Why be a kid in SL?

Since I'm regrettably lacking in the creativity department (now and then, anyway), I found myself at a loss for what to make my first blog post about. No, that introductory post doesn't count. So, I decided to check out some other SL kids' blogs and see what sorts of things they posted about first. By and large, they've usually got some kind of entry about why they're a kid in Second Life.

It's a viable question. In SL, you can be anything - male, female, black, white, or purple; you don't even have to be human. You can be an animal. Or something that is a cross between human and animal. You can be something else entirely - one of my favorite "disguises" is as nothing but a set of floating, rotating cubes. The sky's the limit, really. So, given that sort of freedom, why would an adult decide to be a kid? Allow me to step out of character for a minute and tackle this problem.

There may be as many answers to this question as there are kid avatars in SL (and there's probably more kid avs in SL than you think there are); I'll tell you how it happened with me. I started out as an adult human, like everyone else in SL. I did some wandering and exploring and bought various items and objects to change the way my avatar looked, experimenting with different appearances. I settled on one eventually - a Civil War-era Union officer (the Union Forever!). Of course, I remained open-minded about changing it.

One day, I came upon this unique (and free) vehicle - an old-looking wooden raft, with a makeshift sail, a tent, and a couple of barrels on board serving as seats. It was very Mark Twain-esque, and that appealed to me. I rezzed the thing, got on it, and spent an hour sailing around the incredibly expansive Mainland Waterway. It was calm, soothing, and unbelievably fun - to me, anyway. I had dreamed of getting ahold of such a raft and doing something very similar in RL, ever since I was a kid. Suddenly it occurred to me - wouldn't this look much cooler if my avatar was, indeed, a kid? I kicked around the idea for a while, and finally decided to drop some money on a (somewhat unconvincing) kid shape, and a cheap and bland kid "skin". I found that my adult clothes automatically shrunk down to fit my new shape, so I considered myself set. Off I went! I've said the shape and skin weren't all that great, but they were close enough to lend the desired illusion.

I noticed while shopping certain ads for kid-avatar "groups" within SL, and eventually I began to inquire about them. I found kid-centric places and sims, and visited them, and met many people who also chose, for whatever reason, to be kids in SL. I made friends with many of them - more friends than I'd made whilst having a "normal" adult avatar; so, I decided to stick with my new appearance, and that was pretty much that. I was encouraged to find a much, much better shape and skin, so I don't look so plastic anymore. There are shops which sell clothes geared towards kid avatars, but I mostly buy regular mens' clothes - they fit just as well.

There are certain advantages, and some perceived disadvantages, in being a kid in SL - I'll get to those in another post. But, I will say that being a kid doesn't limit me to places and groups exclusive to kid avatars. I belong to one active group, for instance, in which I am the only kid; but I feel accepted and welcome there all the same - I consider all of them good friends. So while I must necessarily avoid some things because of my choice of appearance, I don't feel that I'm missing out on anything I'll regret. I have my fun!

Well, that's enough for now. More to come later.