Where Do We Go After Second Life?

 Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man comes.

Matthew 25:13

 

          Recently, I read an article in the blog of another blogger whose work I enjoy greatly and have considerable respect for.  (Yes, I do read the competition!  I’m not that insecure!)

          Canary Beck and her article is entitled What would you do if Second Life disappeared overnight?  (See, I told you that I wasn’t insecure!)

          In this article, Canary discusses how her life could change if Second Life (SL) were to simply disappear overnight.  (The thought of which panics Significant Other because of the fear of my roaming about unchecked.)

          Canary says she no longer worries about this and has plenty of ideas about what to

do with her newly found free time.  Although, she does admit that one drawback might be spending more money in Real Life (RL) because of so many opportunities.

          Canary’s view is non-apocalyptic and is more along the lines of a theoretical exercise. 

          Her discussion moves into maintaining balance between SL and RL and examines the two ways to restore such balance either by a sudden withdrawal (SL interruptus?) or a gradual reduction in time spent inworld. 

          Canary chose the latter a while back and is happy with the results. 

          Unlike me, Canary doesn’t seem to worry too much about the demise of SL.

          While I don’t lay awake at night worrying about such an eventuality, (Significant Other would make me find someplace else to sleep if I tossed and turned too much.) Canary’s article did make me think again of what would happen were SL to simply disappear because of some corporate machinations at Linden Lab. 

          SL is full of refugees from the virtual world There.com after its closing.  Although, since reopening I haven’t heard too much about it.  (I guess once the magic’s gone, it’s gone.)

          Many of them speak longingly and fondly about their times in that community.  One, Celia Pearce, wrote an excellent Book, Communities of Play, about one group of There refugees through their Diaspora to new worlds.  (Strongly recommend that book to anyone interested in virtual communities.)

          The closing of a virtual world has consequences for the real people with real feelings

behind all those avatars. 

          Whatever happens or doesn’t happen to SL over the next couple of years, there is little that we can do about it.  (Think Jor-El on planet Krypton.) 

          However, like Jor-El we can take measures to perpetuate the communities that have grown up in SL and have become important parts of the lives of so many people.

          First, there is preparation, both psychological and physical.

          Psychological by recognizing that this can happen and will eventually happen and probably sooner than the Sun flaming out and turning our planet to cinders. 

          Physical by preparing as I’ve blogged before to have a plan to move across the Metaverse to a new home or at least using social media to keep the communities alive. 

          Next, is paying attention to what’s happening in RL with Linden Lab.  While we may not be able to do anything about it, we can at least see it coming so the migration can be orderly. 

          Finally, let’s keep enjoying ourselves in SL!

          Whatever may or may not happen, we’re still there and we still have one another!

          As Canary blogged, there is life after SL.

          We just have to decide how to make the most of it!

          I’d like to thank Canary for another wonderful example of her thoughtful writing about SL!   

          As always, I’m grateful to all inworld for their kindness and time in stopping to talk with a stranger who was passing through their lives

My Twitter handle is @webspelunker.  Please feel free to follow me and I’d be happy to follow you.

I can be found on Google+ as webspelunker Ghostraven.

My flickr Photostream is located here.

On Skype I’m webspelunker Ghostraven.

I welcome feedback from readers, please either comment on my blog or e-mail me at webspelunker@gmail.com . 

          If you would like to read about my other adventures in Second Life please click here.

          Open roads and kind fires!

Social Media in Second Life

 

Social media allows us to behave in ways that we are hardwired for in the first place - as humans. We can get frank recommendations from other humans instead of from faceless companies.

Francois Gossieaux

 

Once upon a time, (Now, that sounds familiar doesn’t it?) my original purpose in coming into Second Life (SL) and blogging about it was to serve as a stepping stone to something bigger, the Metaverse. 

I wanted to go out and see the virtual world so to speak.  But, as I’ve alluded to a few times in the past, I came inworld, kind of liked the neighborhood and stayed.  (Significant Other says that I’m more like a houseguest who has overstayed his welcome.)  However, the Metaverse never went away, it’s still out there.  Someday, I’ll continue on my journey.  (To my SL friends, don’t worry, I’m not going anyplace soon!)

That collection of websites, servers, routers, blogs, wires, and general whatever else is still out there, beckoning.  Not to mention, all the people, both real and virtual, who make it happen and exist there. It’s all out there somewhere. 

Within the Metaverse are all sorts of categories and sub-categories of possible existences.  One of these categories is entitled social media.  This encompasses many different sub-categories like social networks, microblogs, sharing, publishing, MMO’s, and virtual worlds.  Many, including myself, include SL in the latter category.  SL is part of the social media phenomena.  (Bet some of you didn’t know that!) 

Within SL, we have our own little ecosystem much like Earth in the Milky Way.  Unlike our ancient Real Life (RL) ancestors and ourselves who gazed into the night sky and wondered if we were alone, in the Metaverse, we know that we are not alone.

