New World Notes

Meet SL Grid Memes, One of Instagram's Top Second Life-Themed Instagram Accounts -- And Among the Funniest

If you’re on Instagram, @slgridmemes is definitely a fun follow -- like the account name suggests, it’s a near-daily cascade of chuckle-worthy memes only active Second Life users are likely to find funny. (I.E, IYKYK)

Created and run by Ryan Johnson in his spare time, now with nearly 9000 followers, Ryan joined the virtual world in 2007 and sporadically played from time to time. But he became much more active through a curious comparison:

“One of my friends from Yahoo Chat told me I should check Second Life out,” Ryan tells me, “[because] it reminded them of Grand Theft Auto.”

That analogy might seem surprising to some, but a large portion of Second Life activity is now devoted to luxe GTA Online-esque city life roleplay in fashion, cars, and clubbing.

“I think if you look at Grand Theft Auto now and how they purchased FiveM, then it’s basically just like Second Life,” as Ryan puts it. (He’s referring to Rockstar’s acquisition of FiveM, a mod for GTA the company once banned.)

“I know a few people who mesh and build on FiveM servers. The only difference is you have to teleport to certain regions versus GTA having a big world connected in a way. Unless the sims are connected on SL, then you could probably do the same, I guess. But it’s pretty much the same.” (Indeed, I interviewed SL/GTA YouTuber Meela Vanderbuilt on this topic a couple years ago.)

Inspired by another Instagram account creating IMVU-themed memes, Ryan started creating SL memes on Facebook, but then jumped to Instagram when he noticed more activity there. 

Here’s his most popular meme so far:

What Happened When NBC's The Office Came to Second Life -- Excerpt, Making a Metaverse That Matters

Excerpt, Making a Metaverse That Matters:

Floundering with little user growth after its official launch in June 2003, Second Life finally hit escape velocity when it explicitly adopted an essential facet of the Metaverse: Integration with the real world economy. 

Around the start of 2004, the company announced that the virtual world’s currency, Linden Dollars, could be bought and sold on the open market for real cash. And [Linden Lab CTO Cory] Ondrejka drove the effort to implement what was a revolutionary concept at the time: Enabling users to own the underlying intellectual property rights to anything they created with Second Life’s building tools.

“That was me on the phone with lawyers getting laughed at and the lawyers saying. ‘You can't do that.’" But Linden Lab did eventually do that, formulating a IP rights policy that YouTube and other user generated content platforms would come to adopt.

From this point onward, Second Life users could, and quickly did, create small businesses from their virtual world content. This in turn grew the world of Second Life in a way that greatly amplified Linden Lab’s own work on the platform. 

“[A]t the point that we had like, 100,000 people [playing] and we kind of computed that,” Cory Ondrejka remembers. “Ten percent of the people were actually doing awesome things in the world. That'd be like having a 10,000 person company. Because when you're a 150 person company,  a 10,000 person company is unimaginably large.”

Major press coverage of Second Life, often by tech reporters who were fans of Snow Crash themselves, began to take on gathering momentum into 2006, culminating in a feature story on the cover of BusinessWeek. Which only catapulted into even further coverage. Strikingly, most of this overwhelmingly positive media attention was organic, generated by reporters and media outlets themselves. 

Next -- NBC's top TV show comes calling:

This Artist Repurposes Avatar Fashion Items Into Utterly Original Studies in Second Life Surrealism

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Zaque Hexem’s surreal art might make you ask, “But is it Second Life?” 

He answers in the most Second Life way possible; he provides SL content credits. “Hot Toast” (above) is wildly inventive. Seriously, who thinks, “I have this beautifully engraved skeleton, I think I’ll  make some toast.”  Zaque, obviously, but who else?  

Skeletons always prompt questions such as how do they hang together without connective tissue or wires? This beautifully engraved skeleton inspires more questions. Does it hurt to get your bones engraved when you’re already dead, or dead-adjacent? Why do you need tongs if you have no skin or nerve endings to burn? How do you burn toast before you toast it? 

Anyway, for more wild SL pics, click here:

 

Second Life Tutorial: How to Create a Mirror Effect With the New PBR Upgrade

With PBR graphics launched in Second Life a couple months ago, we're starting to see it appear as a feature in commercial products available in the virtual world economy.  One of the first I happened to notice was the Physically Based Rendering-based mirror effect in this bathroom sink vanity from longtime sponsoring partner Dutchie Design.   

