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BBC 2 - tv documentary: "Wonderland: Virtual Adultery and..."
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Tonight about SL on BBC 2
www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/listings/programme.shtml?day=today&a...
Quoted from BBC website:
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Wonderland: Virtual Adultery and...
Wed 30 Jan, 9:50 pm - 10:30 pm 40mins
...Cyberspace Love
Carolyn is a 37 year-old mother of four in the midst of a passionate affair that is tearing her family apart. She's spending up to 18 hours a day with her lover, and her husband is in despair. But the extraordinary thing about this affair is that Carolyn's lover is man she has never met. Because he's not a human being. He's an avatar (or computer generated figure), who exists only in the virtual world of Second Life. And their relationship exists only in cyberspace.
The population of the virtual world Second Life has grown to over three million in the three years since it was created. It's a world in which you can buy the things you could never afford in real life, and have the body and looks of a movie star for just a few dollars. But as relationships develop in this strange animated world, the risk is that they start to become more real than those in your first life.
In the face of fierce opposition from her husband of nine years, Carolyn flies 5000 miles to London to meet Elliot, the creator of the avatar with whom she has fallen in love, in order to see if a relationship formed in cyberspace can work in the real world. And she leaves behind her a family left rubbing their eyes in bewilderment and anguish.
This is a film about those who've become so disillusioned with their real life that they've sidelined it in favour of a virtual life. It's about people who've cheated on their life partners and risked losing everything, for the promise of a life that's so far only been experienced in the pixels of a computer screen and the dream world of their own fantasies.
Deals with adult themes. [S]
Subtitles Stereo Widescreen
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Originally posted at 1:13PM, 30 January 2008 PDT
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Ze Moo edited this topic 6 months ago.
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Now the BBC already makes quite some major mistakes in this announcement text... I have not very high hopes for the documentary content this way...
Lets try if we can sum up these faults up here?
And who would like to write reviews to this documentary?
Also please post links here as soon as this video is on-demand online somewhere. So people outside of the BBC 2 range of the UK, The Netherlands and Belgium can also watch this and judge themselves.
Originally posted 6 months ago.
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Ze Moo edited this topic 6 months ago.
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at some point it will be possible to view it here:
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
SL is already covered: click last seven days, click monday, click visions of the future
Posted 6 months ago.
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BBC iPlayer unfortunately doesn't work for us 'foreigners'...
iplayersupport.external.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/bbciplayer.cfg/...
'Visions Of The Future' doc is here:
flickr.com/groups/slreal/discuss/72157602952238091/
And SL has been covered in a lot more 'media from the last century'... But that is not the point in this discussion actually.
Originally posted 6 months ago.
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Ze Moo edited this topic 6 months ago.
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BBC writes: "But the extraordinary thing about this affair is that Carolyn's lover is man she has never met.
MISTAKE NUMBER 1: She may never have met him physically, but she has met his brain and 'heart' for real! (if we asume safely the guy is not a faker in his words)
BBC writes: "Because he's not a human being."
MISTAKE NUMBER 2: Untrue! Yes off course he is! We are not dealing with another animal here, or an E.T. (extra-terrestrial) or some A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) orso, now are we?!
BBC writes: "He's an avatar (or computer generated figure),"
MISTAKE NUMBER 3: No, he is not just an avatar! An avatar is something like an name, a telephone, a postal adress, make up and clothes combined, one can say. Does the BBC judge the 'Emperor' only by its clothes?
When the telephone was just invented, did the press report about people who used telephones, as if they were not Human Beings??!
BBC writes: "who exists only in the virtual world of Second Life."
MISTAKE NUMBER 4:
The refferred avatar exists only in Second Lfe, yes. But that guy is absolutely REAL!
A telephone conversation, nor any other form of humans communicating through electronics, doesn't exist only in the cables or the electronic tools orso!
BBC writes: "And their relationship exists only in cyberspace."
MISTAKE NUMBER 5:
Total bullshit! Relationships always exist merely in BRAINS and 'hearts'! Cyberspace is just an enviroment where brains and 'hearts' can connect. It is REAL!
(So far part one of this BBC announcement review, i havent been able myself to watch BBC 2 earlier, so I hope to be able to watch it online somehow)
Originally posted 6 months ago.
