V AS IN VIRTUAL: WHY JUST WATCH WHEN YOU CAN STEP RIGHT INTO YOUR FAVORITE SHOW?

Lauren Conrad , star of MTV's "The Hills," kissed a fan last month for way too long. It was her first time visiting the "Virtual Hills," the online world that re - creates the Los Angeles of her hit docu-reality show. She didn't understand how the "kiss" function worked: that you had to push a key to stop an embrace. So the virtual Lauren, a blond computer graphic, locked digitized lips with a digitized fan, and minutes went by before it ended.

"I virtually made out with someone!" Conrad said by phone from Los Angeles last week. "I ran away after, because I was really embarrassed."

Somewhere in America, a teenage boy -- if that's who was, in fact, controlling the kissee -- has a triumphant tale to spread. And MTV might well have one more loyalist, hooked on this latest form of viewer interaction. For years, TV networks have used websites and online games to attract fans, offering increasing levels of connection: a missive from writers, a chat with a star, a peek behind the scenes. Now, by using "virtual world" technology, in which fans create "avatars," or digitized alter egos, that they can manipulate from a keyboard, some networks have started giving fans a chance to live in the shows themselves.

Last September, MTV launched "Virtual Laguna Beach," which re - created the spots made famous in its popular reality series "Laguna Beach." So far, nearly 360,000 young fans -- median age 20 -- have come inside, spending an average of 46 minutes at a time in the virtual streets, stores, and clubs.

Now, the virtual-TV universe is expanding. Last month, MTV launched "Virtual Hills," which mimics the world of the "Laguna Beach" spin off and connects, digitally, to "Virtual Laguna Beach." Logo, MTV Networks' gay-themed channel, is preparing an online space that users will help to design. Showtime just unveiled an "island" within the popular virtual-world program Second Life, themed to its lesbian drama "The L Word."

And last week, Nickelodeon -- which shares a corporate parent with MTV -- announced the launch of Nicktropolis, where kids can design their own avatars, decorate virtual rooms, play games, and converse with cartoon characters. Less than a day into its launch, it was already filled with virtual kids.

Networks are striving to give the audience what it wants, says Cyma Zarghami , president of the Nickelodeon and MTVN Kids and Family Group. Nickelodeon's research, she said, shows that kids "are interested in creating and controlling their own environment."

And teenage viewers "want a more immersive experience around the shows that they love," says MTV president Christina Norman . "Since they can't all move to Laguna Beach, it seems like this is a perfect extension."

Virtual worlds are also a perfect vehicle for promotion. The "L Word" island features a digital re - creation of "The Planet," the coffee shop featured in the show, along with virtual visits from cast and crew. In MTV's worlds, TV episodes turn up, as streaming video, in bars and in virtual movie theaters. This month's season premiere of "The Hills" aired in the virtual world before it appeared on TV.

And the stars of "The Hills" plan to visit the "Virtual Hills" every week, to judge contests and host events. That's far more promotional work than Conrad says she'd want in real life; here, the mobs are only virtual, and airplane travel is not required.

But connecting with TV is only part of the appeal; virtual reality becomes its own attraction.

Conrad says her younger brother and his friends like to drive cars through the virtual streets and try to hit people. Matt Bostwick , senior vice president of MTV Networks Music Group, says he's watched avatars get married, break up, form cliques and clubs, have blow-out virtual arguments. Ian Schubert, 21, a native New Yorker living in Malaysia, says he adheres to a strict set of ethics: Though tons of girls try to kiss him, he won't cheat on the virtual girlfriend he met here, just over a month ago.

Instead, Schubert said -- by instant message from within the virtual world -- he joins his girlfriend on a near-deserted beach, where they hang out near a virtual fire and "sit and talk about anything . . . we just say whatever that's on our mind."

Indeed, while MTV's programmers have set up activities -- from hoverboard races to fashion competitions -- not everyone takes advantage. Unlike the hard-core gamers who first drove the virtual-world technology, teenagers "in-world" mostly want to act like teenagers, says There.com CEO Mike Wilson , whose company created and hosts MTV's virtual spaces.

