New World Notes

When Virtual Love Becomes Real (And Vice Versa): Three Classic New World Notes Posts for Valentine's Day

"Falling for Eddie":

... That's about when they decided to meet each other in person, and at this point, it's worth mentioning that Eddie Escher lives in England-- and Fallingwater Cellardoor lives on the East Coast. So Eddie's first flight out to Fallingwater was no small expense. And no small risk, if things didn't work as well in first life, as they did in-world.

"You want to know my bestest, favoritest happy memory from my life so far?" Eddie asks me later. "It was our first kiss, meeting for the first time in [the airport.] Seriously. Everything around us just melted away, man, for both of us. I have no idea how long we were standing there like that."

And read on update on their story here.

Two more after the break!

Linden Lab Says "Spicy Adult-Friendly Bedroom Secrets" Coming to Second Life in 2024. It's a Sign of Changing Times!

A short paragraph in Linden Lab's "year in review" wrap-up of 2023 and sneak peek for Second Life in 2024 was so surprising, I had to read it a second time:

Second Life turns 21 in 2024… and, to celebrate, we are turning attention to the spicier side of Second Life with some bold and innovative new adult-friendly initiatives. Something wickedly wonderful is coming soon… We’ll be taking the sheets off this mystery initiative and sharing more bedroom secrets soon… so stay tuned!

Spicy! This brief aside probably rated scarce a shrug for most people, but it's quite a milestone.

For Second Life's first 20 years, Linden Lab has had a challenging relationship with Adult-rated content in the virtual world -- struggling to enable the user community to create whatever sexual simulations consenting adults wanted to enjoy with each other, while also attempting to downplay that content, hoping to avoid Second Life from being further branded/pigeon-holed as a "weird sex world" unappealing to outside brands/organizations. (Not to mention the majority of consumers who just aren't into frisky pixels pinging them in the face unprompted.)

And now... Linden Lab is just up and offering spicy bedroom secrets as official content!

It's quite a sea change. Given the vast, graphic, often biologically impossible variety of user-made sexual content that already exists in Second Life, it is a bit like Netflix uploading an R-rated movie to Pornhub, but OK.

The fact that this is happening now probably has less to do with Linden Lab as a company, but rather, reflects the degree to which global popular culture has shifted over the last couple decades:

Artist Expresses His Real Life Pain Through Shocking Images of His Avatar

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

When I wrote to Nath Baxton about SLAUGHTERHOUSE, his recent project, Nath’s response was so honest and generous, I hope I can do him justice. I have featured his earlier work, with a pop art aesthetic, bold deconstruction of his own photos, always filled with bright colors.

His new work shifts to black and white, with splashes and flashes of red that are visually shocking. 

The change in virtual aesthetics, he tells me, were inspired by challenges he recently faced in real life:

Pregnant Avatars With Growing, Visible, Birth-Able Fetuses Coming Soon to Second Life (Whether You're Ready or Not)

Bento-based avatars! These new-ish, highly customizable avatar skeletons have made all manner of SL innovations possible, and as you might have guessed, this one would come soon enough:

A pregnant avatar with a gradually growing fetus inside, which at the end of gestation, actually gives birth in Second Life. Another feature in development (if the technical challenges can be overcome): Making the fetuses visible through the baby bump.

It's an upcoming product from Zooby VR, creator of SL babies, virtual cats which even poop, and other strange and wonderful artificial life creations. Lead designer Carrie Tatsu tells me they've already garnered great excitement from her customers, avid for further roleplay possibilities:

Educator: Second Life as a Teaching Tool Would Never Work on "Woke" College Campuses of Today (Comment of the Week)

Pictured: Gorean roleplay, one of Second Life's most popular roleplay subcultures

There's a very interesting reader thread on the recent Electronic Gaming Monthly article on Second Life as told through its old guidebooks. including this thought from "Iggy", who some ten years go, when SL had hundreds of "virtual campuses" owned by real life colleges and universities (up to and including Harvard!) was once among the most passionate educators advocating for the use of Second Life as a teaching tool in colleges:

Watch: Trans People Explore Alternate Identities Through Virtual World Avatars

This is a fascinating new video by virtual world videographer Luca, on an endlessly important topic: How trans people use virtual worlds and avatar customization to explore alternate identities. (In this case Second Life, though as Luca notes, it's a phenomenon common to many other virtual worlds.) Luca interviews several trans SLers, who discuss their avatar form and how it relates to who they are in real life.

