Has Second Life Been Fully Gentrified? Thoughts from My BBC Interview

Pictured: A steampunk city in SL from 2008; a Kim Kardashian ad campaign using SL from 2018

Here's the full episode of BBC's The Digital Human which expands on the short excerpt I featured last week. The show's larger topic is gentrification of the Internet culture and online communities, which often lose their unique character as they become more mainstream and commodified. I talk about how this happened to some extent during the 2006-2008 hype wave, when MTV and other companies became (briefly) interested in Second Life as a marketing platform, and how SL culture has greatly changed since then. For the original early adopters, I say:

They had this unique beautiful thing that existed basically only there on the Internet; they built these really beautiful intricate steampunk experiences and they had the fashion to go along with it... [but] there really was a feeling that they'd lose that uniqueness. That's at least partly right: The Second Life culture that existed in the beginning is still there but it's really been crowded out. Kim Kardashian recently did an advertising campaign using Second Life avatars and it was not actually surprising because the avatar fashion and styles [popular in Second Life now] had started to look more and more like a Kim Kardashian aesthetic, a cheesy virtual version... For a lot of the original users, I think they could feel that they'd sort of lost that unique spark that they had.

This isn't to say there's something intrinsically wrong with a Kim Kardashian style if that's your thing, just that it's so inescapably pervasive across all media -- even now in virtual worlds which once offered a respite from all that. And that might just be inevitable now that virtual world culture has become mainstream (hello, Marshmello), but hopefully we'll start to see the cultural influence flowing in the other direction more often.

Oh, in case you haven't seen the 2008 steampunk city tribute I mentioned above, it's still on YouTube here:

Comments

[montecore babcock]

Chicken shaped thighs on women's avis has been around for a decade. They were Kim K before she was.

[chic aeon]

I do think we have lost something over the years. Adventuring isn't as much of an "adventure" as in the old prim days. That has nothing to do with the advent of mesh IMO, but somehow much of the world is very "vanilla" and I am not really a fan of VANILLA - LOL.

[Justin Bovington]

Hamlet, as you know, I was one of the main exponents of the SL time period 2003-2008. In 2008, we took a different path and worked with Linden Lab to develop an Enterprise based solution. During this earlier time, a very different online world existed. It is easy to lose sight that we heralded user numbers in the 1 million, whereas today, we drop the numbers in billions of users - encompassing vast swaths of the real population of the entire planet. It was a world sans the duopoly of Facebook and Google. It was a simplier time. It was the new frontier. It was fun.

From the commercial perspective, the brands of that period were all rushing to take 'first footer' advantage and see if there was any real value in engaging online communities. Not just SL, there was a lot going on. Again, it was a time of experimentation and exploration, for everyone. We didn't even have the vernacular to formulate a language of communication.

An inner versus the outer world: Your example of Kim Kardashian (KK) could be seen as a wonderful nod to the unique Second Life aesthetic - you can but not see the Second Life avatar. The interesting thing, correct me if I am wrong, the whole KK campaign existed outside of the actual Second Life environment. The image is meta and was used within Instagram to promote pop up environments in real life location? Therefore, what a wonderful recognition to the relevance of SL as a vibrant creative hub, right now and today.

Looking back to 2006, we had similar projects with Calvin Klein, No.7 and also Stella McCartney. In each case, we built on the understanding of what actually had an impact. In these three cases, we used SL as a 'TV studio' and created machinima type experienced and 'amplified' in YouTube (and in one case TV and Cinema advertising slots). It was one of the first cross-platform social media projects. Previously, we have created experience directly within SL's world. In 2008+ the exponential growth of social media moved the conversation in a different direction for brands.

Second Life was a pioneer, it set the precedent for a lot of what is happening today. For good and bad.

Surely, this entire time, which as Alek's touches on in her podcast, was the time of 'first contact'? I have had recent experience of hearing our SL experiences retold differently, it is almost as if, mythology is rising from that time and people are telling their own stories from snapshots of the truth. Fascinating stuff, a new form of digital storytelling handed down to the next generation. A digital campfire tale.

Saying all this, it is a testament to Second Life's enduring appeal to survive the dizzy timeline of other social media's rise and fall. Close to 17 years and still going strong. Long may SL continue. It holds a very special place in my heart.

[sirhc desantis]

Kim who?