Pixel Scoop

In case you don’t know or haven’t heard of it, ‘Second Skin’ is a documentary (due to be released in cinemas in September) which followed the lives of 16 people who spend a LOT of time in virtual worlds such as Second Life™. My understanding is that its focal point is indeed SL and there are a number of relevant themes brought to light - falling in love with someone in game, disabled people finding themselves doing in virtual worlds what they cannot in real life as well as real lives being completely torn apart by virtual world addiction! For more information about Second Skin, click here.

The documentary has been reviewed as being completely unbiassed, which will be refreshing if this is the case. Time will tell, however.

My issue with documentaries and the likes about such gaming habits were summed up in a recent BBC documentary, ‘Wonderland’ which dealt with couple who had met in Second Life. In particular it picked up on a woman living in the US (unhappily) married with three children. She met a guy from the UK in game and as a result her children became somewhat ‘non-priority’. She neglected her home and eventually went off to visit the guy in the UK. I won’t ruin the whole thing in case any of you care to look it up! I hear there are copies of this floating around certain unnamed video hosting sites

It just seems that, although fascinating, when people decide to cover virtual world gaming, they always pick the extreme people! Obviously, this makes good TV! But just because one woman somewhere decided that she no longer particularly cared to cook and clean for, or even speak to her husband and children, doesn’t mean that every single female who plays is  a heartless, evil bitch! Nor does it mean that every single guy who logs on sleeps with his head on his computer for fear of missing a single second of virtual action. But such is TV, I guess. I hope to see Second Skin, for interest’s sake. And I also hope it isn’t as sentationalist as previous attempts at documenting SL have been.