To be or Not to be..

Friendster, Facebook, Multiply, MySpace, Second Life ...

All these names and many more have become household names amongst us and we have all , at least once been addicted to such virtual networks. Online games as well serve as a social network that people stay committed.

The question for today is: To be or Not to be.

Many a time, the virtual world has been a place where one can have many identities and as a result, people make sure of that. Be it your gender, the color of your hair, the shape of your eyes or even the clothes you wear; one can always alter the way you look.

But are all these for real?
or is our conscious choosing what we desire to look like?

Social networks such as second life, facebook, friendster have been around for less than a decade and already, people are creating avatars and profiles that do not even exist. There have been numerous friendster accounts with attractive female pictures but to your disappointment, the owner of such an account is sadly a male who is simply trying to get attention for all the wrong reasons.

There are many other instances as well, take for example online games: Maple, Dota, Audition and so forth. These games allow you to choose your gender, choose your hair and etc. I have male friends playing female characters and they behave and type ( yes, type ) like any other girl.
Such fake identities are splashed all over the internet and some people even get conned by it.

No doubt there are the advantages of such social networks as it allows one to create groups or even close deals over the internet. Facebook has brought millions of users across the globe together by simply allowing the creation of groups. Party invites and events are being broadcasted via facebook and the amount of people who join the group is amazing.

check out this facebook group; there are 8,245 members and 109 new members just joined the group. By the end of next week, this Ben & Jerry's group would have at least 9,000 members.
Isn't facebook amazing? :)

So, let's come back to the question for today: To Be, or Not to Be.

It's definitely very easy to be someone else in the virtual world as compared to the real world that we live in. Whether it is an escape for some of the users from the real world, or it is just merely to have fun, we all use the virtual world at our own disposal.

Hey, we can even be mushrooms in the virtual world. What else can we not be?

Let's just say everybody has their "To be, Not to be" Days.
These are real players by the way.