley. (If you look in the postcard above, you can see that the alley is right next to the drive-in cinema. There are also fashion shows, regattas, poetry slams, a water park and much more.)
Meeting these Tinies, even for just a few minutes, I was again struck not just by how much imagination went into creating these beings, but how much work. I get exhausted just trying to navigate Second Life, let alone trying to create something in the game, let alone trying to create a miniscule walking, talking, dancing, bowling bunny rabbit with an intricately patterned dress and bonnet, and unique mannerisms and personality.
How do the Tinies fit my thesis that virtual worlds lead to more authenticity rather than more make-believe? After all, I didn’t really meet a six-inch tall schnauzer with purple shades and matching dress.
I did, however, get a very clear sense of the humour and hospitality of the people in this Tiny community – humour and hospitality that can be expressed in Raglan Shire in ways the real world simply does not allow.
Honour McMillan
August 25, 2011 @ 10:12 pm
We’ve barely started your tour 🙂 I have a lot more planned for you but I’m very glad the journey has started well – those cute little darlins are a delight.
Selah Fairport
August 26, 2011 @ 7:33 am
I am a tiny from Raglan, and I wanted to share my thoughts on this issue. I came to SL and was a “biggie” (what tines call regular human avatars) until I met some tines and fell in love with their lifestyle. For me, being tiny is being more authentic. It’s moving beyond what I want to look like, or used to look like in my glory days (ie, many of the perfect human avatars are reflecting that for their real human at the keys). It’s choosing to move beyond the limits of gender, body shape, age, race, etc. by choosing instead to embrace an avatar that avoids all those limits. It’s about a community of tines that comes to SL to really connect, care about, uplift, each other while being fun and lighthearted as much as possible. Its about avoiding the drama and pitfalls of online sexual relationships and sexual objectification that SL has a lot of. It is about taking the time to enjoy the simpler, and goofier, things that we may overlook or be unable to do in real life. It’s about honoring that internal innocent child while also using our adult abilities to be creative and using our kindness and acceptance to really get to know the core being in those who make up our community. Being a tiny is an awesome opportunity and a gift I am so grateful to partake in. Welcome to Raglan Shire. *Riverdances*
Patchen Barss
August 26, 2011 @ 7:05 pm
I know that in text-based virtual worlds, people have also found bold new ways to move beyond standard real-life classifications. In gender terms, for instance, people chose personae that were male, female, both, neither, neuter, other or none of the above.
So here’s my question: Was the Tiny world merely an escape from Biggie avatars, or was it also an escape from real-life categorization or limitation? And regarding real life, how complete is that escape – because however meticulously conceived and detailed your avatar is, you-the-real-life-human, being is still a part of that entity. Is it really possible to leave one self behind for another, even for a little while?
Selah Fairport
August 27, 2011 @ 12:23 am
SL is a complicated mix of role playing and authenticity, and that’s where knowing information about the specific area you are on makes a huge difference in knowing what to expect. Sometimes I forget that since I have been very selective in where I choose to hang out.
For me, going tiny was an escape from some types of biggies (on the prowl, obnoxious, griefers, trolls, etc) but most tinies still use biggie avatars sometimes. Most of the tinies I know though have pretty much made the switch to completely being tiny unless visiting a specific event or role playing sim where tinies are not allowed. Going tiny was also a way of avoiding some of the limitations I felt still existed as a biggie (age, race, gender, body shape, what type of person you appear to be based on your appearance/clothes/makeup, etc). Just because it is text communication doesn’t mean that our eyes still don’t filter the avatars the same way we judge people in the real world. Body language is still a huge part of communication in SL.
I think people, big or tiny, are usually still being true to some very real part of their core self. Unless you are in a role playing sim, then you’re usually asking to be very different or a very extreme version of some aspect of yourself. I’ve met a lot of people across the grid who see SL as one huge RPG venue, and luckily most of them are very upfront with that in their profile. It’s not uncommon to see disclaimers like “This is just a game for me” or “Don’t ask me about real life because this isn’t real life” or even “I come here to escape real life and I don’t allow the two to mix.”. So in RPG, yes, I think you can leave a huge part of yourself behind, but then you run the risk of becoming one dimensional, and it is hard to maintain over very extended periods of time.
So, authentic or fake is the user’s choice. As for me and most of the tinies I have met, we choose authentic.
Eilidh McCullough
August 27, 2011 @ 9:53 am
Having been one of the tinies who met Patchen, I must say I enjoyed this article, and I hope he gets the chance to visit us again soon.