New World Notes

8 Posts on Confronting Real Racism in Virtual Worlds to Read on MLK Day

Black Second Life User Shares Real & Virtual Experiences With The Confederate Battle Flag:

"I wish people knew how much it hurt to see the flag on TV and in places which are supposed to represent everyone in a fair manner, like court houses. I have been to places in Second Life which had the flag up... We always knew what it meant. That we and others with our color are not wanted around that area. It is like putting up a 'Caucasian only' sign. I have a lot of bad memories with that flag. Like walking past homes of people who have them proudly displayed in front of their homes... while at the same time, the mean stares we got just for walking by their home."

Cajsa's Choices: Celebrating Fantastic Black Avatar Portraits For Juneteenth

 I convinced a couple other friends of mine who are Black to join SL back in 2007, but they were disappointed in the quality and variety of  black skins back then and left the game. It’s true, most skins were shades of bronze, and a deep ebony like this one would be hard to find. I love the way the highlights define this picture so powerfully, the highlights on her hair, her face, and her top. A skin designer told me back then that the reason skinners didn’t make dark black skins is that people didn’t buy them and people didn’t buy them because they didn’t know how to photograph them. 

What People Should Ask Themselves Before Roleplaying As Black Avatars:

If you aren't black, the luxury of throwing on a black skin and playing black should make you think about why you want to do that. Do you know black peoples IRL? Do you think they would be ok with what you do in SL? Do you actively call out the racist thoughts and behavior people have towards a black person, or do you just [say] "LOL I'm white"? Do you think it's cool to be black, but IRL you engage in black shaming, like saying things are "ghetto" or "hood"?

Avatar Skin Tone Experiment Reveals Strong User Preference For Whiteness:

In virtual worlds and MMOs where most aspects of avatar appearance can be instantly changed by a few button clicks -- including gender and skin tone -- do we leave our real world attributes and preferences behind? After noting that avatars with lighter skin seem to get more likes than darker ones on Flickr, I enlisted the help of Mandy Smith, a popular SL fashion photographer on Flickr, to take two photos of the same avatar in the same pose in the same location, with the only difference being her skin tone...

Lack of Avatar Racial Diversity in an MMO Makes Black Users More Likely to Create White Avatars & Hide Their Real Race, Academic Study Suggests:

Lee gathered 56 study participants — half identifying as white and half identifying as black. She then had them read a fabricated magazine story titled “Meet the Coolest ‘Second Life’ Residents.” The eight “Second Life” avatars profiled in the story were either all white, in the low-diversity scenario, or an equal mix of white, black, Hispanic and Asian, in the high-diversity scenario. She then had them perform two tasks: Create and customize their own virtual avatars, and rate their willingness to reveal their real racial identity through the appearance of their virtual avatar. She found that black participants reported less willingness in the low-diversity scenario, and that they also created whiter avatars, as judged by objective raters.

Three classics after the break:

Second Life Users Show How Their Avatars Have Evolved Over Many Years

Pictured: Laura Blues

Strawberry Singh has a fun new challenge for SLers to show how their avatar looks in the new year, versus how it did many years ago; it's a fun illustration of all the graphical upgrades made to the platform over many updates. (Some of them inadvertently leading to a tragedy of the commons.) Here's some of my favorites posted to her thread, including that of Strawberry herself:

Man Confronting Cancer Puts His Virtual World Avatars Into His Real Life Will

Today, a Canadian man named Ryan Schultz is going into the operating room to get a biopsy, to see whether a previous diagnosis is correct: That he may have cancer. This is a terrifying prospect for anyone, prompting thoughts of mortality and what life means. In Ryan's case, he is a longtime player of virtual worlds and MMO, and writes about them near-daily on his excellent blog. So when it came time to think about writing his will, he thought about the online realities where so much of his memories and relationships were formed, and the assets he might share:

I actually don’t have a lot of material possessions. My biggest purchases in life have been my computer and my car. And I don’t have a will yet; I’ve been putting it off, and putting it off, and putting it off. Nobody wants to think about death and dying. But now it’s time to start to think about who I want to leave my possessions to...

And I found out that you can, indeed, leave your SL avatars to other people when you die. Linden Lab actually has a process and procedures in place, to deal with just that possibility. Which leads me to my next point.

Simply put, I need to figure out who gets what avatars when I die. 

So he is doing just that now, asking for people to contact him and volunteer to take his avatars into their care, whenever the time comes for his will to be read.  

 "I am not 'giving them away'," he stresses to me. "I am leaving them to other people via my last will and testament." For that to happen, he actually needs volunteers' real life, legal details to include in his will. More than that, he is asking for a level of trust, and personal engagement: 

"I will NOT be giving any avatars to anybody that I do NOT know, or with whom I have NOT had at least one good, long, in-depth conversation," as Ryan puts it to me with emphasis. "I do want to know who you are (and what you plan to do with my avatar) before I leave you one of these avatars, on which I have spent a great deal of time, energy, and (in some cases) money."

When I spoke with him last week, four people had already contacted him about doing this, one of whom told Ryan she'd like to use one of his avatars for roleplay purposes. (Embodying the online identity, in other words, of another person after he's gone.)

And while this may seem strange to some, it is actually a digitized evolution of a process that's existed for centuries, as people who find themselves facing death entrusting their favorite pocket watch or book of poems or other small but utterly cherished items to others who'll find value in them too. As Ryan puts it:

Virtual Breasts With Veins & Stretch Marks Now on Sale, Capitalizing on Second Life Fashion Trend for Realistic Imperfection

Breast Veins & Stretch Marks are a new accessory for Second Life avatars, created by Izzie Button, whose Cellulite & Stretch Marks for female avatars have become an unexpected hit.

"After the release of the cellulite/stretch marks," Izzie tells me, "the response was huge and many people requested stretch marks on breasts, arms, stomach as well, so I made them. " She had planned on creating them before the cellulite/stretch marks went on sale. "I was just waiting to see how the response would be before I release more of something that nobody wants," she says, laughing. "I'm glad people enjoy them."

Today, in fact, you can get them for just 50 Lindens (roughly 25 US cents) for Fifty Linden Friday in Izzie's in-world store. (Teleport here). You can see the before and after the break (NSFW, obvi), illustrating how Izzie's enhancement turns an avatar's breasts into something that much more resembles the breasts of an actual woman: 

Now Popular in Second Life: Realistic Imperfection, Including Cellulite & Stretch Marks for Female Avatars

From Izzie Button's sales blog

There's a hot new avatar fashion enhancement in the virtual world of Second Life, but it's more real than many might expect. Ever since creator Izzie Button put her Cellulite & Stretch Marks for female avatars on sale last week, they've been moving like mad.

"Sales have been really good," she tells me, "a lot better than expected to be honest. On SL Marketplace, it is my #1 best selling item now, with four 5-star reviews in only 1 day. I've gotten mainly positive feedback from customers about them and lots of requests to do more stretch marks/cellulite on other body parts too."

It's an unexpected trend in an online world where the avatar beauty standard skews to thin young women with nary a blemish or ounce of fat anywhere. And, in fact, she's had some complaints:

Women & RL Height Displays Have Been Driving Down the Size of Formerly Gargantuan Avatars (Comment of the Week)

Good alternate perspective from "Irihapeti", responding to my observation that Second Life avatar height seems to have been driven up  by fragile RL male egos:

SL avatars, both male and female, today are on average shorter than they were in the early years. The downward shift began when Linden Lab added inches and centimeters to the height slider. [See above]

Prior to this the slider height was only measured on the scale: 0...100. So most guys not surprisingly set it to 100. Unsurprising as there was no useful indication as to what 100 meant. In-world there was a feedback loop. Avatars are set to 100 > furniture is set for 100. More avatars > more furniture > most avatars > most furniture

It was women in the main, who broke this feedback loop. When they saw that the slider now said 7 feet plus they started to reduce. Their men began to follow them down. People went even lower when third party viewers changed the height slider to measure from sole to top of head. The Linden Lab viewer still measures from sole to eye level.

When I played in the early years I was 185cm[i.e. about 6 feet] by prim measure in bare feet. I was squiddy as, compared to pretty much everyone else adult human avatar then. I am still 185cm. Yet now when at shopping events I am slightly above average in height for a female avatar.

This sounds right, certainly for the fashionista crowd. I think it's likely that both our perspectives are generally true --depending on the SL subculture: That is, average heights have been coming down in social circles where women predominate, while avatar heights remain largely gargantuan where male competition predominates -- think virtual nightclubs, roleplay areas, combat zones. 

VDRAW: Digital Puppeteering App Translates User's Keyboard & Mouse Movement and Voice to Onscreen Avatar

VDraw is a new app for Windows from Japan that seems ideal for shy streamers, since it translates a user's keyboard and mouse usage along with voice (if a mic is hooked up) to an onscreen avatar:

VDRAW is a tool that can express as a virtual character's activity even casual work being done on PC. For example, if you use pen tablet for making illustrations, you can make it appear as if the virtual character himself draws illustrations... VDRAW is based on the concept that even people who do not have VR equipment can perform virtual character activities. The minimum device required for VDRAW is "mouse" and "keyboard" only. VR equipment and very high spec PC are not necessary. If it is a PC equipped with a microphone, it also supports lip sync that moves the mouth of the avatar according to the voice.

That from the Japanese language website, and I have to say Google Translate has gotten pretty good in recent years. Link and video via tech expert PatchouliW, who believes this is pioneering technology for avatar-based video programming:

Did Fragile Male Egos of Real Life Men Cause Second Life's Giant Crisis?