"[I]t's my experiences with the trans communities and my trans friends that inspired me to make the video," tells me. "The subjects are all my trans friends who I befriended throughout my years on SL."

Notably, others that Luca approached refused to do the interview or even appear "on camera" -- even though their real life identity is protected by their anonymous avatar identity:

Judging By My Inventory, "5% of Second Life Content is Adult" Sounds About Right -- Comment of the Week

Pictured: Cassie Middles' Inventory Management Tutorial

Lots of readers guffawed at a Linden Lab staffer's claim that just 5% of its Second Life revenue comes from Adult-rated content, but reader "irihapeti" took a look at her inventory, and...

5% would probably be about right overall content-wise.

I have 18,884 items in my Inventory.

Of which 12 are NFSW devices. Clothes, hair, shoes, bodies, jewelry and appliers accounts for about 4,300 of which maybe 10 outfits could be considered NSFW in the real world.

And 18,884 is on the low side, for a typical Second Life user! In any case, here's the what the rest of her inventory looks like (and this is probably similar for most other SLers):

Inside the Avatar-Based Transgender Community of Second Life

ECLIPSE magazine has a fascinating and beautifully illustrated feature on the transgender community in Second Life. Perceptively written by NWN contributor Cajsa Lilliehook, who interviewed six transgender SL users, it connects their struggles in the virtual world with the real life activism of the LGBTQ community, and the tension they sometimes encounter with the SL community at large -- for instance, by resisting the traditional concept (and accusation) of "catfishing":

“SL allows us to be seen as the men or women we are inside," as one member explains to Cajsa. "Because of this, I feel this is not catfishing and is incredibly different than people who 'role play' a different gender. My interactions with anyone in SL, whether a romantic interest or friend, are much more genuine and real than how I interact with most people in RL because everyone in SL knows me as Tiffany... not the person I was born as."

Read it all here. Also read: "Second Life's Strength Is Its Power To Transform Identity -- And The "Weirdos" Who Embrace It".

Nylon Pinkney Is Online - Why Second Life Home Tours Are Usually NSFW-ish

Linden Lab Calls Report on Second Life's Adult-Rated Sims "Misleading" -- But the Real Problem is Misleading Use of the Adult Rating

Brett Linden, a member of Linden Lab's marketing team, recently sent me a message about a much-discussed post:

[I wanted] to clarify a detail about your other recent post with the headline that suggests "25% of Second Life Mass Land Now Adult-Rated for Extreme Sex & Violence." As you mention in the article, there are indeed many Adult-rated Regions in Second Life that are not overtly sexual or violent in nature despite that rating. Respectfully, we are a bit concerned that the headline wording might mislead some casual readers to believe that all Adult-rated content actually has "extreme sex & violence" when that is not the case. 

This is true. However, I would argue that the Adult rating as it is often (or even usually) used in Second Life is the thing that's misleading: It confuses many Second Life users, especially new ones, as to what they should expect in an Adult-rated sim. As longtime SLer and blogger Ciaran Laval pointed out in another post, many SLers designate their sim as Adult as a general catch-all which conveys nothing about the sim's content:

[S]ome regions flag themselves as Adult to avoid arguments about content or give themselves more flexibility, rather than being completely Adult-oriented. 

And this is precisely the problem with the Adult rating as it's generally used in Second Life. Look at this way: