If SL continues to grow, and there’s every indication it will since its membership has gone from about 100,000 at the end of 2005 to today’s three million, then avatars and Linden Lab will likely have to face some of the problems that distract us from sex and gambling in real life, including censorship and intolerance in an environment where people from around the world and from various backgrounds interact with fake names and fake bodies. For the time being, it looks like Linden Lab intends to keep Second Life as open as possible, which is a big part of its charm. Where else could you explode a pig on someone else’s property and not be thrown in jail and evaluated for mental illness?
Second Life political activism, says Rik Panganiban (a/k/a green samurai “Rik Riel”), is “in its infancy.”
“Hell, it’s still gestating,” he says.
Panganiban, who works in media activism in the real world and runs a blog on technology and politics called “The Click Heard Round the World,” met my avatar in Second Life’s Café Morocco, a hookah lounge in fake Casablanca three days before the rally. Panganiban, whose participation in Second Life is unrelated to his real-world job, is an active member of SL’s Roots Camp group. He says SLers are more likely to get riled up about issues relating to SL itself, like when 50 or so avatars protested the Linden Lab in-world area when the Lab decided to make SL free, than they are to care in-world about real-world issues. Panganiban thinks activists can best use the metaverse to meet, organize, and educate.
“SL ‘protests’ are really just cop-outs for people who don’t want to show up in the streets,” Panganiban’s avatar says as he sits cross-legged on a purple pillow on the floor of the lounge. A leggy blonde avatar strides in, sits down, and immediately takes a long drag from a hookah next to him. The café is otherwise empty. “No one in power gives a shit about SL avatars protesting.”
As Panganiban notes on his blog, some of the SL population think real-world politics don’t belong in the virtual metaverse. He refers to them as “immersionists,” or people who want SL to be a refuge from the real world. On the other side, “augmentalists” want SL and the real world to complement one another.
“The augmentalists are winning, because that’s where the money is,” Panganiban says.
Pixel dicks
Second Life is an opportunity for activists around the world to hang out and meet up minus most of the hassle involved in real-world organizing, but that doesn’t mean the world is without its unique challenges. Members need a fairly modern computer and a solid Internet connection to run SL without worry of slow connections or crashing — and even then crashing is still a distinct possibility in popular areas. Virtual activists are also outnumbered by avatars who come to SL not to debate public policy, but to have fun and maybe make a little money. Second Life’s currency, “Linden Dollars” can be exchanged for real-world cash, and a former schoolteacher from Germany, Ailin Graef (a/k/a “Anshe Chung”) claims to be the world’s first millionaire, thanks to her online land-development business. Panganiban’s so-called augmentalists include real world companies, like Cisco Systems and American Apparel, who use Second Life to recruit customers. IBM hosts employee meetings on its Second Life island. If you want to have sex, build stuff, and look really cool you’ll need to invest a few real-world dollars to buy genitals, land, and accessories .
