[not verified in body] When used to distinguish from fictional worlds or universes against the consensus reality of the reader, the term has a long history: Authors, as a rule, attempt to select and portray types rarely met with in their entirety, but these types are nevertheless more real than real life itself.In her 1788 work, Original Stories from Real Life; with Conversations Calculated to Regulate the Affections, and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness, author Mary Wollstonecraft employs the term in her title, representing the work's focus on a middle-class ethos which she viewed as superior to the court culture represented by fairy tales and the values of chance and luck found in chapbook stories for the poor.
Online, the acronym "IRL" stands for "in real life", with the meaning "not on the Internet".
Some sociologists engaged in the study of the Internet have predicted that someday, a distinction between online and offline worlds may seem "quaint", noting that certain types of online activity, such as sexual intrigues, have already made a full transition to complete legitimacy and "reality".
Some internet users use the idioms "face time" and "meatspace" in contrast with the term "cyberspace".
[9] Some early uses of the term include a post to the Usenet newsgroup austin.public-net in 1993[10] and an article in The Seattle Times about John Perry Barlow in 1995.