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Ze Moo edited this topic 6 months ago.
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It was a very poor documentary. They had their perceived ideas before they started, and then went for them on film.
The fact she thought he wanted to meet her in RL after one month or would get bored ? who are these people!
There machinima was quite goed, but recreating scenes to fit the program was cringe worthy ... expecially with the 2 AVs arguing together, and then using that lip synch programme as though it was real SL .. I was just laughing..
I was surprised they missed out a step in SL 'relationships' where you start chatting more to people on GTalk / Skype together when you're both at RL work ... then again if that UK / USA couple spent upto 9 or 10 hours online together .. I guess they have no jobs in RL ?
It also amazed me that the UK bloke never met her at the airport ? are we to believe she crossed London on her own and found him in some tower block ? lol
All in all .. v poor show .. but the kind of show the press like to portray about SL.
Posted 6 months ago.
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I thought the film was not as bad as it could have been given the tabloid title 'Virtual Adultery and cyberspace love', but there was a fair bit of misrepresentation going on, as has already been said.
Honestly, what I found most interesting was trying to work out where they were in Sl and whether I'd been there! Think I recognised the gardens :)
Posted 6 months ago.
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This is another case of people making things catering to a party line. The problem is they don't need research, they don't need accuracy, all they need is a consent form to publish what they want the documentary to say as the subject's words. It falls legally into a classification of being a documentary of someone else's life and opinion, making them not liable for things like slander.
"I was surprised they missed out a step in SL 'relationships' where you start chatting more to people on GTalk / Skype together when you're both at RL work ... then again if that UK / USA couple spent upto 9 or 10 hours online together .. I guess they have no jobs in RL ?"
I tend to run SL at work, while sitting on conference calls I'm mostly a figurehead on and working on piddling things. My business has progressed to the point I don't need to babysit it 24/7, but I still have the urge to monitor it while multitasking.
"There machinima was quite goed, but recreating scenes to fit the program was cringe worthy ... expecially with the 2 AVs arguing together, and then using that lip synch programme as though it was real SL .. I was just laughing.."
SL shakespeare company put that to very good use in their rendition of Macbeth, but they can't focus on the good things in second life can they? Helps to dismiss it as the sensationalism it is.
I fully agree with ze moo's points here. That's the kind of attitude that many people in sl adopt, and it leads to trouble. We are not merely avatars, we have a responsibility for the actions of our avatars, and we also tend to invest a great deal of ourselves in them.
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I would submit that, contrary to the assessment of people who have never experienced this particular phenomena, Second Life is not merely a game that people are getting addicted to. I would submit that second life is the realization of a new form of social interaction the fills a niche for a group of predominantly intelligent individuals who have never had an outlet that fits before.
Many people spend their lives in the gym, in bars, in clubs, in bookstores. All of these are places where people of similar interests gather to discuss events of the day and enjoy the company of others. Perhaps it is possible for some humans to exist more comfortably in their own minds in an uninhibited state, connecting directly with the minds of other minus the limitations of physicality.
All sort of philosophical rambling aside, SL is a bar for us, exact same form of social setting. We're a new concept encroaching on society; a form of entertainment that requires no significant monetary investment to use (compare average bar patron's yearly tab with a 700 dollar computer it's no comparison at all), and is something we truly enjoy, whether it be for creative purposes, sex, social interaction, fantasizing, or any number of recreational activities.
Many people suffer the failing of trying to force things to fit in their lives. Most of us who have lasted a long time in SL (4 years as of november of last year for me), haven't done so because we're delusional and can't hold a job. We're here because we recognize what it is, and we recognize that there are people here.
Maybe it's time someone focused on the good stories of SL.
/mewsing
Posted 6 months ago.
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More thoughts here malburns.blogsome.com
Posted 6 months ago.
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Hm, don´t know what to say - I´m quite upset about this documentation, cause actually I´m going to fly from Germany to US next week to meet the man I came to know about one year ago in SL....
But I was able to find the video on YouTube. Sometimes anger is good for something ;)
Wonderland: Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love (Part1)
youtube.com/watch?v=PniWHuv9Xko
Wonderland: Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love (Part2)
youtube.com/watch?v=0s5CTLRVUPY
Wonderland: Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love (Part3)
youtube.com/watch?v=G91yGTVE3cg
Wonderland: Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love (Part4)
youtube.com/watch?v=06J89zCJGac
Originally posted 6 months ago.
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Lilith Ivory edited this topic 6 months ago.
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I am glad that there is some attention being paid to the issue. I don't know that the program was misrepresenting those people, and since I've known plenty of folks who have gone through all the same things as those couples on the show, I don't doubt for a minute that it's occurring pretty damn frequently. Drawing attention to it isn't a bad thing.
Second Life certainly is quite similar to any other hangout we would visit in our first lives- but for those who are starting romances, the initial attraction is based on something that is almost always completely unreal: an avatar. (I don't know about you all, but my first life is not entirely populated by enormous, busty models and seven-and-a-half foot bodybuilders with shoulders that can't fit through a standard doorframe.)
Unfortunately this all makes for enormous problems when first life invariably rears its "maybe not quite as young or attractive" head. Are all people just superficial jerks? Never! It's just the plain fact that what you see isn't what you get! (I would love to discuss more on the need to build avatars in the Barbie-and-Ken image, too.) For every successful relationship that begins online, there are any number of stories that don't end with the couple happily-ever-aftering. The woman in the show may have been quite right in guessing at the 5% chance of it going right- and that's a hell of a gamble to take on someone who initially attracted you through a clever deception.
Note: I certainly do not intend to offend anyone currently in a relationship that started in SL. It's perfectly fine to meet people online. I met my ex-husband that way. No I am not being snarky here, really. I wish those of you who are romancing the grid all the luck in the world. And if you are an enormous busty model or a seven-and-a-half foot bodybuilder, please don't squash or eat me. ^_^
Posted 6 months ago.
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Don´t want to talk to much about me in this blog ... just one short reply to Daisy:
You are right :) For me is was very helpful, that my love had a RL-pic of himself in his profile. So I did know from the beginning with whom I was falling in love ... and it was not his Avatar, but his mind that made me feel like this :)
Posted 6 months ago.
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Id like to ask this BBC reporter what they think the difference between this situation and the plethora of "situations" that occur in traditional chat rooms every second of every day?? Do they think that any less real??
I think a more interesting topic would've been the diverse culture on SL...the "bored housewife who's been married for 10 years and is now leaving her family for a virtual partner" story is a bit over played out, and not really newsworthy at this point in time...but that's just me.
Documentary? More like Crapumentary!
Posted 6 months ago.
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First, thanks for posting the youtube links! I wouldn't have seen this otherwise.
I don't have any real issues with the documentary itself, aside from it being a bit sensationalist. Explaining them as avatars is a good way to explain it to people who are watching who can't even figure out their email. They have to start somewhere to explain how it works. But it's PLAINLY a more than pixel deep, and I think that's the point they were trying to make.
Inside of SL, I know a lot of people that I know for a fact are married in real life and ignore their partners and children in favor of a Second Life love. While I understand this isn't all black and white, it's really off-putting to me and I have a very hard time relating to people on the grid who do this. I also have a girlfriend in real life who does NOT SL, who is having a really rocky time in her real life relationship of several years because her boyfriend SLs, and he's dating someone there and wants to go meet her to sleep with her.
I can never really fathom how people can lie to someone like that, and especially how they can lie to themselves with these deluded notions that it's only a game. Your actions are yours - be they your actions in SL, your writing in your blog or the email from your inbox. The fact that you have a cartoon instead of a screen name doesn't absolve you of any responsibility.
In the two years that I've been in SL, I've had periods in RL where I was dating someone, and you know, relationships are never perfect. Even during bad times or rocky breakups I never would have dreamed of having an SL 'boyfriend.' It's cheating to me.
Incidentally, it's fairly common knowledge that my partner Kisa and I met in the SL Flickr group and that we're getting married in real life this summer. I'm not down on the idea of meeting people online - it can make for a very beautiful and close relationship that you value quite deeply. I'm just against going about it like a d-bag.
/soapbox
Posted 6 months ago.
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Someone just texted me by phone its is being repeated on BBC 1 now. 03:05 till 03:45 CET / 02:05 - 02:45 UK
Posted 6 months ago.
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