Second jack in to Second Life, seeing what I can render.

I figured I should get at least somewhat "with-it", anthropological. So I took some estrogen pills, slapped on some lip gloss and anime-style hair, and it came out more (cowgirl) "co-girl" Malibu escort than I might've liked but hey, it's what they had at the free avatar place. I then searched for a medium-popular area, as the most popular areas in SL are, disturbingly, 3d manifestations of junk e-mail -- casino / business scams, "dance wit hott grls 2nite!" etc. -- and the majority of other areas are ghost towns or private.

So I settle on "Club Moonlight" which sounds nice enough. Only to find out my attempts at avatar-ing are in vain as it's a strip club for furries! Oh well. Might as well get the virtual groove on, whatever that means.



Very colorful.

I talked to a regular, Brianna, the cat-girl to the right of me, who was very friendly (not really common on the whole, I think, but furries can be a bit more approachable). I tried to find out what people do here besides chat, press the "play dance animation" button, and watch avatars dance. "Not much really, pick out outfits," she said. SL is for her mostly a social thing, a place for her and her husband (the blue wolf behind her) and friends. Although she also said that she is a tarot card reader in "first life", and figured she'd extend her business to SL, why not eh?



A winged leopard. Big and loud seems to be the norm in SL; big wings, flashy hair, overflowing "bling", literally, that looks like the exploding attack of some Dragon Ball character.

So next stop, I tried virtual Tokyo, actually a couple of them, as there are several different versions.



This is one instantiation of Shinjuku Park. Streaming audio is J-pop star crooning the end-credits songs of Evangelion. Though there were some communication difficulties, (mostly my Nihongo isn't very good) Japanese affect seems to have ported over to SL.



Some scripted dogs here, they run around and jump on you.



They even hump your leg.



Shibuya, unfortunately mostly empty.



Hehe.





Kenji and Satou of the Tokyo Beach Surf Club. They were excited to learn I was from Hawaii and we talked some surfing.



This is Hana, the assistant manager / builder of Humatune, a theme park / shopping complex / hangout in I forget which part of SL Tokyo.





There was a sign somewhere in Humatune which I forgot to get a picture of was "Let's rise by the chat which is a place of relaxation of a city."


Out of Tokyo, on to Hong Kong. Greater Hong Kong that is, which Snow Crashers will be delighted to hear about.





Unfortunately, MLGHK turned out to be another empty shopping mall where you get paid to sit on logs around a camp fire and play trivia or check out the warehouse of freebies.





Have a Second Wedding.



In one of the empty shops, I ran into, or actually was run into by "Pretty Princess Ball" who looked much like the above girl but with longer blonde hair. She told me she was going to lose her home unless she got together 500 Lindens (about $2.50 USD) to pay her landlord, and proceeded to beg quite desperate-sounding, even holding and constantly nursing a bottle of liquor. She offered a blow job and sex, in that order. What does a "blow job" mean in SL? I mean, 3d characters can be hot, sure, but the idea just doesn't appeal. Even a text-only cybersex session would be more exciting than "putting on" your dick and watching turgid red mesh collide. Although apparently the majority of activity, "economic" or otherwise is getting "virtual-laid"). "What, do you think I got internet access yesterday?" I wanted to tell her, but I just left.


There are a few art galleries you could hunt down if you're good and patient. Little carved out tori of interzone between the glossy hollow polygons of blingtardia / MTVerse.





This one was entitled "Innocence" I believe.




So does Second Life seem to live up to it's marketing hyper-hype of, "Vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. A world created by its inhabitants with endless possibilities for creativity and expression."

For the most part, Second Life seems to be just an audio-visual augmentation of the chat room or instant message, similar to Gaia Online or IMVU at best, and just the worst of the internet at worst. Kind of reminds me of a jacked up adolescent fashion-show version of the text based MU*s of ye olde internets, but with more bullshit, technical difficulties, lag, drama, and weaker actual interactions.

