New World Notes

OPEN FORUM: WHY SO FEW TEENS IN TEEN SECOND LIFE?

Sakura Mitra, 14, of Teen Second Life

Online worlds are phenomenally popular with teenagers.  Here's the upper ranks, as of last month:

Habbo Hotel: 7,500,000 monthly active users
RuneScape: 5,000,000 monthly active users
Gaia Online: 2,000,000 monthly active users

And here's the lower end, based on the Lindens' most recent demographics:

Teen Second Life: 4,278 monthly active users

Why such a disparity?  It can't be for lack of user enthusiasm or talent, as even a quick glance at NWN's recent teen avatar expo will attest.  (There are still more entries from it, after the break.)  Teen Second Life is even home to verifiable prodigies.  Somehow, however, a year and a half after launch, all that creativity hasn't translated into a network effect of growing popularity, in comparison to far more restrictive worlds.  To me, this is one of the most perplexing questions about Second Life today.   
So I put it to my readers:  where have all teens gone, and why?

ALL ABOUT MY AVATAR: MARTIAL LOGAN (TSL)

"I'm Martial Logan, Teen Grid Resident and high commander of a well known group called 'The Black Talon'," Commander Logan (age 15) asserts to me forcefully.  "I've entered the Expo because I've got some confidence in my skill to build at last, so I'm giving this a shot."

ALL ABOUT MY AVATAR: LAYNE NOZOMI (TSL)

I've been tremendously lax in updating my Teen Avatar Expo, but will finally show the remaining entries in the coming weeks.  This spectacular warrior elf is Layne Nozomi.  "My inspiration," she e-mails me, "came from another MMORPG, called Lineage 2."

ALL ABOUT MY AVATAR: BLUE NEWBOMB (TSL)

Blue is a 16 year old member of Teen Second Life. "These pictures was taken at my land in Nailsworth.  I made this avatar because I love wolves and animals."  Her avatar, she adds, "can snarl and put her ears back with a command, with a script a friend helped me with."  A couple more feral action poses after the break.

ALL ABOUT MY AVATAR: ORCA'S OLE CHAP (TSL)

Now this is a new one: roleplaying as early 20th century plutocrats.  Reallife Orca is a 15 year old member of Teen Second Life, and says he was inspired to create his avatar by "my friends, who always roleplay as ole chaps."  He created the gray skin (the better to blend into black and white photographs of the era), "and created a tophat, monocle, and bubble pipe. I had a friend make a cane for me to crack at young whippersnappers."

ALL ABOUT MY AVATAR: MEYERMAGIC SALOME (TSL)

Though gray and grizzled, Meyermagic Salome is actually a 14 year old member of Teen Second Life; over time, he customized everything about his avatar, but for the wings.  "I did not create my avatar to reflect any specific traits of mine, or for any purpose," he tells me.  Still, he was surprised to discover "that some of my own traits and ideals were carried over anyway."  I was curious what he meant by that, and so naturally, I had to know more.

ALL ABOUT MY AVATAR: MING CHEN (TSL)

"I took this snapshot on my mini-island on the private island of Foobar Salad," Ming announces.  "My avatar has generally morphed over time with the main inspiration to look nice to be around, and, at the same time, professional and able to do business... The jacket and glasses were made by me, because I couldn't find something exactly how I wanted it on the grid.

ALL ABOUT MY AVATAR: CIRR MARAT (TSL)

CAM-501 in Mainframe

I first spotted Cirr Marat showing off his teen grid space station, so when I noticed he'd sent in a submission to my Teen Avatar Expo, I lept to check it out.

"This is the second version of the avatar I made since a few months after joining [Teen Second Life]," Cirr Marat, 16, tells me.  "It has the 'official' name of CAM-501-- Corvian Automated Mechanoid 501. The 'Corvian' part came from old plans for a multigadget that never came to fruition, and 501 is just an arbitary number. It's a robot bird. Not a robot fish or a robot fly, as some people seem to think, but then, the bird parts aren't really that obvious.

ALL ABOUT MY AVATAR: ROLAND UDAL (TSL)

From the mists of the Teen grid, a warrior rides through:  Roland Udal, elegantly detailed and loaded for bear.  He tells us about creating his avatar after the break.

ALL ABOUT MY AVATAR: AYEAKA REINSCH (TSL)

Ayeaka Reinsch, 16, offers her steely avatar "K9U.exe" for the Teen Avatar Expo.

"K9U.exe," she tells me, "is the product of a boredom-induced doodle at school during a lecture... In these screen captures, I am in Sand Box Island 4, roughly 500 meters into the air. I custom-built the surroundings for 'camera purposes.'"