There’s a lot of uncertainty in regard to Second Life at the moment, what with Big Phil departing, speculation of a buyout and rumour that everything’s in turmoil. I’m not going to talk about any of that on this post though…there’s enough of that talk already. Instead, I’m posing the question “Why are you in Second Life?” And as I have ranted and waffled on long enough about my reasons, I thought I would give you a break from my opinions and hand over to a few others.

I asked these awesome SL residents to answer, in just one or two lines, the same question: “Why are you in Second Life?” The answers ranged from the profound to the hilarious but highlight (even just amongst this small cross section) the variety of purposes SL serves.

Bubbles Komachi: “Because SL can be just as much fun as sex and Starcraft!”

Gracie Kendal: “I am in Sl because it allows me to be free to be myself without judgement or criticism and to be immersed in an amazing art community where the imagination and creativity are limitless.”

Mankind Tracer: “To further expand the global reach of my fanbase for my music.”

Kalli Birman: “I am in SL for my career in Management and Social Media PR/Marketing.”

Brinda Allen: “I come to Secondlife to communicate with people, no other possible venue would allow me the instant intimate connection available here with incredible people from all over the world.”

Alicia Chenaux: “I’m in SL because it’s the first time since high school that I’ve been able to hang out with my friends every day. ”

Tymmerie Thorne: “It’s this or alcoholism. Everyone needs a vice.” If I think of something better, I’ll email you. LOL”

Kairo Lange: “I keep coming back to SL because I’m a bored mom and housewife and I have nothing better to do with my time.  Plus I’m a hermit and it’s nice to have all my friends in a nice little box that I don’t have to leave home to visit with.”

Fainora Pussycat: “it has all the art literature and fashion I love about real life but at a tiny fraction of the cost.”

Krissy Sinclair: “I am in second life for the creativity that is possible here and being able to meet interesting people from all over the world.  I am also here to provide suicide prevention education.”

Phemie Alcott: “I am in Second life to perform music and continue to keep a great social connection with the world really admiring everyone’s creativity and spirit.”

Sinnamon Carter: “I’m in SL to expand my creative side and meet others that i might never have met otherwise.”

Kamille Kamala: “I love the Arts, Culture, and Friends in SL!”

Lacy Muircastle: “Curiosity!!! SL then offers one the opportunity to do things one would otherwise never get to do…”

Pooky Amsterdam: “I can produce on this platform that which I couldn’t quite elsewhere and I can do it with far greater economic savings. And I am comfortable here, the people I meet get what I am doing, get the platform and engine we are a part of.” (Read her post on this here: http://www.pookyamsterdam.com/2010/10/soul-of-pioneers.html)

Tsai Jie: “SL brought me love, and SL took it away again…I am still in SL because I hope that one day SL may bring him back to me.”

Smokey Newman: “I came here I enjoyed and I found new skills and now I am stuck!”

Artemus Seifert: “I’m in SL cos the people, my friends and my family. I’ve known some almost my whole 5 years after all. Also the freedom of being yourself and seeing everyone in almost their truest state… Oh and the escapism. Yes the escapism.”

Rendal Constantineau: “For me, Second Life is a way to connect with a diverse, global community, including other writers and readers, as well as exploring the collective imagination of that community.”

What strikes me is just how varied the reasons are. From career, to friends, to creativity, music and more.

What about you? Why are you in SL? Add your answer via comments!

A “rhyming” invitation to all those with pre-conceived ideas about Second Life and Second Lifers to come and try it out for themselves

Contrary to all ideas
You may have pre-conceived,
I’m not a weirdo geek or freak,
Despite what you believe.

I don’t live in a basement,
On my own just eating junk,
I don’t have obscure fetishes,
Not socially defunct.

I’m not a guy who’s getting off
Pretending he’s a chick,
I’m not a chick pretending
That she’s really got a dick!

I’m just a guy, who tends to like
This thing called “Second Life.”
It’s not a tool for cheating,
Or a pixel dial-a-wife.

It’s a place I go to share, create,
A place I go to be
Surrounded by poetic folk
And set my writer free.

You think it’s just a game,
So let me offer clarity,
Music, business, learning,
Art, new friends and charity.

