New World Notes

Listen: Longtime SLer Gidge Uriza Featured in Leslie Jamison's NPR Interview

NPR just featured an interview with acclaimed writer Leslie James, whose new book of essays Make It Burn, Make It Scream features an excerpt from her widely-discussed 2017 Atlantic Monthly story on Second Life. She reads an excerpt featuring SL veteran Gidge Uriza:

Linden Lab Denies Failure to Adequately Prevent Money Laundering, Sex Offenders & Ageplay in Second Life, as Alleged in Lawsuit -- Security Expert Plaintiff Replies: "[I have] Written Proof of Everything That I Am Alleging"

Wired just published a belated story on the wrongful termination lawsuit by a Muslim-American security expert that New World Notes broke last month, but it has some new information on the controversy -- including an official statement by Linden Lab:

The suit alleges company executives retaliated against her for flagging cybersecurity risks and potential violations of anti-money-laundering laws, child exploitation, and data misuse...

“While we will fight her alleged claims in court, we deny any allegations that the company has engaged in any illegal activity,” said Linden Lab spokesperson Brett Atwood. “Ms. [Kavya] Pearlman left the company on March 15 only after she was given the opportunity to improve her work performance. We look forward to all the facts coming out in a court of law,” he said, declining additional comment because of the lawsuit.

I just reached out to Ms. Pearlman, who stands by the security-related allegations in her lawsuit -- and says she has concrete evidence of her claims:

"Having written proof of everything that I am alleging," Ms. Pearlman tells me, "I look forward to discovery of fact and taking those facts to the court of law. Even Linden Lab knows, dismissing these allegations by citing some work performance issue of an industry expert on cybersecurity and compliance is yet another way of potentially attributing 'look away'. This is not new, it happens to security professionals raising security and privacy concerns, only in this case concrete proofs exist and truth is bound to come out."

Earlier this week, an anonymous tipster sent me a link suggesting (if not definitively proving) that at least one of the skilled game applicants is a convicted sex offender. Pearlman confirms that this is a legitimate concern:

"That a sex offender is potentially conducting skilled gaming is an example of Linden Lab ignoring [the] mandated Fincen rule of KYC ( know your customer)", as she puts it.

Notably, the Wired article reports that another former Linden Lab staff member confirmed to the magazine the existence of a likely "smoking gun" memo from the company's former chief compliance officer, one that's mentioned in Pearlman's lawsuit,; in it, she raised these issues, and a related one -- that the existence of age players (i.e. simulated pedophilia) in Second Life remains a constant problem that the company has not sufficiently addressed. It's a problem the CCO reportedly acknowledges in the memo:

Cajsa Lilliehook Profiled in ECLIPSE Magazine

The latest issue of ECLIPSE magazine has a fun and much-deserved profile of Cajsa Lilliehook (starting at page 51), and if you've been touched by her many blogs and articles over the years (basically every active SLer has by now), you'll want to know more about her. Find out how she discovered Second Life, and more about the real life woman behind the avatar. For instance, in addition to writing about virtual fashion and culture for New World Notes and her own blog, It's Only Fashion, she also publishes a high active book review site, and a single-serving recipe blog. (Featuring a baked eggs with kale and bacon dish that looks seriously delish.)

Has Second Life Been Fully Gentrified? Thoughts from My BBC Interview

Pictured: A steampunk city in SL from 2008; a Kim Kardashian ad campaign using SL from 2018

Here's the full episode of BBC's The Digital Human which expands on the short excerpt I featured last week. The show's larger topic is gentrification of the Internet culture and online communities, which often lose their unique character as they become more mainstream and commodified. I talk about how this happened to some extent during the 2006-2008 hype wave, when MTV and other companies became (briefly) interested in Second Life as a marketing platform, and how SL culture has greatly changed since then. For the original early adopters, I say:

They had this unique beautiful thing that existed basically only there on the Internet; they built these really beautiful intricate steampunk experiences and they had the fashion to go along with it... [but] there really was a feeling that they'd lose that uniqueness. That's at least partly right: The Second Life culture that existed in the beginning is still there but it's really been crowded out. Kim Kardashian recently did an advertising campaign using Second Life avatars and it was not actually surprising because the avatar fashion and styles [popular in Second Life now] had started to look more and more like a Kim Kardashian aesthetic, a cheesy virtual version... For a lot of the original users, I think they could feel that they'd sort of lost that unique spark that they had.

This isn't to say there's something intrinsically wrong with a Kim Kardashian style if that's your thing, just that it's so inescapably pervasive across all media -- even now in virtual worlds which once offered a respite from all that. And that might just be inevitable now that virtual world culture has become mainstream (hello, Marshmello), but hopefully we'll start to see the cultural influence flowing in the other direction more often.

Oh, in case you haven't seen the 2008 steampunk city tribute I mentioned above, it's still on YouTube here:

I Tell the BBC About the Culture War in Second Life During the Iraq War

Here's a fun new segment from a BBC podcast called The Digital Human, in which I tell longtime Internet culture reporter Aleks Krotoski about the "War of the Jessie Wall" in Second Life, which you can read more about here. (Also briefly mentioned is this story about a virtual mansion built by someone while homeless in real life.) I believe this is a segment to a much larger episode, but in any case, hope you enjoy, and see you next Monday!