In RL, space exploration exists, the SETI scans the heavens looking for hints of alien civilizations and wonders why we don’t hear anything.  (The Fermi Paradox notwithstanding, Carl Sagan knew and we fail to heed his words at own peril.)  Yet, within the Metaverse, we virtually (no pun intended) ignore the evidence and really don’t use the tools available to us to reach out and touch other virtual worlds let alone the rest of the Metaverse.

Tools like Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and Flickr are just a few examples of what’s available to us if we want to use them.  (Admittedly, use of Facebook is somewhat problematic and some SL avi’s seem to spend more time being thrown off than being on but by playing within the rules, some exist there.) Yet, for all the use made of these tools, there doesn’t appear to be a collective consciousness of who we are out there.  Our presence in the Metaverse beyond SL is more like a note in a bottle thrown out into the sea in the hopes of landing somewhere. 

SL, for all its benefits, imposes constraints on us who use it.  Communications are mainly inworld.  Trying to reach into SL when one isn’t using a SL viewer is difficult and the experience is nowhere near as rich as when one is inworld.  Trust me, I know from firsthand experience. 

Then there is what I call the Planet Krypton scenario. What would happen if SL were to go poof like Superman’s home world?  Couldn’t happen you say?  Remember There.com?  Sure it may be back now but read Celia Pearce’s account in Communities of Play of the trauma of its closure and the efforts of the diaspora to reestablish themselves elsewhere.  The communities that we have inworld are as fragile as they are marvelous.  Yet, no one thinks about what we would do or where we would go if Linden Lab (LL) pulls the plug.  It can happen.  If the entire US home mortgage market could almost go poof in the blink of an eye in 2008, trust me on this, then taking out a little virtual world is cake.

Even in RL today, people are asking if we can avoid the fate of the dinosaur.  Can we stop asteroids?  Could we move beyond our galaxy if we had to?  Authors write loads of books, both fiction and non-fiction, on these topics.

Yet, we who have the tools we need at our disposal do nothing about moving beyond our virtual world.  (Or, if we are then it’s being kept well hidden from me which Significant Other suggests might be advisable.) 

I don’t want to get too philosophical about this.  But permit me to ask a few questions here. First, can we exist beyond the boundaries of SL?  Next, where do avatars go when they die, if they die?  Finally, to paraphrase Philip K. Dick, do avatars dream of electronic sheep when they sleep?  (Significant Other believes that I’ve seen The Matrix movies too many times.)

Maybe I’m getting a little carried away.  But, please take my point.  Can the SL community exist beyond the confines of LL’s servers?  (And, no, I’m not trying to alarm LL into improving service.  Although, anything of the sort would be welcome.) 

The questions I’d like to take into the New Year are can we extend the conversation beyond SL via social media?  Can we build a tweetstream for the SL community as one example?

In 2014, I’m going to try and do this.  I welcome anyone who would like to join me. 

My Twitter handle is @webspelunker.  Please feel free to follow me and I’d be happy to follow you.

If anyone needs assistance in getting established in Twitter as a start, I’d be happy to help.  (Twitter is more welcoming to nom de plumes and is simpler to set up.) 

I’d appreciate your thoughts on this topic and look forward to working with some of you on this in 2014!

Happy Holidays!

As always, I’m grateful to all inworld for their kindness and time in stopping to talk with a stranger who was passing through their lives.    

I welcome feedback from readers, please either comment on my blog or e-mail me at webspelunker@gmail.com . 

          If you would like to read about my other adventures in Second Life please click here.

 

 

Among the Writers!

The ending is not yet written.

Yeesha

        

Since I began writing about life in Second Life (SL), please pardon the pun, I’ve read several books about SL and many blogs.  Many people are writing about virtual worlds.  So when a Real Life (RL) author reached out to me recently to talk about my recent blog on pirates I was pretty excited.  After all, I’m still trying to figure out who’s reading my blog besides a group of loyal followers.  (And, no, I don’t pay any of them!)  Meeting a real author is a big deal for me.  Meeting a real author who is doing serious research in virtual worlds is an even bigger deal for me.  (Don’t worry, I didn’t embarrass myself.  At least I don’t think too badly.) 

The author was Celia Pearce of Georgia Institute of Technology where she is an Associate Professor of Digital Media.  In SL she is known as Artemesia Sandgrain.  She is the author of several papers and books.  I have recently completed her Communities of Play, an account of a group of virtual world residents who attempt to stay together as a community as their home world is shut down around them.  How these people migrate across the Metaverse, keep their identity and ultimately meet in Real Life is a very interesting tale of how RL and virtual worlds are beginning to merge together in some ways.  Celia’s views on virtual worlds and the emergence of group identities is also well worth reading the book for. 

Recently, Celia with three other authors, Tom Boellstorff, Bonnie Nardi, and T. L. Taylor coauthored a book on the use of ethnographic tools and techniques in the study of virtual worlds.  All had written full length ethnographies about virtual worlds.  The book’s title is Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method (Princeton 2012).  The book has recently been published and is sitting on my virtual stack to be read later this year.  (Yes, I know the year is ending fast.) 

