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JS Final Project:  Families in SL

Page history last edited by Jordan Smith 14 years, 3 months ago

To Readers:

 I picked this topic for my final project because I was intrested in learning about families in Second Life and we briefly discussed it in class and the topic sounded really intresting.  Also, I wondered why some people make families in Second Life and put their names in each others profies.  At first I thought why would anyone enter or create a virtual family and why were they not stratified with their real life families.  This was my original bias and it took me a while to figure out that these were real relationships that the people in them valued.  Then I also started thinking, why do people who are blood-realted considered are only family, because many of my friends and I say we are in eachothers families and we are part of our own family.  This idea made the idea of families in Second Life less crazy or out of society's norms and more normal.   Some initial questions that I asked myself was; why do people start these families;  how can they really be part of a virtual family; does the virtual family impact their outside real lives; and, does the definition of family fit into the virtual family?  When I heard the story of the Gor slave killing herself I started to wonder if the relationship between the sexes in the Gor culture was a family relationship, but a very extreme example of this family relationship.  In this project I could not cover all of the nuances of being part of a family in Second Life as well as more problems that general relationships in Second Life have on peoples real life, like addiction or loss of ones real family in favor of a virtual family.   These are only some of the topics that are realted to my topic that would work well in a freshman seminar next year.

 

Virtual Families?  Are the Real Realtionships?  Why do Avatars Create Families in Second Life?

 

Can people in the virtual world of Second Life form a 'real' family relationship or is the relationship just something that stays in the virtual world.  Many avatars in Second Life have friends but some are parts of families where they put the other members names and relationships in their profiles.   Many have questioned the validly of these relationships and question why avatars enter into them.   However, the relationships that these avatars enter into is a family because it fits into the definition of a family as well as the relationships and bonds that these families make satisfy the members physical and emotional needs.  Additionally, these family members enter into and create families for the same reasons that people do in the real world, the emotions that sourround these relationships are the same in the virtual world as well as in the real world.  Although these relationships take place in the virtual world they do not only stay in the virtual world, these families affect peoples real world lives and relationships.  One example of a family relationship is the interaction of the Gor male master and the female slave, but this relationship is an example of an extreme family and most Second Life families do not participate in the Gor culture.   Although these relationships are real and do affect peoples lives their is a complication, how can the relationship truly be real if the people participating in the relationships do not really know who they are dealing with due to the nature of anonymity in Second Life.  Second Life provides a situation where families can really develop because of the ability of avatars to be in real life situations and experiences.   To define and understand why people participate in these virtual families one must first understand a family in the real world.

 

 FP 2_002FP 1_001FP 2_003

 

All of these pictures show just some of the places that families can go in Second Life and do things together, and most of the things that families do are things that families would do in real life, like go out to dinner or go on vacation.  Additionally, some of these pictured places are great areas to meet new people and build existing relationships.

 

FP 2_006FP 2_010FP 2_007

 

Within the real world families can be very diverse and multicultural. However, all families share a basic structure definition as shown by the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, "Family: a group of individuals living under one roof and usually under one head;  the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children; also, any various social units differing from but regarded as equivalent to the traditional family." From this definition there can be many different types of families but they all also share relationship bonds that make them a family.   Members of a family look out for one another,  they worry for their safety, and they want to be together.  This is shown in David Randall's article called "Family Bonds".  This artlice discusses the finances of parents being taken over by their children, "As their parents live longer, adult offspring are finding they need to take over the finances of the people who once took care of them" (Randall 1).  Although this article talks about fiances it touches on a very important part of a family, the members of families take care of other members both physically and emotionally.  Building on the idea that families help each other, William Forbes Baldwin argues how a family should be financially dependent on one another in his article "Investing, Family-Style".   This article focuses on how families should be both emotionally and financially dependent on one another, as this makes a stronger family (Baldwin 1).   Both Baldwin and Randall focus on the fiances of a family and touch on the fact that to be in a family one must be dependent on others in a family, wether it be emotionally, physically, or financially.

 

Through this definition families in the virtual worlds are families because avatars seek to be in a family so they can make close, familial emotional relationships with other avatars.  In many virtual worlds like, War of Warcraft social interactions and relationships are not able to happen but as the Journal of Virtual World Research says in their article "Real Standards for Virtual Worlds:  Why and How?"  the relationships that are formed in Second Life are only possible because of the standardization of technology throughout all virtual worlds (Jakobs).  Although technology plays a huge part of the ability to form relationships in Second Life, Mark S. Meadows focus more on individual people in Second Life in his book I, Avatar.  He says that, "how well you intergrate into your little society depends on how well you play your role" (Meadows 35).  Meadows thoughts can be interpreted to say that within a family in SL on must play a role.  This role could include a parent role or a child role, and Second Life makes playing a child possible through a child avatar.  In Second Life, you must be eighteen years old to play put a child avatar is available if one wants to age-play as a child.  This practice widespread enough to have people in Second Life building adoption houses, where the child avatars live, play, and hopefully get adopted into a family.  As Muffin K. Smith said in her article "Desperately Seeking Family:  Ageplay adoption Agencies in Second Life",  the children feel safe there and form emotional bonds with the people who adopt them, thus making them part of a virtual family(1). This article touches on a important point, people in Second Life are looking for relationships and interaction between people.  Thus, when people become extremely close to one another, they can make the decision to become part of a virtual family, where they get some of their emotional needs met.   This motivation to search out familial relationships is discusses in Nick Yee's article "Motivations of Play in Online Games" which is part of his Deadalus Project.  Within this article Yee contends that one of the reasons people join virtual worlds and create relationships is that they want to find and give emotional support and find people that want to get to know and like them (5).    This reinforces the idea that people in Second Life form families so they can feel connected, liked, and accepted, which is a driving force to form a family in real life.  This leads to the idea that the same forces that drive people to become a family in the real world are the same reasons that avatars want to join or create a family in Second Life.

 

Many people are part of families in Second Life, and they join for different reasons, but they all have they ability to talk to their family members in the real world.  This gives families in Second Life to create relationships in the real world.  Thus, the Second Life virtual families can have a huge impact on the avatars real life family and friends.  This interaction between real families and virtual families is focused in Adam McKenna's article "Alice Addiction in Cyber Land".   In his article McKenna focuses on a woman who had a real life family but started to pull away from them in favor of her boyfriend in Second Life, "A 37-year-old American housewife almost forgets her husband and four children exist as she pursues an online relationship in the virtual world of Second Life" (1).  Although the woman in this tale is not part of an 'official' Second Life family, families in the virtual worlds list other family members in their profile under family,  she does illustrate that strong relationships in Second Life can and do impact people's real lives.  This also shows that the relationships in Second Life are real and do play an important role in peoples lives.    Then arises the question can people form families in Second Life if they are already in a family in real life, or is that cheating?  In Todd Melby's article "How Second Life Seeps into Real Life" he focuses on a married couple in Second Life, but the virtual husband also has a real life wife (1).  The husband does not believe he is cheating on his real life wife with his virtual wife, but the real wife feels like her husband is more connected and focused on his virtual wife (Melby 1).   Realtionship's like this one lead Brenda Brathwaite, who wrote multiple books about relationships in virtual worlds, to say, "I believe the same rules apply in the virtual worlds as in the real world.  If it's something you can't tell your partner, then you're cheating" (Melby 3).   Through Melby's analysis of virtual relationship's effects on real relationships and families one can come to the conclusion that Second Life relationships and families are 'real' relationships in which it changes peoples lives both in the virtual world and the real world.  Which is a part of being in a family, because when one is part of a family it should affect every part of their lives.

 