And that is just the tip, my friend,
If you really want to see
What we achieve in Second Life
Then turn off your TV.

Leave your pre-conceived ideas
And your stereotypes behind,
Drop the chip from off your shoulder
And come in with open mind.

Personally, nothing makes me cringe like a proverb. I even find myself using them from time to time and I know I’m about to say one. It’s like my sentence becomes slow motion… and I can hear the first word of said proverb escaping my lips. But it’s too late to stop! I’ve already started and just a couple of seconds later I have become a walking cliché. However, because most of the rest of the world loves them, people rarely ever pick me up on using them in conversation.

As much as I dislike to clichéd nature of proverbs though, some of them definitely, definitely apply more to Second Life than they do to real life. Let’s get some examples here, shall we?

Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard

Now, this is a hideous one in particular. I would be most concerned if I were unable to hear my little boy. I think children should absolutely be heard. There’s nothing quite as reassuring as your child’s laugh.

But Second Life children should definitely not be heard.

Prim babies make hideous low quality WAV noises and adults role playing as children all have speech impediments. Why do people role playing as 9 year olds insist on typing, “HEWWOOOOOO.” My son is six and he can structure a sentence perfectly well, including differentiating between W and L. The “kiddie talk,” in Second Life freaks me out….

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous is but a Step

This, I think, sums up SL about a year ago for me. It was an amazing, amazing experience but suddenly became an addiction and an unhealthy one at that. With balance restored and me now enjoying a life that incorporates plenty of RL and around 6 hours SL per week (as opposed to the 40 I was having a year ago), I can see just how fine a line there is between a hobby and an addiction where SL is concerned. I love the platform for its creative value these days, but had formerly (looking back) taken to it more for its escapist value and I think this led me to over rely on it.

Ah well, “all’s well that ends well.” (Pardon the proverb).

Don’t Count Your Chickens Before they are Hatched

No, nothing to do with assessing ones assets in Second Life terms…. but EVERYTHING is breeding in Second Life right now. So you might have 6 eggs, but don’t be surprised if the super scripting power of breedables means you end up with way more chickens than you’d counted on… plus, next door’s might just wander over into your yard!

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick

Ok, I confess that my inclusion of this one was mostly so that I could should you all my big stick. But it certainly applies. Everyone has to be cautious in both RL and SL of backstabbers – or of people who might just quite suddenly “turn”. But never mind that. Do you like my big stick?

Check out my stick!!!

The stick, incidentally, is called the “Poking Stick,” and is a full perms freebie. When you click someone while wearing it, it jabs them with it and makes rather a cool “poking,” sound. If you want one, IM me in world (Josue Habana)!

I wasn’t going to post on the non-profit debacle. But I changed my mind because it’s a decision that is really irritating me.

Whenever people criticise Second Life, one of the arguments I use to counter their criticism is that of creativity, charity and education on the grid. While creativity can exist in so many forms in Second Life, charity and education are almost certainly reliant upon  the non-profit land pricing that has existed in SL.

So now, with 2 months notice, Linden Lab has decided to double the land pricing for these non-profits.  Not the best PR decision in the world, right?

I get business. I get the fact that if the Lab is operating at too high a cost, which we know it is, that there has to be spending cuts (hence job losses) and revenue increasing. But you don’t hit the charities and the educational institutions that account for the vast majority of positive press Second Life ever receives. These are the very institutions that offer the grid some credibility in the face of sensationalist tabloid reporting about affairs, divorces and pixel sex!

Why would you essentially force your best asset away from the grid? Why would you do that? It’s illogical on every single level. Surely the laws of PR dictate that engaging good causes is good news – particularly for a company whose reputation has suffered as a result of impulsive and poorly thought out decisions? Linden Lab seems to disagree.

There are other ways they could make more money, like enhancing the benefits for premium members to get more people to sign up for premium accounts. If they concentrate some genuine efforts into retaining new sign ups, they would see the premium account holdings increase. I dropped my premium account because it genuinely wasn’t worth it. I only had it for the quicker support (I wasn’t bothered about the mainland land holdings). But it was sluggish support to say the least and I lost all faith in how SL is run as a business as a result of the impulsive and poorly thought out decision making. Why would I continue to pour money into that? And that is what people ask themselves before deciding to spend anything. What will I get out of this?

Enhancing premium sign up numbers would resolve a number of their issues here. But people will not sign up when LL as a company is getting such bad coverage and when they have no faith in the service they will receive?

But hiking prices for charities and educational institutions is a bad move. It’s a slap in the face for the institutions that offer some genuine credibility to the platform.

A year ago, I posted on why I’m not a fashion blogger. What I established, aside from the fact that I am too impatient to list everything I wear and not good enough in Photoshop, is that I have the fashion sense of a goldfish. A badly dressed goldfish.

But the post was fun. So let’s consider this, “Why I’m Not a Fashion Blogger – Part 2.” And today I am going to showcase a look I call, “Disowned,” in tribute to what your girlfriend will to do you if you ever try this at home.

Oh yes... as HOT as ice!

Let me break this down into the details for you:-

Headwear – System Hair

My SL Hair Salon will be open for business shortly....

I know you are so jealous right now at my ability to create the best hair on the grid. But that’s ok. I will show you how to make hair just as good as this if you IM me. Anyway, nothing makes the women say, “OMG,” like PINK system hair. Granted, the “OMG,” is usually followed by, “DON’T COME NEAR ME,” but whatever.

Christmas Jumper and Hot Pants!

Christmas Meets Slutty Roller Skater

Those woolly jumpers that mid-life crisis suffering men wear each year are, I am assured by my girlfriend, never under any circumstances acceptable… even if they do have reindeers on. Apparently, if we’re feeling festive, rather than adopting a Chrimbo sweater, we should “sing Jingle Bells.”

When the rest of the world is wearing pants… my avie is in hot pants. Hey, if pink hot pants are good enough for that psychologically disturbed Britney lass, then they’re good enough for me.

Footwear – Sandals and Socks

Oh yes, the sexiest pixel legs and pointed toes ever.

I know that sandals and socks are a big no go, right? I do know this… but I figured that I would make them knee high pink socks and that way it would totally be ok, right?

So yeh…. “Disowned.” You like it, huh?

I’ve been having ongoing (and I must add, very polite and civilised) discussions with a Second Life designer in regard to freebies over the past few days. At the request of said designer, I will not mention a name.

But the essence of the conversation is that this designer has an issue with people creating freebies –outside of the usual Business in a Box crap that circulates the grid.

“I create freebies,” the designer told me, “In order to promote my paid for goods. You create them and just give them away for no reason!”

“Technically,” I corrected, “You could argue that I use them to promote my blog.”

“Is your blog’s logo on the items?”

“No. It’s mentioned on a note card within the box.”

“So that still means you’re giving people things that other designers are trying to sell them. It’s bad for everyone’s business.”

The conversation went on. I can see the designer’s point, though this particular designer is incredibly talented and their stuff is on a whole different level to what I give away…. thus is definitely not the sort of person “affected,” by anything I give away.

I can see the point of designers who don’t like people creating reasonable quality freebies. It makes the marketplace more difficult for some. But here’s how I look at things:-

-          Someone will undercut you whatever line of business you are in. PC World sells laptops. But for a while in the UK, Orange then started to give them away with certain broadband contracts. Did PC World complain? Nope! Simply, the laptops Orange was giving away were low end machines. Anyone who wanted something top spec would still pay for it.

-          If someone wants the very best, they will always be prepared to pay for it.

-          Paying for something also allows a customer a certain level of customer support.

Now, I personally do not have the hours in world to dedicate to supporting every single item I make. So is it fair of me to attempt to take money off people for them, knowing that, should they have any questions post-purchase, they might have a heck of a wait for a response? My opinion…. NO!

I do have some items at L$25… but these are few (in fact I think only one is up in the freebie store) and the reason for the charge is that I am bound by the licensing terms of the animations within them, not to use them in any items I will be giving away.

But if I were in a position where I needed to be able to be around to answer questions about everything I create in world, I would be the worst customer support dude on the grid!

Besides, I’m not a ‘designer’ by nature. The stuff I create is ok. It’s not the worst on the grid by it’s by no stretch of the imagination the best either. It won’t come with the best build job done, the best texturing job done…. I don’t create my own custom animations or textures (I buy decent textures and animations under license to use them in my own creations).

In answer to the main question this designer asked:

“Do you run at a loss?”

“Yes. I pay for a parcel of land”.

But this is a HOBBY! I already had most of the textures, sculpties and animations I use from a time I was in Second Life a lot more than I am now and it seems a shame to let them go to waste. I love to build, even if it certainly isn’t something I’m particularly awesome at. I love it. And you know what, L$1500/month for a parcel of land and freebies with which I only promote a blog on a note card (a blog that I also do not commercialise – simply because it’s just another hobby for me) isn’t good business sense for those looking to profit from SL. But I’m not looking to! I have RL businesses for that and this is a HOBBY.

There’s always going to be a those people who would prefer to buy than get for free anyway – people who want something that not literally everyone else on the grid could have, for example. And premium end designers who offer great products and excellent support have nothing to fear from freebie retailers on the grid.

And surely if, as this designer argues, the quality of freebies on the grid is getting better, that’s just going to result in designers and creators of paid for products enhancing their quality too? Call me a consumer champion if you will, but I think that’s great news all round!

Am I going to continue giving items away? Yep! Damn right.

The following is a guest post by Quaintly Tuqiri, about her personal experience of being partnered in Second Life to a man who was married in real life.

This is the first guest post that I’ve actually run on Pixel Scoop. A while ago I posted on partnering people who were married and Quaintly (also known as Sunflower) left a comment that was a peek at her own experience. I got in touch with Quaintly to invite her to discuss her experiences.

You can find Quaintly’s blog at http://www.wilfulsunflower.com/ and you can find her on Twitter as @wilfunsunflower

I wasn’t long in SL when I noticed that many people seem to form romantic relationships here. That didn’t really surprise me; when you talk to someone a lot and hang out with them often, a bond does form. If nothing happens to stop it, the bond grows and grows as you share more and more of yourself with the other person… and viola, we fall in love. The place and time is irrelevant: online or offline, SL or RL, the same principles apply.

Then I discovered that some people were forming relationships with others who were married iRL. There was a fair amount of discussion on some blogs about whether this would be considered “cheating” or no. My personal opinion is and always has been that if a person is having a relationship with someone else online, they are taking the time, attention and affection they should be spending on their someone and giving it to another, so yeah, that didn’t sound right to me. I promised myself I’d never cross that line: I’d not get involved with anyone in SL unless there was potential to bring it to RL.

As time went by, more and more of my friends started pairing up, and just like in RL, I wondered why it was so easy for them to find someone, while I always seemed to be left alone. Eventually, I started thinking that it would be enough simply to have an SL-only relationship, even though I wanted so much more. An insidious voice whispered, “Something is better than nothing,” and left me feeling like I should grab whatever happiness I can since Fate was apparently not working in my favour where love is concerned.

That’s when I met K.

I knew he was married; he was open about it from the beginning. But I decided to ignore everything my head was telling me and go ahead nonetheless. It’s damn addictive, this feeling that someone whom you find attractive finds you attractive as well. That he wants to be with you as much as you want to be with him. I worried about K feeling bad about being with me, but he claimed he didn’t feel guilty. When his wife was around, he said, he gave her 100% of his time and attention; but when she was not, that was his own time to spend as he liked, and if he chose to spend it with me, he wasn’t depriving her of anything that he should have been devoting to her. I was dubious but wanted to be persuaded, and so allowed myself to be persuaded.

The thing about emotions is that they’re difficult to confine just to one area of your life. I’m told men can do this better than women, that they can compartmentalise. Or maybe it’s just because they tend to be more focused on one thing at a time, while women are supposedly natural multi-taskers.I found that I was thinking of K through the day and anticipating reading the little “Good morning” messages he left for me to find each morning, that chatting with him on Gtalk while at work elevated my mood a great deal and left me smiling to myself for the rest of the day.