The trend toward incredibly tall avatars continues hurting the SL economy (bigger avatars need more virtual land, more virtual land costs more money per month), but why are avatars so huge in the first place? (For instance, pictured at right: Male Second Life avatar in the typical 7-8 foot range, next to a female avatar who is actually 5'7", i.e., on the taller side for women IRL.). But what keeps driving up avatar height? Reader "Pulsar" points out it could be a common culprit -- the fragile male ego:

In the last years I'm seeing more realistic sized avatars, especially at shopping events. Perhaps you should count more on women with this. I suspect the issue touches guys more, as they (usually, I don't mean everyone) don't like to appear shorter that other men, so they raise their height and so on. Of course there are also individuals affected by giantism in real life, but the whole population 8 feet tall is a tad odd. Women instead (again, in general) could feel not so comfortable in towering above everyone else, including their boyfriend.

This sounds right. I vividly remember creating my first avatar, setting the height to 6 feet tall, teleporting to an event... and feeling like Kevin Hart at an NBA party. Studies consistently confirm people form an empathetic relationship with the avatar that they control, so it's easy to see how real life height standards (which tend to affect men more than women) would carry over into the virtual world, nudging many or most male users into a tallness competition. And many or most female users would then feel nudged to follow suit, so the height disparity wasn't so vast. And as average avatar height increases, monthly land costs grow, until they're unsustainable for many, and the land ownership attrition increases too.

Or to put it another way: Linden Lab the company keeps losing revenue due to toxic masculinity.

Asian Fetishizing & Cultural Misrepresentation Plagues Second Life Fashion, Says Japanese Fashionista

Just had a fascinating (if disheartening) conversation with someone I’ll call “Asami”, a long time Second Life user and Asian fashion enthusiast from Japan. While there is a substantial userbase of SL users based in Asia (roughly 5-10%, based on known stats), the overwhelming majority live in the United States and the European Union. That’s inadvertently led to a lot of misrepresentation of Asian identity and culture in Second Life avatars, and on the worse end of the problematic spectrum, Asian fetishization.

“Because a lot of people don't study the asian features correctly,” as Asami puts it, “they just make the eyes slanted and call it a day…. I've seen [SL users] with Western noses who are aware that their noses don't look Asian, but they don't like Asian noses, only Asian eyes, so they purposely make their shapes that way. When you're determined to represent a community properly, you'll put in the work necessary to do it. When you don't care and it's all the same to you, then you'll half ass it.”

By way of reference, she points to the shape above, in the Marketplace.

“The head used is ideal for Asian avis, the shape is pretty, but the skin itself isn't Asian and the result looks very Western.”

“This one [above] has the right jawline and the skin looks Asian but the nose and lips don't reflect an Asian avi -- maybe half-Asian.”

“These look like they were made by Asian fetishists,” I note.

“Agreed. People who pick and choose which aspects of Asian features they like.”

She shows me another:

Avatar Height, Hunter Walk, and How The Prisoner's Dilemma of User Choice Has Crippled the Second Life Economy

 Typical SL avatar height (center), compared with WoW avatars (created by Penny Patton)

Venture capitalist and Valley mensch Hunter Walk has a fun blog post about his time as a Linden during the founding of Second Life, recounting what he and the company learned about avatars, and how users interact with them. One key takeaway:

Can’t Be Too Big or Too Small: We put a limit on avatar height because of the prisoner’s dilemma that immediately everyone would want to be a huge dragon. Our height minimum was originally about just making sure you were generally visible in the world – no Ant-Man in Second Life. And then we increased the height minimum to more of a small adult size. 

Very roughly summarized, the prisoner's dilemma suggests that two people acting independently of each other will make self-interested choices that ultimately hurt both of them. Linden Lab was right to be concerned about this, because the user community (and the company itself) is still dealing with this problem. Hunter told me how the company set the avatar height limits for my book:

“Second Life is supposed to be about limitless opportunity,” Walk remembers them thinking, “but you can’t be a 10,000 foot dragon. We stood back and we said, ‘Wow, this is Prisoner’s Dilemma.’ Like the first time somebody wants to be a 150 foot giant, then everybody’s going to want to be a 150 foot giant, so all of a sudden you’re in this out-of-whack world.”

After some deliberation, they confined avatar choices to humanoid and gendered, with size limits within a realistic scale. Instead of giving users an automatic, pre-made option to go beyond those confines, they created “attachment points” on every conceivable joint of the avatar body. If Residents wanted to be taller than the 8 feet maximum height, they’d have to create leg-shaped stilts, and attach them to the bottom of their feet; if they yearned to be a multi-limbed alien, they’d need to create and attach those additional arms, themselves.

Trouble is, the company didn't limit height options enough. By and large, most active SL users wind up choosing avatars in the 7 to 8 foot range (see above), to the point where anyone with an avatar at a more average height range (say between 5 to 6.5 feet) is making a conscious choice to appear small relative to the larger user community. And that's become a big, ongoing economic problem: