What's Brazil Doing In Second Life?

Quite a lot, as it turns out: a government official with their Pontos de Cultura movement (which conducts new media outreach to the country's poor) recently helped put together two SL-based efforts, including Centrol Cultural Bradesco, "a Second Life venue owned by Brazil's largest privately held bank."  This comes from a robust overview on Brazil's recent Second Life activity from Schmilsson Nilsson of the metaverse developer Dancing Ink.  Known in the material world as Joshua Fouts, Nilsson is formerly the director of USC's Center on Public Diplomacy, and was himself an influence on the Brazilian government's interest in Second Life. 

In 2006, he showed off SL to the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, arguing that it fit the country's impressive ability to quickly adapt to Net-driven social media.  (Or in the case of Orkut, completely take it over.) Which come to think of it, partly explains how one of the coolest individuals on the entire planet wound up interested in Second Life: legendary musician Gilberto Gil  is current head of Brazil's Culture ministry. Here's a video of Minister Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira brilliantly talking about SL as part of a "new noosphere". From last year, but absolutely still worth watching.  (For that matter, if you haven't heard his dreamily sensual music before, do yourself a favor and give a listen.)

Comments

[eggy lippmann]

I've often asked myself the same thing ;)

[Ann Otoole]

What is Brazil doing in Secondlife? lmao there is a really hot pjira open that goes into great detail on exactly what sort of value transference is happening in respect to those people in association with Secondlife.

Or not. Can't really tell who is from where can we?

[Mitch Wagner]

They've got brazillions of avis there too.

[Patou Dumont]

It saddens me that in this day and age people still label everybody from the behaviour of some. The brazilians on that jira don't represent us all, Ann.

[Ann Otoole]

Patou, That is exactly why I said "Or not. Can't really tell who is from where can we?".

I think we both made the exact same point. I just called out the history as it pertains to the topic and the general negative attitude people have about a presumed ethnic group because of the actions of some fictitious accounts. Perhaps one day there will be a spoof proof way to see the rl identity and exact latitude and longitude of an account but till then nobody knows who anyone in SL is or where they are from. Therefore reporting about ethnicity in SL is sort of interesting since you can never really tell who is role playing who. I find it fascinating as racial barriers are removed and then reintroduced in maleficent ways to bring one of the very rl aspects we came to Secondlife to avoid.

One metaverse, one currency, and an end to human conflict. This is what the metaverse should be about.

[David Cartier]

Judging by the number of group invitations I get in Brasilian Portuguese, what Brasil is doing in Second Life is spamming other accounts. A lot.

[Segunda Vita]

Brazil is a lot larger than Americans imagine. It's a great place to observe how social epidemics can grow so fast (as in "The Tipping Point").

When you talk about Brazil, you are not referring to an ethnic race, but a land like the USA with residents coming in with all sorts of backgrounds (whites, blacks, natives, and lots of immigrants specially from Africa, Europe, and Asia).

There is a lot more to "what Brazil is doing in Second Life" and it is only a side effect of Brazil's presence in the emerging markets, like China and India.

Unfortunately, there might be some spammers in Brazil, but can you label a whole nationality's behavior based on few individuals' lack of marketing strategy?

I found this video essay to be very informative about Brazil's presence in Second Life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPLFA7R_-74