Dutch Readers: Second Life Retrospective Featured on Netherlands' VPRO

Here's a long new article on a frequently recurring subject: "Will Second Life Life Get a Second Life?" Written by Hans van Wetering for VPRO, which I gather is kinda sorta the NPR of the Netherlands, I offer some comments and Bryn Oh art is featured. It's in Dutch ("Krijgt Second Life een tweede leven?"), so if you're a reader fluent in that language, we'd be grateful for a general summary in Comments. Here's the starting paragraphs:

 

LA Times Features Anthropologist's US Government-Funded Study of How Virtual Worlds Affect Disabled Users

Good LA Times write-up of Tom Boellstorff, the UC Irvine Anthropology professor who's been exploring Second Life since 2004 (and full disclosure, became an IRL pal along the way). The Times' focus is on Tom's latest work, which is funded by the US government, and focuses on the many disabled people who use virtual worlds like Second Life:

Boellstorff and co-researcher Donna Davis of the University of Oregon got to know about 200 disabled players. The researchers found the virtual world provides a way for the mentally and physically disabled to socialize and forge meaningful relationships. “We so often hear about the dark side of technology,” Davis said. “But I think that Tom and I have found that there is a bright side. People can connect in these virtual spaces in really important and meaningful ways.”

Boellstorff’ has received $277,000 in funding from the National Science Foundation since 2015 to research how online environments affect social interaction, self-awareness and the disabled experience. Boellstorff, who is writing a second book on his new research, hopes that his research will cause technology developers to pay heed to the issues of disabled people when creating virtual reality products.

“This is an important thing for these CEOs to look at,” Boellstorff said. “Over and over again, if you look at the history of technology, often the tech gets developed assuming the consumer is able-bodied."

Well said. Much more on the LA Times site here. Tom's work, of course, has been featured on NWN many times, including:

Kim Kardashian Personally Requested Her Second Life Avatar-Based Social Media Campaign, Says SL Creator

SL avatar pics by Liz Milan West featured on Kim Kardashian's fragrance line Instagram

Twentysomething make-up artist Johnathan Ramirez was recently checking his online messages, when he saw one from someone who was somewhat familiar: Kim Kardashian. This, he tells me, is how the social media campaign featuring Second Life avatars promoting Kardashian's new fragrance line came to be.

"Kim reached out to me herself about a fun project," says Ramirez, who's known as Liz Milan West on Instagram, and lizzylo1212.xue in Second Life and on the SL Marketplace. Apparently Ms. Kardashian saw his SL fashion pics on Instagram or elsewhere. "She told me that she loved my work and had a super fun idea she wanted me to be apart of."

From there it was a matter of working with her social media staff on creating it:

Kim Kardashian Continues Using Second Life Avatars in Her Social Media

From Kardashian's Instagram feed

Turns out that Kim Kardashian Second Life avatar from last week wasn't just a one-off to promote her perfume brand -- Ms. Kardashian-West just posted this pic above featuring three SL avatars on her social media channels. And so many, many years after any major pop brand has integrated Second Life content into their media, Kim Kardashian remains an outlier. I really can't think of a precedent to this; I mean, Drew Carey used to talk about his favorite Second Life creators on Twitter, but even Carey would agree that this Kardashian campaign is many multitudes more massive. The mystery is how it came to be.

Kardashian's official @kkwfragance perfume brand on Instagram has even more SL pics

I have, of course, reached out to Kardashian's social media people, and will let readers know when/if I get a reply. By the way, some have speculated that these SL avatars are from her Kimoji mobile app, but having just downloaded it, that doesn't seem to be the case. The Kimoji avatars all appear to be from IMVU -- look:

Kim Kardashian Promotes Perfume Brand With Second Life Avatar of Kim Kardashian

If you follow Kim Kardashian West on Twitter (as you are obligated by law to do), you may have seen her retweet this tweet yesterday:

#KIMOJIPERFUME launches in 3 DAYS at the Pop-Up in @WestfieldCC on 07.14 and online on 07.17. The first 200 people who buy #KIMOJIPERFUME in-store will receive a free Kimoji Laptop Bag valued at $40 #KKWFRAGRANCE pic.twitter.com/HuTOIuNxHt

— KKW FRAGRANCE (@KKWFRAGRANCE) July 12, 2018

Which she did in order to promote her perfume brand, cleverly called KKW FRAGRANCE [sic], which is of course a very Kim Kardashian thing to do. What is perhaps somewhat more surprising is that she's doing it not with a photo of, you know, Kim Kardashian... but with a screenshot of a Second Life avatar of Kim Kardashian.

Yes: According to the brand's Instagram account, the campaign (there are several SL avatar images in it), it was created by a Second Life user who posts screenshots to her Instagram account (@lizmilanwest).

Assumptions aside, it's not actually too surprising that Kim Kardashian would use an avatar to promote her brand. For one thing, she has a hit mobile game where you roleplay as her avatar, and more key, major brands are now often turning to avatars to promote their brands on Instagram. And why spend upwards of $10,000-20,000 on a professional photoshoot you need to attend when you can stay in bed with Kanye and have your avatar do all the work?