Man Confronting Cancer Puts His Virtual World Avatars Into His Real Life Will

Today, a Canadian man named Ryan Schultz is going into the operating room to get a biopsy, to see whether a previous diagnosis is correct: That he may have cancer. This is a terrifying prospect for anyone, prompting thoughts of mortality and what life means. In Ryan's case, he is a longtime player of virtual worlds and MMO, and writes about them near-daily on his excellent blog. So when it came time to think about writing his will, he thought about the online realities where so much of his memories and relationships were formed, and the assets he might share:

I actually don’t have a lot of material possessions. My biggest purchases in life have been my computer and my car. And I don’t have a will yet; I’ve been putting it off, and putting it off, and putting it off. Nobody wants to think about death and dying. But now it’s time to start to think about who I want to leave my possessions to...

And I found out that you can, indeed, leave your SL avatars to other people when you die. Linden Lab actually has a process and procedures in place, to deal with just that possibility. Which leads me to my next point.

Simply put, I need to figure out who gets what avatars when I die. 

So he is doing just that now, asking for people to contact him and volunteer to take his avatars into their care, whenever the time comes for his will to be read.  

 "I am not 'giving them away'," he stresses to me. "I am leaving them to other people via my last will and testament." For that to happen, he actually needs volunteers' real life, legal details to include in his will. More than that, he is asking for a level of trust, and personal engagement: 

"I will NOT be giving any avatars to anybody that I do NOT know, or with whom I have NOT had at least one good, long, in-depth conversation," as Ryan puts it to me with emphasis. "I do want to know who you are (and what you plan to do with my avatar) before I leave you one of these avatars, on which I have spent a great deal of time, energy, and (in some cases) money."

When I spoke with him last week, four people had already contacted him about doing this, one of whom told Ryan she'd like to use one of his avatars for roleplay purposes. (Embodying the online identity, in other words, of another person after he's gone.)

And while this may seem strange to some, it is actually a digitized evolution of a process that's existed for centuries, as people who find themselves facing death entrusting their favorite pocket watch or book of poems or other small but utterly cherished items to others who'll find value in them too. As Ryan puts it:

"I had a nice long chat with my psychiatrist yesterday, and she made me realize that what I am doing here is simply trying to assert some control in a situation where I am NOT in control. This is apparently a very normal, human response to a situation like a health crisis. It would give me some peace of mind to know that some of my avatars will live on after me. It is a sort of digital immortality."

If all goes well, however, that peace of mind will come with a healthy diagnosis, and those avatars of his will remain in his care for decades to come.

Avatar image via Ryan's blog; photo via Renal and Urology News.

Comments

[Pulsar]

I hope everything will go well, best wishes!

[Ryan Schultz]

Thanks Wagner. I'm now out of surgery and recovering at home. I won't get the biopsy results for two or three weeks.

[Hamlet Au]

We're all rooting for you, Ryan -- let us know how it goes!

[blog fan]

so happy to hear that you are fine Ryan, i was so moved by it even though we never met

[Ryan Schultz]

Well, I'm not out of the woods yet. I still have to wait for the biopsy results to see whether or not I have cancer. But thank you for your good wishes! :-)