Celia was kind enough to introduce me to Tom, known as Tom Bukowski in SL, and they both agreed to meet me for an interview about their recent book.  Tom is an anthropologist at the University of California, Irvine.  Among his published works is Coming of Age in Second Life which is his account of his two years of study of residents in SL.  This is another book which I’ve read and can recommend. 

We all agree to meet in SL at Morgan Straits, a pirate sim where Celia operates a field station.  At the appointed time we meet.  Tom is dressed in the casual attire of a college professor.  Celia is dressed as a pirate complete with eye patch.  The room we meet in is well appointed with eclectic pirate spoils.  Unfortunately, a sea battle is underway and chat is getting killed by lag.  (I think someone is trying to recreate the Battle of Trafalgar.)  Celia recommends relocating to another field station of hers in Virtual Harlem.  We teleport over and our lag problems are a thing of the past. 

Since Celia has to get to a class after our interview, I start with my questions.  First, why did they write this book?

Celia replies that since all four authors had already written full length ethnographies, they had noticed in their travels that a lot of people wanted to do ethnographies of virtual worlds and needs some help.  They also noticed a lot of people were doing research they “claimed” was ethnography which really wasn’t.  The four authors got together initially with the idea of writing a collection of essays by themselves and with others.  But then they figured they had enough to say on the topic among themselves that they could author a single book. 

My next question relates to their earlier books when I got the sense that some academics dismiss this as a field of study and I ask if this influenced them. 

Tom says it did to some degree.  He finds the academic reception strange. It reminds him a bit of his ethnographic research on gay and lesbian Indonesians in the 1990s and 2000s for his first two books. He and colleagues doing similar research found there to be interest in the work, but also doubts if it was a valid topic, and many researchers did (and still do) have trouble getting jobs. So it's striking to him that ethnographic research on virtual worlds can also sometimes be seen as threatening, but also attractive to many scholars (especially, but not only, junior ones) because it draws in students and it is interesting stuff. 

As proof, Tom says that his books on SL have sold more than his books on his studies in Indonesia.  He laughingly adds not because they are any better.  He likes them all! 

Tom adds there is some fear and dismissal of ethnography especially around virtual worlds. Even in the communities of people doing technology studies, there is sometimes a tendency to see such work as valid only when it shows a connection to "real life," without really thinking through the many ways there can be "connections" in indirect but powerful ways, and when the things that happen online are also "real."

Celia says Tom has a good point but feels it has gotten a lot better.  When she started doing game studies in the late 1990’s it was “the medium that dare not speak its name.” 

Celia continues by noting an even bigger problem with the marginalization of ethnography itself which is that quantitative methods are in vogue right now.  Cultural domain expertise is not valued by many "quants" (her term) who believe that everything can be translated into numbers. However, she points out, cultural interpretation is required even to analyze back-end server data. 

I ask if they are doing studies of virtual worlds to validate their positions on qualitative studies or are they starting from virtual worlds and realizing the lack of respect.  Tom replies that it’s both but believes it really started from people asking “how do you do it?” and wanting to use the four authors’ experiences to explain the basics of ethnographic research in virtual worlds, which he hopes is useful for people doing other stuff too. 

My last question to Celia and Tom: Is there another book in the offing?  Celia says they are going to do some papers.  I’m surprised to learn that people really want to know about how the book was written.  The four authors were all over the world and used Google Documents to collaborate.  Tom says that unbelievably they wrote this book as one voice.  No one can claim ownership of a chapter or sentence.  Tom jokingly refers to the hive mind book.  (I’m thinking more of the Borg.)  They all own them. We may be hearing from the authors on this topic before long. 

Celia and Tom have to leave to meet with their students so I make my good byes and head home. 

This interview has been interesting for me for several reasons.  First, I met two people who move between virtual worlds like SL and RL easily.  Their identities are known to all.  Second, Celia, Tom, and their coauthors are bringing real world social studies methodologies into virtual worlds and coming back out with results.  The lessons learned are applicable to RL and not just virtual worlds. 

I’ve been writing about communities since I’ve been inworld and I’m learning that these communities are more than just a collection of individuals who don’t have anything else better to do.  Celia’s, Tom’s, and their colleagues' work points to something more happening out there.

For all those looking to better understand how communities are developing in virtual worlds, I recommend that you read Celia’s and Tom’s books.  Better yet, if you can afford to do so, please buy them! 

I want to thank Celia and Tom for their time and cooperation and I hope to see more work from them about SL and the other virtual worlds that make up the Metaverse. 

As always, I’m grateful to all for their kindness and time in stopping to talk with a stranger who was passing through their lives.

I welcome feedback from readers, please either comment on my blog or e-mail me at webspelunker@gmail.com .  

     If you would like to read about my other adventures in Second Life please click here.

Photo No. 1 Celia Pearce (Artemesia Sandgrain)

Photo No. 2 Tom Boellstorf (Tom Bukowski)