I’ve heard quite a few people complaining about Alts lately. What is an alt you ask? An Alt is an alternative avatar, a second or third or fourth persona you create usually entirely different from your original avie. I’ve heard of people having up to 10 other avies.
Why have one? The reasons are as varied as the people who have them. Business reasons, role play, to spy on a significant other, to hide from a significant other and on and on. I will admit to having two alts. One I rarely use that I set up to roleplay with and never got into and one that I created because well, sometimes you need another av for a photoshoot. It’s a male av and I’ve yet to *dude* him up but I’ll get there.
The Business Alt: Having a business alt makes total sense when you run a successful business. Generally that av only logs in from time to time, handles the administrative things and logs out again. This av isn’t usually hidden from anyone.
The Role Play Alt: So, you wanna go all psycho in Midian or CoLA or any of the other roleplay sims. Your very proper human av just won’t cut it though. You make an alt in which to be whatever mutant or neko or vamp you wish to be. Some people share this alt with their friends, some don’t.
The I need to spy on my significant other Alt : Ok so your dating/partnered/engaged/married and your significant other seems different. You know something is wrong but they simply say everything is fine. You don’t believe them. You worry they are cheating. What do you do? You create an alt and then go spy on them. Let me just say I’m NOT condoning this behavior. Having been on the receiving end of it I can tell you it destroys all trust in a relationship. I dated someone who had an Alt to spy on every girl he dated. Some male, some female. He even created one male av and used it to hit on me to see if I’d take the bait. No, I didn’t. My suggestion, if you think your significant other is cheating, ask them outright or end the relationship. Spying is simply wrong.
The I need to hide from my significant other Alt : Ok, so you’re in a great relationship but you want a bit of alone time. Your other half just doesn’t understand why you don’t want to spend every waking minute with them. You create an Alt so you can get some peace and do what you want. Wanting some peace and being able to do whatever you like is all fine but maybe you need to have a heart to heart with the significant other rather than hiding behind an alt.
The I just want to annoy everyone Alt : You’ve probably had one to many alcoholic beverages and think it would be a real hoot to create and alt and then go to your favorite hang out in your underwear and hit on your friends. True story, happened at the Crown the other night. Lands was kind enough to share the story with me. I’ll refer you to Prad Prathivi’s Rules of Second Life , SL and alcohol don’t mix. It’s #49 on the list but do read all of them, they are quite funny and oh so true. 
The I look better than I should only being 3 mins old Alt : Do not try to tell me you’re a noob when you’ve got a Redgrave Skin, Diversity Hair, an outfit from Last Call(which is closed) and shoes from Shiny Things or boots from Bax. Cause there is no way someone under 30 days has any of that stuff, especially from Last Call as they have been closed a while now. You created an alt, transferred stuff over and are trying to be *new* again. You know what, fess up that it’s an alt. Trying to pretend your something your not is just silly, we see right through it.
This concludes my little rant on Alts.
Tags: alts, prad prathivi, second life, sl
A business alt becomes almost mandatory when you run the business with a partner, as the alt acts as a “bank” that holds the companies cash and the “assets” as full perm objects or textures. The “bank” aspect is also important when you try not to mix personal and company money.
What Peter said.
I’m pretty sure my alts have alts now..
Role play alts wind up being where you get the 10 or more alts on SL. This may come in the form of:
1. A person using their main, but buying skins, clothing, etc. – all meant for a particular character. They may hold the same name as the main, or they mey have different alias, by which some RPers take care of the difference by using RP tools, such as titlers to show the alternative name for the RP character and a text tool that will replace the avie name with the character name in the chat box.
2. Making completely new accounts.
The making new accounts it where you get what is more commonly referred to as alts. But both are technically alts.
Of the reasons I personally don’t like are the ones for spying on/hiding from your significant other. If a person doesn’t trust one’s significant other, and can’t work things out, then it might be time to end the relationship, rather than spend all that time and effort on doing things other than building and enjoying the relationship.