New World Notes

SL Vs. RL: Nine More Photos Of Second Life Users With Their Avatars

"I was inspired by my real look," a Second Life user named "Rainhaindiamorena" tells me. In real life, she continues, "I'm a Brazilian singer. I live in Bahia. I tried to make the avatar with my style. black with braided hair Rainha. In Second Life I sing in different lands."

Her SL/RL photo is one of dozens now on Facebook with the tag #slvsrl, launched in Holger Gilruth's Facebook group for SLers, featuring pics of avatars alongside their real life owners.

See part one of my mixed reality profiles here. Displayed with their permission, here are ten more of my favorites, featuring the owners' explanation for their avatar's appearance:

Watch: The Teaser for Alter Ego is Here, and I Have Questions About FOX's Upcoming Avatars-Meet-Masked Singer Show

Back in May, a FOX producer was reaching out to members of the Second Life community (and presumably other virtual world communities) about Alter Ego, an upcoming avatars-meet-Masked Singer reality competition show. Now set to premiere on September 22nd, here's the teaser.

... and here's my questions about it:

SL vs. RL: Ten Photos of Second Life Users With Their Avatars

“A friend introduced me [to Second Life] a few months ago," Billie Echo (above) tells me, "It’s quite interesting.” The inspiration for her avatar's appearance (also above) is also interesting:

"Actually, I was going for a tall vitiligo queen but a lot of wonderful mistakes were made. But I don't regret it." (Her father is from Benin, where many people have vitiligo.) Now, she wants "to use this platform to spread awareness about vitiligo and albinism."

Billie Echo's SL/RL photo is one of dozens now on Facebook with the tag #slvsrl, launched in Holger Gilruth's Facebook group for SLers, featuring pics of avatars alongside their real life owners. Displayed with their permission, here are ten of my favorites, featuring the owners' explanation for their avatar's appearance:

Parthenoid 2.0: A Fascinating & Insightful Fashion Blog for Trans Avatars

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

Parthenoid 2. 0 is a blog by Sian who focuses on cyber-fashion for trans avatars. Sian’s most recent post “xx:xy tryouts” is a fascinating and insightful exploration of how Second Life offers freedom of exploration to individuals. They write, “one of the unexpected, unintended niches of Second Life has been its use as a testing ground for trans identity, for the sexuality of unaccustomed bodies, a relief from a dysphoria we might not even have known we had. We wanted to investigate another possibility of who we were, tried on gender in the cheaper off-the-rack way, the better to know what worked and what didn't.”

The fashion is interesting in its exploration of cyberkink, but secondary to the intriguing and deeply introspective writing as Sian explores trans identity in their first and Second Life. I particularly loved Sian’s plea for acceptance of making mistakes: 

“Whoever we are, however we are, we have to be allowed to trial who we are without harming anyone, with full consent, as messy and transgressive as that might be, because for many of us, in the worlds we live in, in the closets we inhabit, so often padlocked on the outside, a trial is the best we might get.”

• r2 a/d/e asanagi top, sasa gloves by Rei2 Aya
• out of order 80s geo earrings by DonnaCasta

For a meditation on baldness, click here:

SL Flickr Pick: Bento Avatar Fingers Impressively Used for Dramatic Effect

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

Chiaki Xue, recently posted a fabulous picture with a pose he created that really demonstrates the power of Bento avatar skeletons. This is an amazing picture that tells a story. It’s like a movie in one snap. We can imagine these young lovers separated by all sorts of oppressive reasons that would divide them. Technically, they could be on the inside and outside of a football field, but their desperate fingers touching through the fence suggests something more cruel. 

For the best picture with a ventriloquist’s dummy ever, click here:

LGBT Second Life Users Celebrate Pride With Tributes to the Freedom of Virtual World Expression & Identity

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

Pitch Wyld’s “Hey Sailor” captures the exuberance of Pride. It is an homage to the “V-J Day in Times Square” shot when World War Two was finally over. A less-famous shot of those four pictures taken that day shows the woman punching the guy in the face for just grabbing her, but that is the past. Today this image celebrates Pride, a kind of V-B Day (Victory over Bigotry) and it is consensual. He also chose perfect mood music “I Am What I Am” with Gloria Gaynor.

Describing what Pride means to him, Pitch writes: 

“I have found that being involved in Second Life has allowed me to safely explore different sides of my sexuality in such a way that I can then implement these ideas, concepts, feelings in a more meaningful way into my real life. I am given an arena that is largely non-judgmental, where I can play out different scenarios and think more deeply on who I am and how my sexuality expresses itself. Second life hits my scientific side where I can gather research in the ways that other folks engage in their sexuality. This allows me to be more knowledgeable and hopefully receptive as a loving and engaging partner.” 

For more Virtual Pride, click here:

Send LGBT-Themed Avatar Pics to Our #Virtualpride Challenge By June 9th!

"She kissed the Captain" by Cadwyn Daffyd

Important update: We've extended the deadline to our #Virtualpride Challenge to June 9th! Here's the details:

• To celebrate Pride Month, create virtual world images that express your LGBT pride.
• In the image description, tell us what your activity in the virtual world means to your real life as an LGBT person.
• Tag Cajsa on Flickr and add the hashtag #Virtualpride.
• Our favorite images -- and stories -- will be featured in Cajsa's regular column on June 11, just before SF Pride.
• Images from any virtual world open enough to enable LGBT expression encouraged.

Questions for Cajsa? Post here or on her Flickr page.

Celebrate Pride Month By Sending Us Virtual World Images & Stories for Our #Virtualpride Challenge!

"She kissed the Captain" by Cadwyn Daffyd

To celebrate Pride Month, create virtual world images that express your LGBT pride -- then in the image description, tell us what your activity in the virtual world means to your real life as an LGBT person. Tag Cajsa on Flickr and add the hashtag #Virtualpride. Our favorite images -- and stories -- will be featured in Cajsa's regular column.

Images from any virtual world open enough to enable LGBT expression encouraged. To help spark your creative juices, here's some favorite images/stories of ours!

Why Virtual Mirrors Are Popular in VRChat: A Philosophical Explanation

In this new video from Strasz (previously featured here), the VRChat sociologist deep dives into the obsession with staring at one's avatar in virtual mirrors. (It's such a popular VRChat pastime, we devoted two posts and an original comic to it.) Heavily citing French postmodernist theory ("Foucault* would have a field day in VRChat"),  Strasz argues that VRChat users aren't simply being narcissistic:

"I think ultimately a lot of behaviors in VR (like standing in front of a mirror) are misunderstood," as he puts it to me. "People tend to see them in a negative light, or see them as anti-social, when in reality they serve a powerful purpose. The mirror in VR isn't just a thing that lets you see yourself -- it's one that lets you calibrate your body, and get a sense of how you fit into the virtual space."

Given his Strasz's previous report, suggesting that a majority of VRChat users would literally like to be their avatar in real life, that sounds right.

And once a virtual mirror anchors the individual VRChat user, Strasz adds, it then becomes a social hub:

How to Deep Fake Your SL Avatar Into an Expressive Popstar With Wombo AI

Well this is the most expressive I've ever seen my avatar or for that many any other avatar in the virtual world (don't hurt me, don't hurt me):

This thanks to Wombo.AI, a new smartphone app that's designed to convert a RL selfie photo into a lip-syncing popstar via some pretty impressive deep fake machine learning algorithms. But my first thought when seeing it, of course, was: What will it do to my avatar? (And frankly I might not recommend using this on photos of real life people, for security reasons.) 

After fiddling around with it last night and getting some bizarre results, this video above is my best version so far.

Tips to getting your own avatar properly Wombo-fied? So far, I'd suggest these: