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what the voices in my head tell me to write

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Cute SL vs the grimy underbelly

So much of what I read about second life shows the side the lindens want the world to see. Smart well dressed AVs going to well organised and planned events run by corporations or at least with some level of corporate sponsorship. Even the more "out there" SL sexuality blogs are generally fairly tame and as far as a I can see discuss what sexy underwear is available out there.

I would argue that most of the creativity in SL is actually in the areas that the Lindens dont want the world to see. Roleplay sims, sex sims, all the nasty seedy underbelly basically. This is often where real innovation comes from. Who cares if someone has found a new way to make a shirt and tie look more realistic? That doesnt really add anything to the world. New ways of animating avs, weapons, scripts etc are far more technically advanced and are being developed every day in more "adult" or violent areas.

The level of individual creativity is much higher too in RP or Adult areas. It takes a lot of effort to Role Play effectively to the benefit of your fellow RPers. The corporate, sanitized side of SL reduces the world to walking around window shopping and chatting to other drones.

I would argue that a lot of people come to second life to escape the corporate, consumer society. They want to do things in SL they could never do in RL. If thats being a hooker, changing sex, changing species, or blasting a vampire in the face at point blank range with a shotgun, or anything else, SL lets them do that.

I would even be willing to bet that most of the people who create accounts and leave after a while are the people who never get to explore the more "unusual" areas of second life. The sanitized, "friendly", corporate areas are DULL. Its that which makes many people loose interest.

P.S. I hear through the grapevine that some other people I work with are setting up stuff in SL. If I even end up going to a "meeting" in SL for work I will be turning up in a full cyborg AV and carrying at least one weapon ;)

Labels: second life

Permanent link and Comments posted by Rob Cornelius @ Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Comments:

I think you may be voicing a very popular opinion. Granted, I'm not one to talk too much of those things because I don't go around with a crotch-proboscis trying to get some scripted particles, but hey - you are right, that is missing. But it may also be missing because the community isn't willing to discuss these things on the web, where their privacy can be easily bypassed.

Hard to say. Both are undoubtedly factors. At Your2ndPlace.com, the only rule is that the headlines have to be PG - as the inworld RSS feeds may be displayed in PG sims.

Food for thought, though. Maybe I should do research on that Eros LLC v John Doe case and show photographically that all animations on the beds are exactly the same, frame by frame... or not. :-)

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