When Does Second Life Advocacy Start To Seem Cult-Like?

Recently virtual community visionary Howard Rheingold described Second Life users as "a tiny cult following", which he clearly didn't mean pejoratively (Howard's an early supporter of SL), but in the sense that it's still relatively small, and the platform awaits killer apps that will grow the user base into "a small cyber subculture." Still, the term provoked Roland Legrand of Mixed Realities to make this observation:

I must admit, sometimes I clearly feel the cult-like aspects – especially when avatars react [against] people who don’t believe in Second Life or in virtual worlds in general. When such people eventually change their position and “admit” there is value in Second Life, there is joy in the Second Life communities which can only be compared to the joy of the faithful for a conversion.

And I see some resonance in that admission too. To me, it's less important that the uninitiated embrace and "convert" to Second Life (especially when the entry barriers are still so high), than they understand the full measure of possibilities it affords now. What's your take on Roland's reaction? Image from this Rheingold video presentation.

Comments

[WilliamGide]

Thus cult language says less about SL enthusiasts than it does Rheingold's own worldview and the current Zeitgeist. These days, to be non-ironically enthusiastic about just about anything is likely to get called cultish — I myself have spoken of "those orchid cultists" on more than one occasion. :)

The bar for calling something cultish should perhaps be a bit higher than merely less than fully critical enthusiasm.

[Fogwoman Gray]

Honestly, I used to encourage friends and coworkers to try out SL. But with the current issues and the minimum performance requirements being so high, I no longer do so. The machine and graphics cards required to experience SL are outside what most of my acquaintances have at home. And the gamers who have machines that will run it rather sneer at SL :)

[coco]

Lets see. Love machines, White outfits, Belief in P, Fake names, Bottom Dollar reality, M, T,

MT M T EMPTY

Aha.
Zenu has awaiken.

[AnnOtooleInSL]

Cult is over. Only a few remain that have not awakened from the koolaid and gone back to work IRL. No further sense in discussing it.

[Loman Totempole]

"Cult is over. Only a few remain that have not awakened from the koolaid and gone back to work IRL. No further sense in discussing it."

groan moan groan.

You don't enjoy SL? Then stop logging in and obsessively commenting on blogs about it.

[PixPol]

I felt the burn of this when I wrote my pieces about the proposed content creation systems for Blue Mars. One of the employees of Blue Mars, Community Director Glenn Sanders, went so far as to say that critics of Blue Mars belonged to the "old Earth," and addressed his "Martian Family" as if people who critiqued the game simply weren't going to be part of what he called "the bold Blue Mars future."

It was genuinely disturbing.

[Lalo Telling]

Rheingold seemed to mean "cult following" the way we speak of "cult films" and the like. Lord knows we can be a self-referential bunch, with our catch-phrases and in-jokes (chickens, anyone?). Legrand turned that into something like the Moonies or the Krishnas, as if Second Lifers were standing on street corners handing out flowers and fliers with the SL download URL.

I see Rheingold's point, and agree with his assessment quoted in Legrand's article. Other than marketing PR from the Lab itself -- after all, they've got some land in Nebraska they're trying to sell -- I wonder what Legrand is talking about.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

LL's corporate culture in the early days of Philip Rosedale's vision had a lot of the markers of cultish behavior. It's not anything new.

In the history of technology, consider the zealous followers of Thomas Edison, the rhetoric of GM's Futurama at the 1939 World's Fair, NASA's rabid civilian promoters, some car clubs, and Apple's following.

Full disclosure: I'm a member of "The Cult of Steve, Bringer of the One-Button Mouse." I--shudder--have a two-button mouse and prefer MS Office. Burn the schismatic!

Howard Rheingold is speaking metaphorically here, and he sure knows a ton about the history of technological enthusiasm. It gets loopy fast when people love something that changes their lives. I have a magazine article from the 20s called "The Machine Minders" that refers to engineers as "The New Sons of God."

I've only been messed with by SL zealots once, and that was reasonable given the venue, an SL education e-list. I began posting regular updates on OpenSim worlds.

One respondent said that a pox should fall on those who discuss other VWs on that list.

The reaction to my apostasy came from an honest belief that if we start dividing our energies into other worlds, we lose SL's critical mass. There was also a more personal fear that those who have invested a great deal of time and energy in SL will lose those investments.

[soror nishi]

cult is OK by me

[Tateru Nino]

It seems cult-like around the same time as the ill-informed, erratic and incorrect SL opponents start to look cult-like. That makes anything different look like zealotry :)

[Lili]

I really have to protest the image of Amitabha Buddha under the "cult like" title! Seriously, have a little respect. There are over 1.6 billion buddhists on earth. Not a cult, sorry! How about a christian or muslim image? They are much more recent religions. Oh, I guess that would be offensive.

[Hamlet Au]

No offense intended, that's just a screen cap of Howard Rheingold in his SL office.

[Anya Ristow]

When a creepy social vacuum of a bot nest like 7th Element gets reported as a place that doesn't use fake traffic...yeah, that seems a bit cult-ish.

Want to wash away the cult-y aftertaste of that report? How about investigating (or reporting, if you already know) why a place like that exists, how it made it onto a list of places that don't game traffic, who really runs it and that list, and who benefits if people are fooled into thinking it's a real club?

Why that one? Because it's about the most preposterous thing I've seen reported as positive news, and vigorously defended. There's positive reporting and then there's cheerleading. 7th Element is low-hanging fruit. If you aren't part of the deception, then you can safely distance yourself from that one. Step off the squad and strike a blow against the cult image. Please tell us what you know (or can learn) about 7th Element.

[Extropia DaSilva]

For anything to be classified as a cult (the sinister group kind, not the fringe entertainment kind) it must have the following characteristics:

VENERATION OF A LEADER: Glorification of a leader to the point of virtual sainthood or divinity.

INERRANCY OF THE LEADER: Belief that the leader cannot be wrong.

OMNISIENCE OF THE LEADER: Acceptance of the leader's beliefs and pronouncements on all subjects.

PERSUASIVE TECHNIQUES: Methods, from benign and coercive, used to recruit new followers and reinforce current beliefs.

HIDDEN AGENDAS: The true nature of the group's beliefs and plans is obscured from or not fully disclosed to potential recruits and the general public.

DECEIT: Recruits and followers are not told everything they should know about the leader and the group's inner circle, and particularly disconcerting flaws are covered up.

FINANCIAL AND/OR SEXUAL EXPLOITATION: Recruits and followers are persuaded to invest money and other assets in the group, and the leader may develop sexual relations with one or more followers.

ABSOLUTE TRUTH: Belief that the leader and/ or the group has discovered final knowledge on any number of subjects.

ABSOLUTE MORALITY: Belief that the leader and/ or group has developed a system of right and wrong, thought and action, applicable to members and nonmembers alike. Those who do not strictly follow the moral code are punished or dismissed from the group entirely.

Well, I will leave Hamlet's readers to decide for themselves the extent to which SL and LL fits any of those catagories. I will only comment that some people seem to think 'cult' refers to any group that hold beliefs they personally think are a bit weird. That is, in fact, not what defines a cult at all.

[Roland Legrand]

@DaSilva I agree we should be careful using the word "cult".

What Rheingold said, resonated with me, because I consider myself being a virtual worlds enthusiast, but I know how difficult it is to promote virtual worlds.

Feeling on a daily basis that resistance against virtual worlds such as Second Life, I really doubt it will get mainstream adoption anytime soon.

Even in these times of the H1N1 disease, collaboration in virtual worlds is hardly mentioned (or not mentioned at all) as an alternative, as Robert Bloomfield remarked on Metanomics.

This is not just because of a lack of information. I think (but I hope I'm wrong) there is a more deep-seated cultural and psychological resistance at work here against the whole notion of working and living as an avatar in a virtual space.

In that sense I think Howard is right when he believes that the virtual worlds followers can grow to a small cyber culture, but not exactly to a mainstream phenomenon.

That, for me, does not make virtual worlds unimportant, far from it.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

There is a subset of SL that I find a little eerie, if not technically cultish; those who are residents, have been residents for years, have no intention of ever leaving, but are too 'cool' to admit that they enjoy anything about SL. They gather together in the world provided by Linden Labs and decry Linden Labs as some sort of twisted evil hippie communist plot to rob them of their rightful fortunes. They're certain that LL is in bed with griefers and thieves, and will proclaim such as undeniable truth (and woe to any who dare dissent with their 'truth').

I'm no cheerleader; on those occasions when the Lab deserves to be raked over the coals, hand me a rake! But on the other hand, I find the anti-fanbois just as glassy-eyed and empty-headed as the fanbois. Hollow hipness, off tempo and off key, with all the authenticity of a Milli Vanilli cover band.

[Gahum Riptide]

Ann, do you ever enjoy anything? Almost all of your responses here and elsewhere are so depressing that you come off as a case of sour grapes. I *always* know what to expect when you write something because it's so predictable.

Anyway, I think that as others have said, we need to be careful with the term "cult". Perhaps there are a subset of users who really have a cultish attitude about SL and LL, but I don't see it. Most of the people I know are ready to rake LL over the coals for mistakes as much as they are to applaud LL when something goes right.

I think that the joy spoken about is more on the level of "THANK GOODNESS they aren't ripping on me for liking SL!" since a lot of people come, go, and then talk about how much they hate SL.

[Connie Sec]

It seems very easy for some to become overly obsessive about SL or even Blue Mars..turning into virtual "fanboys". I personally feel excessive championing of this or that technology can be a defensive reaction to even level headed negative criticism. While I personally spend a lot of time in SL..and increasingly contributing my 2 cents worth in BM, I have no "loyalty" to one technology or the other. In the end my time will be spent in whatever space best suits my needs at the time, and no amount of boosting by the fanboys or stupidities from the peanut gallery will change that.