What’s Behind The Recent Focus on Second Life Culture
Culture has become an increasingly vital topic in the Second Life blogosphere over the last six months or so. This issue has emerged in response to an unprecedented series of actual and anticipated changes in technology and governance that will likely impact the status quo of almost every Second Life sub-culture and community of interest.
We are [...]
Second Life Culture 02: Platform as Evolutionary Force
The technology and governance of the Second Life platform don’t just enable and shape culture, they are essential parts of culture itself. The platform environment is both the evolutionary force we must adapt to and the medium through which we act, interact and experience in the virtual world.
For instance, avatar appearance forms a foundational basis [...]
Will Linden Lab’s Change Efforts Destroy Second Life Culture as We Know it?
Dusan Writer wrote a couple of posts last week that included a question about the impact of Linden Lab’s technology and governance changes on Second Life Culture. After days of fruitless musing, I eventually realized that the main reason I was having such a hard time gaining clarity on the topic was that I didn’t really know what [...]
The Danger of One Story
This great talk by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie describes how our perception of the world can be warped by the domination of stories from a single point of view. Although the ill-effects are certainly much more consequential within the physical world, the message also has great relevance for virtual world communities.
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf
/me wonders about talking in the third person
My friend Airish recently informed me that talking about oneself in the third person is considered to be a sign of mental impairment in meatspace. I was taken aback and compelled to consider my practice of the art of the whispered aside.
The /me prefix is often used to communicate action that is difficult or impossible [...]
The Cult of Wit
In meatspace they say, “You never have a second chance to make a first impression.” In the hyper-short attention span environment of Second Life I think the bar is set even higher. Many SLers give you about two lines after receiving an introductory “hi” before they make the decision whether to blow you off or [...]