For SL content creators, here's a tutorial for adding the mirror effect to your own content, with a YouTube walkthrough from Feorie Frimon (above) and some tips from Dutchie:

Study Suggests Emotion & Player Agency More Important Than High-End Graphics in Virtual Experience

This is a pretty important study from the University of Bath adding some academic weight to what we see in the marketplace: When it comes to virtual experiences, player emotion and agency (i.e. the ability to meaningfully interact in the world) is more important than graphical realism or immersion (field of view):

Field of view and visual realism – achieved through cutting-edge graphics and usually powered by high-end headsets – can be relatively unimportant in creating a believable VR experience. Far more important is the way a user is made to feel (e.g. happy or scared) within the virtual environment, the study found. Dr Crescent Jicol, principal investigator of the study, said: “A lot of money goes into making headsets and screens better and into rendering virtual worlds more realistic, but more effort needs to be centered on improving the user’s emotional experience.”

This specific study was conducted in VR with over 300 volunteers, but the results probably apply to flatscreen 3D experiences just as neatly. And again, we already know that immersive graphical realism per se does not in itself translate to the most popular games/virtual worlds:

Today's Second Life Flickr Pick: N͟e͟k͟z͟a͟ K͟a͟n Captures Emotion in Her Expressive Avatar Photos

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

N͟e͟k͟z͟a͟ K͟a͟n caught my eye with that gorgeous look of disdain in this picture, “Disobedience.” So often our avatars are either expressionless or smiling. But Nezka doesn’t mind showing that she can be perturbed. Obviously, someone walked by without complimenting her look. After all, she put in the effort to do her eyebrows and hair in white, put that heavy headdress on and surround herself with flowers. The least we can do is mention how absolutely gorgeous she looks. 

For more of Nezka, click here:

Niceaunties in the Auntieverse: Singapore Artist Delightfully Visualizes Her Family & Culture Through Dalle3 & Other AI Programs

My call for works of AI-based fine art came up with only a few scant examples (besides Nettrice Gaskins), but this artist definitely qualifies: Niceaunties, who expresses her family dynamics and Singapore/Chinese culture through various artificial intelligence programs. Like the one above, "We Are Good":

"We are Good' is a story set in the Auntieverse about two solitary characters who find companionship in each other. In a dense cityscape reminiscent of Hong Kong, an encounter takes place between an auntie with a cat's face and a cat with an auntie's face... The story explores themes of identity, connection, joy, and comfort. This AI film was created, animated, and edited by Niceaunties in the programmes Dalle3, Magnific.ai and Runwayml.

Having grown up among a large Chinese-American family on my dad's side in Hawai'i, I instantly, deeply resonate with these images on a cultural level, and they're just totally delightful.

More from the artist's website:  

Stunning Second Life Imagery by Flickr Artist Minnow

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Minnow is someone I discovered recently while surfing faves. I’ve forgotten the trail that led to Minnow, but it was a good one. I found several of the artists whom I have featured this last month. 

This picture, though, was so arresting because it reminded me of a film I watched with one of my sisters when I was a child. I mean, look at that scarf! Thanks to my siblings, my head is cluttered with films I had no business watching when I was young. So, “Femme Fatale” may usually refer to a woman who kills others, but in this case I am pretty certain Minnow was thinking of the tragic Isadora Duncan, the famous dancer who revolutionized dance. Minnow provides credits in case you, too, want your avatar to risk a tragic accident. 

For more striking photos from Minnow, click here:

Trouble Posting a Comment in Chrome Here? Try Incognito Mode.

Some readers are having trouble posting comments in New World Notes, with some comments flat-out disappearing after clicking the Post button. Not sure what combination of settings is causing the problem, but Martin K. recommends posting comments via Chrome's Incognito mode. 

So that's one potential workaround. If you've found others, dear reader, please post them, well, in Comments. And apologies to everyone who's had problems like this thanks to my wonderful, wonderful, wonderful blog service.

Top 5 Posts Including a Look at Meta VR's Little-Discussed Advertising/AI Clauses & a Fine Art Challenge for Gen AI Advocates

Above: From Meta VR's Terms of Service

• Watch: Second Life Creator Transforms Empty Plot Into "Last Of Us But Magical" Town -- And Shares Tips For Other SL Creators
• If Generative AI Is So Transformative, Where's All The AI-Based Fine Art?
• Mixed Reality Project Uses Multiple Kinects To Convert People Into Volumetric Avatars And "Teleport" Them Into A Virtual World
• In The Vision Pro Vs. Quest Debate, Don't Forget Real Price Considerations -- Not To Mention Meta's Advertising & AI Clauses
• In Case You Missed It, Saying "The Metaverse Is Dead" Is Officially Dead