How Did You Handle Your First Surreal SL Experience?

In preparation for a new blog, artist and avatar sex god Bone Mosten is recounting old memories of his first moments in Second Life, which he first joined, surprisingly enough, via 2007's unsuccessful CSI experience. While enjoying the area's pre-scripted murder mysteries, he has an intution that "the really interesting stuff is out there, in the wilds." So he wandered into the wider world of SL. Here's what he found early on:

I went to a steampunk themed island where I was hit on by a gay anthropomorphic rabbit who looked like he was tripping on E. Soon after a woman appeared. She asked if I liked girls? I said I did. She told me she was an escort. I asked if she would accept jokes as payment since I didn’t have any money at the time (also wasn’t terribly interested in soliciting a virtual prostitute.) She said no and flew off with the psychedelic rabbit.

What's clear from his response is Bone had found a new virtual home. The average CSI viewer, I think it's fair to say, wouldn't respond so favorably to sexual solicitations in a world of steampunk and rainbow-flavored homosexual rabbits. In fact, when a new user decides whether they want to invest any time exploring Second Life, their first experience with the surreal seems just as important as the interface's high learning curve. What was yours, and how did you respond?

Comments

[Uccello Poultry]

My first surreal experience in SL made me cry. While wandering around a sim I was enjoying butterflies and a miniature train in a park when I saw a giant egyptian Anubis statue, all glossy back with gold trim. As I approached to admire it the head turned and he spoke to me. I had met my first Daryth Kennedy Wryms dragon and was stunned. Then a smaller Anubis stomped in, a Wyrmling I was to learn, then a baby, and the sight of these creatures made me fall out of my desk chair and cry. They were so fantastic and beautiful and startling. I wish I could recapture that innocence and that moment.

[Tateru Nino]

I don't think SL has ever afforded me experiences as surreal as I've had in other, previous virtual environments. Perhaps I got jaded by the surreal long before SL came along.

[Galena Qi]

Brand new to SL and still on Orientation Island, I was gazing in awe at my very first rezzed prim (a pyramid)when a naked Mr. Clean look-alike avatar dashed over and sat down on the point. He proceeded to make obscene gestures while I (and my pre-teen child looking over my shoulder) broke up in hysterical laughter. While some might have taken this as a bad omen, I saw the potential for creative chaos and further surreality and have never been disappointed.

[Arwyn Quandry]

I can't recall really ever having such a surreal experience that it made an impact on me. Perhaps I did but don't remember, or maybe I won't really have one until I hit Main Grid. Or I could just be so used to weird things on the internet that nothing phases me anymore.

[Alicia Chenaux]

/me dies.

Did you really just call him a sex god?!

[eekee]

My imagination is so much more surreal than most of the content of SL. It was fuelled by the myriad books I devoured when I was a child as well as the visual impact of Star Wars and the astonishing diversity of Star Trek. I've seen plenty of builds and avatars that made me go "Cool!" but...

SL is too damn expensive and too damn limited. you need a whole sim to begin to get control over lighting, and then what you've got is hobbled by the pointless lack of negative light sources. Actually on the subject of lighting, the replacement of software lighting with hardware lighting ruined what was for me the most evocative place - the Nexus Prime undercity and sewers. It lost every last ounce of wonder and surprise (alright, creepiness and scare factor :p ) when flooded with the same old ambient light as everywhere else.

On the flip side I did come across a full-sim build a few months ago that kinda woke me up to thinking outside the box of reality again; I'd almost lost touch with that side of me in a couple of years in SL, notwithstanding the elves, pixies and furries. The build is called Tunnel of Light. It sits you in a teacup and takes you on a tour through glow, basically. There's lots of abstract but the garden with the thinnest outlines of flowers is what I particularly remember. Very beautiful. Unlike software-lit Nexus Prime however I've got no particular desire to return and linger.

[Nica Pennell]

Mine happened in Yadni's junkyard. I was wandering around browsing for freebies and had just picked up a whole bunch of clothing when I got mugged - a guy hit me with a cage gun and then stood there yelling "NICA GIVE ME 10L!" over and over.

I had no money and wasn't about to give the mugger the satisfaction of a profit anyway. So I took the opportunity to start trying on the various freebie outfits I'd picked up. And it struck me that this was effectively a reverse strip club act - I was a woman in a cage who kept putting on more clothing while a guy demanded money from me.

Eventually the guy wandered off, and I couldn't figure out how to get out of the cage (total newbie :) so I logged off for the night when I was done trying clothing. Still, fun times.

[hen3ry mensing]

My first truly memorable experience was while I was flying.
It was my first time in an online game and I found out I loved flying. I had been born in world only about 2 hours before; when in the distance I saw a figure fly towards me. The little blob in the distance turned into a wonderful huge green and blue dragon flapping his wings and it was flying at me.
The dragon flew up to me and said “hello how are you”.
I replied “fine”
The dragon said “me too what are you doing”, and I said “flying I love to fly” and he said “me too”
Then I said “you’re beautiful” and he said “thank you” and then he flew away.
Not earth shaking I admit but mildly spiritual for me.
It used to be there were allot of furrys and their subset were dragons which were few even in the beginning.
I haven’t seen a dragon in 2 years its kind of sad sometimes.