Not yet rated
Loading ...Who’d go to Second Life for a Wife?
khenry
The BBC2 documentary Wonderland regarding relationships through the much-maligned MMO Second Life was mesmerising television - view it again within the next week using the BBC iPlayer, I was recording it to watch later on and ended up seeing all of it.
Whilst it ended on a generally positive note for two people by the end of filming, the very first couple(s) to feature (both real and virtual) showed the general issues - Second Life, whilst people would like it to be match.com or Guardian Soulmates, isn’t a straightforward online dating agency. I have nothing but respect from anyone who can make a real-life relationship work when you only have an avatar and your text streams to go by, but as the husband wondered aloud, if the fantasy became a reality thanks to the internet, could the relationship work. The “real-lifers”, once the American had travelled to the UK to meet the man behind the avatar, decided that it couldn’t.
The other reality is that had the positions been reversed for the American couple, no-one would sympathise with the husband putting life and family on hold for half the day to spend time on the internet living out this Second Life and everyone would wonder why he hadn’t been kicked out and sent on the road to divorce.
Maybe Wonderland was just showing us the female equivalent of the Championship Manager/WoW/CSS addiction causing wives to want a divorce, which is a “grace of God” story for all gamers in a relationship. Mind you, this phenomenon doesn’t seem to happen with the Sims regardless of how many add-on packs get released that try to mimic relationships, So maybe there’s something to be said for (comparatively) crap graphics - they keep the game as a game.
Ack, can’t believed I missed this - will definitely have to catch it on iPlayer. Sounds good, and thanks for the reminder…
You’re welcome Alex, in fact take your pick between BBC Iplayer’s oblong window and Youtube’s big square one;
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PniWHuv9Xko
The latter at least, could be watched beyond one week. It’s good that American imports are also available, I have to catch up with Damages…