It's like, "Hey look, we're manifesting that thing William Gibson visionaried and Neal Stephenson elaborated on and all that wonderful techy-matrixey culture and ideas that have grown there, look - it's here, and it's ONLY *here*, at Second Life!" And so that looks real nice on your company blog, you're "on-the-edge", "one-foot-in-the-future", "embracing-evolution" whatever. There are a few interesting things going on, but they are quite few, and it's a fun look around, but I wouldn't invest any real time in that place.

I think that the techno-cultural parameters that would allow to emerge what I personally would like to see in Second Life do not exist yet, or are not in the correct proportions for such a space to emerge. It seems to me that Second Life is a late 21st or 22nd century concept/world that fell into the present. Like the difference engine that arrived before advances in electronics etc. needed to create the computer; the basic theoretical mechanism was there, you could crank the handle and watch the columns churn away, but it couldn't really take off. Except with the real second life, (which would not really be "second" or life as presently known at all) it's more than just the technology, but the fundamental human experience itself that would change, and probably mean at least some kind of post-humanity.

Until then, we're just windowlicking on imagined futures.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TwiliteMinotaur,

this reminds me a lot of AOL in 93 or 94....

thanks, twilite. i'm never gonna get there myself so it's great to have someone doing a bit of fieldwork.

btw i'd thought those things on your chest were pecs, not boobs.

or are they something in between?

Glad to help.

Well see, I actually had a total sex change there, (you can do that in the avatar design) in some pics I'm male and some female. All the pics with the grey jacket and without the makeup and everything, that's "Chris", and those are pecs. The pics with the purple jacket and top and lipstick, etc. are "Christy", and those are boobs.



^ female



Wait, ignore that

Oh you bet your ass she is, she's an animal!

Yeah I like'em too, but no I didn't make the display in the background, that's actually the entrance to Avalon, the place that's hosting the William Gibson / Spook Country events.

quote:

It's like, "Hey look, we're manifesting that thing William Gibson visionaried and Neal Stephenson elaborated on and all that wonderful techy-matrixey culture and ideas that have grown there, look - it's here, and it's ONLY *here*, at Second Life!"

Yeah, but there's no there there.

Yep, TM, it's what everybody already does on the internet except with a slow-to-load and unnecessarily cutesy interface.

It's in its infancy.

Thanks for the tour Twilite. I was wondering what the buzz was about.

Nice tour TM! I might go take a look.

There's a Wired article about how empty it is. 4 million distinct individuals, 1 million of those have logged on in the last 30 days, and 1/3 of that in the last week.

I wonder how that compares to WoW and other MMORPGs? VR is pretty boring when there is no goal. The only things to do in the old Sony Worlds VR were chat and mess with your avatar so it didn't really hold the attention. 2nd Life is a medium without a message.

Overall it's nowhere near what it's buzzed to be, but there are a few good applications of SL currently I know of - psych rehabilitation and training environments I remember reading about come to mind. I also like this book tour thing, especially since I'm not going to make it to any RL events. I did the container competition but still trying to make that WG avatar.

I wonder how the reading is going to work, given

quote:

each processor on Linden Lab's servers can handle a maximum of only 70 avatars at a time; more than that and the service slows to a crawl, some avatars disappear, or the island simply vanishes.

Owning it up.

Spook Country Second Life tour starts in 1:45:00!

Oh! I hope I am back from Housing Committee Duty and buying Spook!

Do I need directions? Forget where they are now.

Just search for "William Gibson" in search and click on one of the pink stars in the list.

I was just going to ask for instructions in words of one syllable, but I think that will do.

See you on the other side. I'm a furry.

I can find William Gibson in the Search tab but not in the map tab?

The site is "avalon space think dream".

My avatar name is TwiliteMinotaur Writer btw. What's everyone's?

Oh yeah, I'm the guy in black with the long horns

The auditorium is all the way East I think, you'll see a ton of avatars piling up.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TwiliteMinotaur,

"What's in the box container?!?"

I think I was stuck in tutorial hell until my PC overheated at least.

Well, I'm sitting there as Weyland Beck, waiting for things to kick off...

best,
Chris H