I read an article a short while ago by Karen Myers. The article was titled, “Before starting a Second Life, work harder on the first one.” You can read it by clicking here. The gist of it, however, is that Second Life users are all living permanently in a fantasy world, made up largely of vampires and prostitutes who are probably overweight in real life and choose thin avatars in world as a means of escaping it. It’s worth a read for the entertainment of seeing how entirely ludicrous it is. Here is my own personal response to Karen Myers.

Dear Ms Myers,

Having just read what can only be described as an entirely unbalanced and somewhat uneducated article on the topic of Second Life and its users, allow me to personally extend a hand of invitation to you to visit Second Life again (assuming you have already logged in previously – questionable). It seems that you have a completely misguided idea of what the typical Second Life user is like  and what he or she does in the virtual world. Allow me to refer to your article;

“Sweeping the ground for potential victims, you swoop out of the dark sky and sink your teeth into a saucy cowboy, replete with chaps and spikes, on his way to a bull-riding event. But, maybe vampirism isn’t your thing. Perhaps prostitution is more your speed. Maybe the idea of selling your body always excited you, but it was a secret that could not be revealed in your real life.”

I can honestly say that I have never been a Second Life vampire, nor have I ‘sold my body’ or been to a bull riding event while dressed as a pixel cowboy. I would therefore like to invite you to return to Second Life for the opportunity to really explore and gain a more indepth idea of what the platform is all about.

In further reference to your piece (that really does increase in ignorance with every sentence) allow me to quote you once more:

“Living life in a fantasy world is equivalent to George W. Bush’s presidency – a bunch of noise and flash but no result.
Although “Second Life” may have some practical uses – it’s now being used for distance learning and job training purposes – most of it is a waste of time, distracting people from the real world to indulge in purchasing virtual sex toys and designer clothes. Time wasted in a virtual world could be spent strengthening real relationships with real people or trying to get ahead in the real world.”

For the record, I am perfectly ‘ahead’ in the real world. I run my own business, I run my house and as a single Father, I take care of my child all perfectly well. I have fully functional relationships with friends and family. And yes, they are real people. Like with skin and a pulse and everything. I would also like to add that I make a second income in writing. Perhaps I could offer you some advice in structuring an article that is balanced, has a point, is factual and manages to evade the pitfalls of coming across nothing more than arrogant and above itself. It seems your ‘journalism’ skills are missing a key element – RESEARCH.

However, despite the fact that 90% of your post can be described only as ‘bullshit,’ you make two points I do agree with. Firstly, your statement that, “…the people behind the avatars are real.” Secondly, “As a real human, you need to feel the wind in your face. You need to get off the computer and go outside.”

Yes, us Second Life users are all real people. Believe it or not, we do have real bodies. And most of us DO go outside. Do you really imagine that the moment you sign up for Second Life you become some morbidly obese hermit dwelling in a dark room in front of your computer for 20 hours a day? Because 16 million hermits is a whole lot… and guess what, the stereotypes do not apply across the whole of Second Life’s user base.

Your article complains of people who are married in real life conducting affairs in Second Life. I AGREE WITH YOU. It is cheating in every single way, in my opinion. But we don’t all do it, you know. I think, perhaps, that you have spent too much time watching poorly produced and misinformed documentaries and tabloid newspapers featuring the extreme cases of Second Life users gone wrong. You do realise that reading that trash can hardly be defined as busying yourself ‘getting ahead in life,’ which is what I was sure you would be doing, given the tone of your article.

Your implication that the grid is all about sex and roleplay is very unfortunate. You obviously did not take the time to visit the groups of writers, the communities of artists, to attend an open microphone poetry reading, stop off and watch some Second Life theatre in action, catch a live comedian, visit the amazingly well built and textured buildings or attend a live music gig. You must have been too busy getting ahead in life.

So allow me to reiterate: I cordially invite you to return to Second Life to see that side of it. Perhaps you should speak to some of the people for whom Second Life has been a lifeline, those who have been published off the back of building up confidence in writing in here, those who have built up enough of a business in world to work for themselves full time, those who have reached out to charity groups in Second Life for the help that they were desperate but unable to obtain in real life.

I don’t know what’s more unfortunate… the fact that you are so misguided about the platform in the age of the digital revolution or the fact that you invested any of your valuable time writing (albeit a terribly poor article) about something you claim to have such a distaste for.

Your closing sentence, “Or maybe I’m just concerned that my second life would be as lame as my first,” is perhaps the most telling of anything you wrote there.

Deciding that you personally do not like virtual worlds is one thing. But to write off the entire userbase of Second Life based on a poorly researched idea you have is actually offensive. How concerning for your own potential to ‘get ahead in life,’ that you are so narrow minded.

The invitation stands.

Josue Habana

Tags: karen myers, Second Life, virtual worlds
Categories: Second Life

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 9:13 pm and is filed under Second Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.