Virtual Companion
A couple of years ago when the online chatting and instant messaging tools such as Yahoo Messenger, MSN, ICQ etc. began to dominate the cyber community, they took the Internet by storm and quickly became the pet gear of many Netizens.
It was so prominent that these thingamajigs have become part of the computer operating system startup appendage that they co-exist alongside your daily drudgery at home or work place. Alas, situation deteriorated following obsession in usage that many companies began to clamp down on their existence by blocking/filtering these applications within their network domain owing to the fear that productivity going downwards spiral hence hitting their bottom-line.
However, there are also large number of organizations that believe these applications can potentially (I said potentially because this is a very subjective matter and really depends on the level of maturity and co-operations amongst staff) save some communication costs. Imagine cutting the phone bills on international calls and facilitating pro-longed hours of remote technical assistance, urgent message dissemination and internal conference calls (chats!) etc.
This is beside my point of writing this blog entry. I was entrenched to the fact that this online chatting and virtual relationship building has slowly creeping into one’s life which is possibly the underlying foundation of the creation of a Virtual World on the Internet such as SecondLife (www.secondlife.com). Nope, they are not confined to multi-players role play experience on the net as it would also offer a platform to promote inter human relationship, a place for intimate chats, sharing of day-to-day happenings, work gossips, family problems, some happy tales….some not so…but you get the drift.
As the days gone by and the feelings got a bit stronger, some of these chat buddies became very close friends…casual friendship turned into real intimacy and started to see each other in person (only if they live within reach that is)…and if all goes well (as in nobody got cheated or conned into believing those fictitious stories and identities behind the avatar and Net identities), they may eventually ended up in matrimony and live happily ever after…just like a fairy tale in this modern society.
All good and well provided they were legally single individuals. What happen if they are already attached or formally married and worst still…with children? On one hand they are contented with their real family lifestyle, the commitments, the joy and being togetherness with the spouse and kids (if they have one of those) but on the other hand, they are also torn with the constant compulsion and at times fervor to get online the very first instance to ‘meet’ with their virtual companion(s)/darling(s). And the hours could be long often into the other half of the day (or night depending on which time zone you are at). And yes, they can sacrifice the sleep and who cares about getting droopy eyes at work the next day.
Now, with the burgeoning of new wave of social networking applications such as Facebook, MySpace, Friendsters and so on, coupled with the thousands of web widgets like Online Poker, Mahjong, Big 2, Black Jack etcetera, there are more reasons to go online to chat and play games together…specially for the web buddies.
Is this the new trend of having virtual companionship to complement a complete way of life…both real and the virtual? There may be things that you will not discuss with your life partner/spouse in the real world due to circumstances but to the virtual companion ('知己') you see no barrier…perhaps it’s the effect of the make believe illusory, you can share these deep often dark secrets with them or maybe it was just the lust and pursuit of a common fad or amusement.
With that note, I would like to dedicate the following song to someone whom I know that would also enjoy it….”Love Today by Mika”.
Tomorrow will be a better day….for sure. And I hope you like the following song.
It was so prominent that these thingamajigs have become part of the computer operating system startup appendage that they co-exist alongside your daily drudgery at home or work place. Alas, situation deteriorated following obsession in usage that many companies began to clamp down on their existence by blocking/filtering these applications within their network domain owing to the fear that productivity going downwards spiral hence hitting their bottom-line.
However, there are also large number of organizations that believe these applications can potentially (I said potentially because this is a very subjective matter and really depends on the level of maturity and co-operations amongst staff) save some communication costs. Imagine cutting the phone bills on international calls and facilitating pro-longed hours of remote technical assistance, urgent message dissemination and internal conference calls (chats!) etc.
This is beside my point of writing this blog entry. I was entrenched to the fact that this online chatting and virtual relationship building has slowly creeping into one’s life which is possibly the underlying foundation of the creation of a Virtual World on the Internet such as SecondLife (www.secondlife.com). Nope, they are not confined to multi-players role play experience on the net as it would also offer a platform to promote inter human relationship, a place for intimate chats, sharing of day-to-day happenings, work gossips, family problems, some happy tales….some not so…but you get the drift.
As the days gone by and the feelings got a bit stronger, some of these chat buddies became very close friends…casual friendship turned into real intimacy and started to see each other in person (only if they live within reach that is)…and if all goes well (as in nobody got cheated or conned into believing those fictitious stories and identities behind the avatar and Net identities), they may eventually ended up in matrimony and live happily ever after…just like a fairy tale in this modern society.
All good and well provided they were legally single individuals. What happen if they are already attached or formally married and worst still…with children? On one hand they are contented with their real family lifestyle, the commitments, the joy and being togetherness with the spouse and kids (if they have one of those) but on the other hand, they are also torn with the constant compulsion and at times fervor to get online the very first instance to ‘meet’ with their virtual companion(s)/darling(s). And the hours could be long often into the other half of the day (or night depending on which time zone you are at). And yes, they can sacrifice the sleep and who cares about getting droopy eyes at work the next day.
Now, with the burgeoning of new wave of social networking applications such as Facebook, MySpace, Friendsters and so on, coupled with the thousands of web widgets like Online Poker, Mahjong, Big 2, Black Jack etcetera, there are more reasons to go online to chat and play games together…specially for the web buddies.
Is this the new trend of having virtual companionship to complement a complete way of life…both real and the virtual? There may be things that you will not discuss with your life partner/spouse in the real world due to circumstances but to the virtual companion ('知己') you see no barrier…perhaps it’s the effect of the make believe illusory, you can share these deep often dark secrets with them or maybe it was just the lust and pursuit of a common fad or amusement.
With that note, I would like to dedicate the following song to someone whom I know that would also enjoy it….”Love Today by Mika”.
Tomorrow will be a better day….for sure. And I hope you like the following song.
posted by spectrakia at
7:15 am
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