The Incredible Power of Virtual World Ownership & Creation -- And the Real World Absence That Drives It (Comment of the Week)

Photo by Grazia Horwitz

Reader Luther Weymann, who describes himself as a tech industry veteran who last ran a company with 1000 employees, recently wrote a comment on New World Notes that is among the best things I've ever read about the power of virtual worlds and the people who use them, in order to own and create content -- and includes some good advice for people who might criticize the quality of their creativity:

Because I have poked into every nook and cranny of the grid for the past seventeen years, I have come to one inescapable conclusion. There is a humbleness that comes from many of the creations made by the residents of SL that cannot be dismissed with any argument. It cannot be criticized or misrepresented by any debate because it was the best work they could do.

I have seen current houses that were made by residents fifteen years ago out of a hollow block with a misaligned roof, with block prim furniture they managed to get a wrong texture on. And they have paid their SL Premium account for fifteen years for this mainland location they have never moved from and all the mainland regions around them are almost totally abandoned.

When they log in, they have a classic body and old classic clothes. And they love SecondLife.

I’ve visited a thousand tiny shops where no sales may ever be made, where the ladies who own that shop put every ounce of effort they had in their being into attempting to make 6-7 pieces of ladies classic clothing more than ten years ago. It's sold on an SL prim that sells a copy of the contents, and the vendor texture can be very humble. They pay their rent for a decade for their humble shop, they log into to SL and they get to look at their “business” they own.

They own a business and I’ve watched them reduce their prices to pennies just to get one sale a year.

If you don’t know that billions of us on this earth lead lives of quiet desperation, you don’t know what the hell is going on with Second Life.

That even applies, he goes on, to content creators who actually work for Linden Lab, aka "Moles":

Pictured: Annual Mole Day party @ Bay City Fairgrounds 

I met a Second Life Mole a year ago on a mainland region that seemed like no one ever went there anymore.

She had finished a Mole project on this mostly abandoned empty region some months before, and I complimented her on it.

I tried to chat with her. Her text went like this: “It’s my last day I’ve been laid off”.

I asked if she was okay in RL and her text back broke me.

“I’ve been a housewife and mother for almost 30 years and these mole projects are the only thing I’ve accomplished outside of motherhood in my life.”

She was crying her eyes out at this loss. She was being laid off from a significant source of self-pride in her life.

Things like this have stuck with me for a long time in SL.

I know a tiny shop hovering on a small parcel on one of the first regions, and it’s owned by a severely disabled woman who has had the 512 parcel since 2003 with her shop. It has the year 2003-2004 block furniture, block bed, some particle things, one of those red pins used for landmarks. It’s her pride and joy that she could make this while almost blind, with parts of her body missing while she is in a wheelchair.

When you question what you think is “crap” on the mainland, what you are doing is  -- redacted, it was way too harsh to say that].

SL has been a salvation for many people. It’s their only thing that takes them away from looking around where they are and finally escaping.

The restructuring or closing of Second Life would not be the most significant loss for just the big landowners and sellers.

The real loss is to the thousands of really humble people who did their very best to make something and keep it up for sale or holding onto a humble place in-world for years and years.

For many thousands, this is the only time they ever had a business or made something or had a house, not an apartment, even if it's virtual, and to them, it is far more important than either you or I will ever realize.

One of my former partners in SL had a house on her own land in SL. It was the first time in her 68 years of life she “lived” in a house. From her birth she always lived in an apartment, and one time for almost a year living with her mom she lived in a car homeless. This virtual house of hers was the greatest thing she had ever had in life and she told me that many times. The humble lives of quiet desperation are all around us.

Be kind to them, speak to them when you see them, it makes you a better person.

Wise words, Weymann. Ones I should remember to follow too.

Comments

[Catalina Staheli]

This may be one of the best posts you've ever put out. Very deep and humbling and so very true. I am happy to see things like this put out.

Thank you very much!

[Adeon Writer]

I have always had a love-hate relationship with old SL content.

It’s wonderful you can go on a trip to memory lane, but the fact that Linden makes sure that old stuff still works properly is why SL never improved. It just fell behind and became outdated.

There is so much they simply can’t do without breaking their almost two decades of content. And they won’t.

Because there’s someone out there who it means everything to, and they understand that.

And, for the first time, I do too.

[aff]

If you do not have any physical or mental disabilities and the only thing that keeps you away from thriving in RL is your own lack of action, lack of confidence and huge laziness to work with yourself - then good luck hiding in SL for whatever time period you decide, nothing will change. Same behavior patterns will pop out in virtual world as well. No wonder why so many dramas are going on. Life is about falling and getting up again! And let me emphasize - i am talking about people who could do or be! Not the ones with disabilities.

[irihapeti]

+1 Luther

[sirhc desantis]

Lovely post. And @Adeon - thanks

Time to dig out 'Watch the World' Robbie Dingo for my semi annual wonderment recharge

[Joey1058]

Ouch.

And I just posted a blog about how bad my new SL business is doing, with two locations.

Ouch.
Ouch.
Ouch.

[Diana]

Wonderful post. My life in SL quite possibly saved my life, and it did save my sanity during very trying times. My SL house is only house I will ever own, and it was my heaven.

[Marianne McCann]

This this this. A thousand times this.

[Pathfinder]

Wow. I am moved beyond words.

[Chris T]

Has to be one of the most thoughtful, kindest, best things that's ever been written about Second Life. It's on my profile front page now (attributed to Luther) - Well done.