Every week, between 35 and 50 million people log into “virtual worlds”: computer-generated 3D worlds built by their users. This book, Guest’s “personal journey through the electronic looking glass”, explores how Second Life, a virtual world with over six million registered accounts, offers people the chance to find a sense of intimacy and community that their “first lives” may lack.
Guest meets Plastic Duck, the creation of a 19-year-old who is bedridden with Crohn’s disease, and Wilde Cunningham, the able-bodied persona of nine severely disabled people. He discovers that “real” and “virtual” worlds constantly overlap. People buy and sell virtual goods and property on eBay for real cash to the tune of £400m each year. And just as Guest edits out his love handles when creating his Second Life character “Errol Mysterio”, so, in real life, millions of members of social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace edit pictures and personal details, “retouching” their personas as they see fit.
Guest’s focus tends to jump a little unpredictably from chapter to chapter, but if anything this makes reading Second Lives closer to the experience of a virtual world: at times disorienting and confusing, but none the less compulsive.
