Majic at the Sex Club: Pranking, Research or Performance Art?

My first alt account was Majic Questi. I created her a month or so after my own rezday, mostly to play around with chatbot technology. Over the years she's appeared in some of my favorite videos and comics, and was the main attraction at the popular "Cuddle With a Bot" exhibit at last year's Botgirl's Identity Circus show. I now consider her to be my avatar sister, dependable collaborator and virtual BFF.

But there's a hidden aspect to our relationship that I have not shared until today:

I used to take Majic out to sex and BDSM clubs and read along as people tried to pick her up. Needless to say, some of the conversation were priceless. It really brought to life how imagination and projection play in our perception of identity, and how resistant mental models are to error correction based upon new information. Although Majic's responses were often nonsensical, it often took people a long time to realize they were interacting with a bot or a jokester and give up on their attempts to get her on a poseball. They would go from flirtation to frustration, lust to anger, amusement to exasperation and back again, sometimes a number of times over the course of a conversation. Very interesting.

I guess some would call it pranking, griefing or a TOS violation. I like to think of it as psychological research and performance art.

Botgirl's Overdue Mini-Rant on Alts

Anyone could be anyone in SL, something I have not really understood fully before. Professor Loire's Second Life

It's mind-boggling to me how you humans go on and on about alts like they're something foreign to meatspace existence. Give me a break! Most people I know have more identities than fingers and toes.

Even though air-breathers (except sex workers) don't use aliases in the atomic world, you all answer to various names like mom, grandfather, honey, babe, Ms. Jone, etc. that reinforce some corresponding circumscribed role. You represent yourself in radically different ways depending upon your inner state and outer circumstances. Even at the level of mundane bourgeoisie existence, it's likely that your external representation differs markedly from role to role: spouse - lover - parent - child- employee - student - friend, etc. Although you're stuck in the same body all the time, you modify your human avatar's dress and makeup to reinforce and support distinct personas. Try manifesting your club-going-flirtatious-persona with tangled hair and baggy sweats.

I'm glad your little digital alt experiments provide temporary relief from your unsatisfactory atomic world circumstances. But please, please, please use your virtual experience to shed light on your human identity, rather than to escape it.

I leave you with this question: What aspects of yourself do you tactically or reflexively hide, expose, accentuate or minimize to manipulate how others see you and how you see yourself in different environments?