There are many different types of families in the real world and that is also true in Second Life, but one of the most controversial types of families or relationships within Second Life comes from the role-playing islands of the Gor culture.   Within the Gor culture the men completely dominate the women and the women must do whatever the men say instantly, this includes all sexual situations.  The women are called slaves while the men are their masters.   Does the relationship between a master and slave constitute a extreme family relationship?   In Mark S. Meadows and Peter Ludlow's artlice "A Virtual Life.  An Actual Death."  they focus on a Goren slave woman named Carmen Hermosillo developed an intense relationship with her master and after he broke off their relationship she killed herself, "Carmen's relationship with Riz [her master] extended out of the virtual world and into the physical world (they spoke on the phone, sometimes several times a day), and it is clear that Carmen fell deeply in love with Riz" (par. 26).   It is clearly evident in the article that the two avatars were in a ongoing virtual relationship and they were a family, even though their familial circumstances were very extreme, because each avatar dependend on the other for an emotional connection that each recognized both in the virtual and real world.    Although can one really be in a family if they are forced to be part of the relationship, in Gor culture the master places a collar on the slave and gets ownership papers which state that the slave must stay with and only serve him.    Meadows and Ludlow led one to believe that the relationship between a slave and master is a family relationship because they are emotionally connected and they both have to stay with eachother, and if one person really wanted to leave the relationship all they have to do is delete their avatar.   Although the relationship between a slave and master is a family relationship in Second Life, it is a very extreme situation that only pertains to a small amount of people, but it does raise a few important questions and complications to families in Second Life.

 

In Second Life a person controls the amount of information that is released into the virtual world.  Their avatar can be completely different from their real self's and can even be a different gender.   In Hope R. Botterbusch and R. S. Talab's article "Ethical Issues in Second Life" they contend that, "Dr. Alex Gordon who discovered that 80% of female avatars are actually men and 75% of male avatars are actually women" (2).  This leads to the question of can a family relationship occur or be at least complicated by the anonymity of an avatar in Second Life.  Because this leads to the accusation that can one really be a member of a family if they do not really know who they are part of a family with.   Also in the article they focus on two avatars that were starting to form a relationship but it got strained after a conversation, "After on exceptionally difficult conversation, Mr. Avatar said he was leaving and simply logged off.  Miss Avatar was mortified.   What did she do to make Mr. Avatar angry?  . . . the issue was that he knew he finally had to reveal his true identity to her and was certain he would lose Miss Avatar as a friend if he did" (2).  This makes idea of being afraid to admit who one really is throws another question into the nature of family relationships in Second Life.  In a family in the real world one always knows who is part of their family, they know their history, and they accept them for who they are.  In Second Life, avatars do not have to tell other avatars anything about who they really are, which in a family could be dangerous because it brings up the fear of what would happen to the family if avatars in the family really knew who they were creating a family with.  However, people can arguably still form families with people online and they do not have to know who the real person is, the relationship and family is online and each person knows they can be whatever they want to be.  This anonymity can also be a characteristic of the game itself,  as Anders Gronstedt talks about in his article "Second Life"  which discusses the basics of the virtual world as well as the user base, "the diverse subscriber base, which is 60 percent men and 40 percent women whose average age range in the 30s" (3).   Each member of the consumer base of Second Life understands and values the anonymity that the virtual world brings which leads one to believe that no matter the real persons gender or reasons for joining Second Life they can form a real relationship in Second Life while still maintaining the anonymity that the virtual world brings.

 

Second Life is a virtual world where one can be anything they want to be and form relationships with avatars that can evolve into virtual families.   A family is a close group of people that depend on one another for emotional and physical needs.  This includes the avatars in Second Life, thus making them a real family.   Additionally, in Second Life avatars have the ability to become a child avatar which live in adoption agencies as a group in hope of being adopted into a family.   Thus, the virtual family has many of the same characteristics of a families in the real world.  Arguably the people enter virtual families for the same reasons they would enter or create a family in real life, they want someone who will listen to them and love them for who they are.   However, sometimes these virtual relationships do not stay exclusively in Second Life and even if they do they have a huge impact on peoples real relationships and families.  This impact can come from the need of the person with a Second Life family to be with that virtual family instead of their real family or friends.  This could cause problems in with peoples relationships in real life but also shows that the family relationships in Second Life are real relationships which really can change peoples lives.   One extreme family relationship is the Gor relationship between a male master and a female slave.  In this relationship both people depend on one another and are committed to staying with one another, even though the male as all of the control within the relationship and "owns" the female.    Although the Gor family is an extreme relationship where both members are trying to fit a societal role the relationship does have an emotional and physical connection which is vital to any family.   However, there are problems or complications within the Second Life family mainly because of the anonymity that Second Life gives to each of its members.   In Second Life a person can be whatever they want to be, including a woman being a man and a man being a woman, this as well as the fact that an avatar really does not know who they have a relationship with until one admits who they are many influence or hurt a family relationship in Second Life.   Even though a Second Life family many not be a "normal" family, with a mother and father with kids living under one roof,  the avatars involved in these family to have emotional and physical connections to the people they are part of a family with, and they can really depend on other family members to help and love them.  Thus, Second Life families play an important role in the virtual world that gives people an opportunity to make real relationships with new people.