"They seem to be a lot more interested in hanging out and talking," Wilson says. "What we're seeing now is people using this . . . as a new way to communicate."

Wander through "Virtual Laguna Beach" during a peak hour -- say, a Sunday afternoon, just shy of dinner time -- and the level of discourse isn't exactly scholarly. I recently strode onto the main beach; well, not me, but my avatar, a tall, skinny teen in a halter top. I spotted a blond girl and a guy in shades, sitting on a bench. As each one typed, a conversation rose above their heads in a stream of thought bubbles:

"U R A REALLY GREAT GUY"

"THANX"

"NP"

"CAN I KISS YOU??"

"YES"

They kissed for a long time; maybe they didn't know about the "off" key, either. The word "tongue" appeared, more than once. I stood by and watched, a virtual voyeur.

Back in real high school, I wouldn't have felt good about this. But my slender avatar involuntarily put her hand on her hip. No matter what I did here, at least I looked cool.

This is a staple of MTV's virtual worlds: The avatars are universally young and chic. They constantly shift in place, striking attitudinal poses, as if in a perpetual state of ennui. Wilson says developers went through 31 revisions of the avatars. The network's mandate was always the same: Make them more attractive.

They have to look good, Bostwick says. MTV's credibility is on the line. He calls these virtual worlds "aspirational windows," where shopping sprees and breakups -- and, presumably, hit-and-runs -- carry on without consequence. In MTV's case, they're also meant to be PG-13: All available drinks are alcohol-free, and There.com reviews the clothes that users "create" before they can be worn.

As in other virtual worlds, advertisers are showing up, too, Bostwick says: Since Pepsi set up a series of virtual vending machines, 6,000 people have bought nearly 12,000 cans of Pepsi with digital dollars. Eventually, he says, viewers will be able to try something on in a virtual store and buy a version in the real world.

"If you look at the post-digital generation," Bostwick says, "they're really not making the same distinctions between virtual and real."

The same rules seem to apply to Showtime's older demographic, the 25- to 40-year-old women who dominate the fan base of "The L Word," and will presumably use the new virtual world. Some two weeks into its existence, the "world" is filling up; late into the night, avatars populate a virtual dance club, gyrating raucously through repeated use of function keys. Outside the club, volunteer "greeters" stand by to welcome new participants.

Showtime executives see this as proof that the show -- which had already spawned an active Web-based community -- was a perfect candidate for a virtual counterpart. Since the launch, non-fans have been dropping by the island, just to check out the design, said Robert Hayes , general manager of the Showtime Digital Group. One recent night, in a nightclub on the island, a French avatar in dreadlocks and a leather top sidled up to me to dance. She said she'd never heard of the show; she was just looking to meet women.

There's something about togetherness, real or digitized, that even appeals to fourth - and fifth-graders, the target age of Nicktropolis. The virtual world is centered on games, which Nickelodeon's research has shown to be the main draw for kids online. But Nicktropolis also offers a chance to "chat" with Nickelodeon characters, such as SpongeBob SquarePants . And it allows for onscreen chatting, layered with safeguards: Kids must choose from a database of prescreened words, and can't type individual numbers or letters.

Still, they've managed to connect. During testing of the virtual world, Nickel odeon executives say, they were surprised to see kids posting messages on virtual bulletin boards, volunteering their services as interior decorators.

It's a sign, some say, that as virtual worlds go mainstream -- dragged there, perhaps, by TV -- they're spawning a different form of interaction. "It's certainly not a game," says MTV's Bostwick. "It's certainly not a completely open-ended virtual community. And it's not exactly television."

Most likely, it's a way for users to assert their individuality, says Wilson, of There.com. At least, as much individuality as the programs will allow.

"It's another way for you to express yourself, as you express yourself with IM or your MySpace page," he says. "You don't want to live in a virtual world all the time."

Not if you want to emulate a TV star. On one of Conrad's visits to the "Virtual Hills," a fan invited her to a virtual birthday party. She politely declined, on the grounds that she wouldn't be near a computer.

"I couldn't," she says. "I was actually going out of my house."

Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com. For more on TV, go to boston.com/ae/tv/blog.