 

Works Cited

 

Baldwin, William "Investing, Family-Style." Forbes 184.11 (2009): 10. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 11 Dec. 2009.

 

Botterbusch, Hope R., and R. S. Talab. "Ethical Issues in Second Life." TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning Jan. 2009: 9-13. EBSCOhost. Web. 19 Nov. 2009. http://web.ebscohost.com/.

 

"Family." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. http://www.merriam-webster.com (11 December 2009).

 

Gronstedt, Anders "SECOND LIFE." T+D 61.8 (2007): 44-49. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 11 Dec. 2009.

 

Jakobs, Kai. "Real Standards for Virtual Worlds - Why and How?" Journal of Virtual Worlds Research 2.3 (2009). Journal of Virtual Worlds Research. Virtual Worlds Research Consortium, 2009. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://jvwresearch.org/index.php?_cms=default,0,0.

 

McKenna, Adam. "Alice Addiction in Cyber Land." Eureka Street 31 July 2009: 18-20. EBSCOhost. Web. 19 Nov. 2009. http://web.ebscohost.com.

 

Meadows, Mark S., and Peter Ludlow. "A Virtual Life. An Actual Death." H+. H+ Magazine, 2 Sept. 2009. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/virtual-reality/virtual-life-actual-death.

 

Meadows, Mark S. I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life. New Riders, 2007. Safari Books Online. New Riders, 2009. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/9780321550231.

 

Melby, Todd "How Second Life seeps into real life. (Cover story)." Contemporary Sexuality 42.1 (2008): 1-6. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 11 Dec. 2009.

 

Randall, David K. "Family Bonds." Forbes 184.11 (2009): 112-114. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 11 Dec. 2009.

 

Smith, Muffin K. "Desperately Seeking Family: Ageplay Adoption Agencies in Second Life." The Alphaville Herald. 2 Apr. 2007. Web. 19 Nov. 2009. http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/04/virtually_famil.html.

 

Yee, Nick. "Motivations of Play in Online Games." The Daedalus Project. Nick Yee, 2006. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://www.nickyee.com/pubs/Yee%20-%20Motivations%20(2007).pdf.

 

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Comments (2)

Joe Essid said

at 11:12 am on Dec 6, 2009

Jordan,

From investigating these points, you'll easily have enough material for the project. Of course, each needs elaboration. I wonder if Carmen's affairs with various Gorean Masters counts as "family." Goren slaves refer to each other as "sisters," but there are so many more traditional forms of family units in SL. Perhaps Carmen's case provides an extreme example of how one can bond closely--too closely--with an avatar's experience.

Ageplay is a different issue, and my hunch--bias, even--is that many of those who roleplay children did not have completely fulfilling real-life childhoods or (more positively) they just enjoy the freedom of escaping their adult lives for a while to roleplay children.

Keep my questions in mind as you walk toward a governing claim about why some people seek "family" in SL. It's telling that none of my colleagues in SL (and they are good friends, in some cases) are part of these "families" online. Our professional bonds may suffice for how we use the virtual world. For some others who use SL socially, however, more seems to be necessary. Of course, many social users of SL don't form family units. What, then, drives some users to do this?

Joe Essid said

at 2:02 pm on Dec 8, 2009

As for the Goreans, be careful. I discovered that there are two types: those who play it like a game, and may claim to have familiar relationships when logged on. Then there are Goreans like Carmen, who fall in with a real-life crowd of what are called "lifestylers." They terrify me.

Broader question: what is "family"? In our flesh-and-blood worlds, it's usually defined as something more than two spouses. It may not include children but has other blood relatives.

In, be wary of discussing virtual marriages and the like, unless you put them into the context of a larger family to which the married partners belong.

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