But as my emotions continued to grow, the limitations in the relationship began making themselves painfully clear. I started to resent that he never seemed to make any accommodations for me, because of course since I’m single I was the one with the more flexible schedule whereas he had a lot of other priorities to think of. And that hurt — knowing that in his list of priorities, I didn’t come first. I was first in SL, or so he claimed, but SL itself was at least fourth in line, coming after his wife, his work and his RL. I knew this was the way things were supposed to be but that didn’t mean I had to like it! Didn’t help that a number of times he’d say, “Oh, my wife’s home” and log off in a hurry. I ended up feeling like “the other woman”.

In the end I didn’t even qualify for first priority in SL — part of the reason we broke up was that he wanted more time to build his business in SL. He complained that being with me was taking up too much time, despite the fact that by then, we were only meeting inworld once a week, chatting on Gtalk the rest of the time. It hurt, but by then I also knew I wanted more than he could ever give me. And so we broke up after just 4 months of being together.

I don’t regret that time spent with K. It was lovely when things were going well, and one thing about life is that you learn to cherish the good while learning from the bad. Of course, I learnt that it’s never wise to ignore my convictions!

Want to tell your story here? See more information about guest posting on Pixel Scoop here.

It was a few weeks ago now that my other half signed up to SL. She hasn’t really used it. She signed up because she wanted to know what was so cool about it and why I love it so much. So she became “Chlo Calamity.”

I’m lucky. She wants to know why I am interested. But I know so many other people who simply don’t get it. I can see why because I was the same at first.

I was talking to a friend the other week.

“What’s this game you play then?” he asked

“It’s not really a game.” I responded. “It’s a virtual world.”

“Alright… so you log on and then do what?”

“Listen to people perform poetry… build… check out art exhibitions, listen to musicians perform…”

“But they’re not real. It’s cartoons isn’t it? And you’re just building cartoony stuff?”

And you know the second that someone responds to a list of perfectly immersive activities like that with a sentence about cartoons, that you’re wasting your time. This is why I have taken to showing people what happens with video! But even then, some will never get it and will only ever believe the tabloid trash about pixel flings, age play and people who become real life stalkers.

Whenever I use my, “Well, think about all the time you waste watching TV,” argument, I risk being accused of being a snob.

Now let me say, I love some TV. I love watching stuff my little boy, I’m an X Factor fanatic, I love documentaries and I love a good film! But would I spend 5 hours a day sitting staring at a 42 inch plasma screen engrossed in some celebrity-laden trash about Paris Hilton? No. I’m selective about what I watch. If it’s a choice between half an hour spent watching a soap opera or half an hour spent watching some amazing slam poets in Second Life, I’ll take the latter please. But it’s just about prioritising. By the same token, if it was an in world slam poetry event or my little boy wanting me to watch something specific with him, then he has my time and my attention.

Trying to explain Second Life to non-residents can be tricky…My sister gets it (though has no interest in engaging herself), my best friend does and my girlfriend does, as too do my close friends. So many, though, simply don’t.

How do you explain SL to your RL friends and family?

I just read an article on Escapist Magazine, written by someone who went in world, somewhat cynical, to find out more about it. She encountered a couple (married in SL but not RL) and, to cut a long story short, when the wife logged off, the husband confessed to the writer that he was lying to his  SL wife about his RL age and location. He advised the writer not to get involved in the romantic elements of SL, stating that his feelings for his SL wife were definitely not “real,” but hers for him were. It’s a fascinating read and you can find it here.

I am normally quite critical of articles written by non-SL-ers about SL – usually because they’re sensationalist rubbish. But this was actually quite a good read on the whole. I took issue with one quote from the article though:

“For people like K, I realized, this pixelated world is all they have. Maybe Second Life is less about the casual gamer and more for those who truly can’t, for whatever reason, find companionship or fulfil their needs in the real world.”

That to me is yet another broad, sweeping generalisation. I personally will no longer engage in “romance,” in Second Life. That’s reserved for offline for me, personally. However, I still use SL quite happily for a number of other reasons – to keep in touch with some friends, to create, to collaborate, to explore…

That statement there implies that Second Life is “filling a gap,” rather than adding to a full life. SL is a really amazing creative outlet for so many people and for those who use the platform sensibly, it’s an addition to real life stuff – not a replacement.

The general tone of the article, despite it raising a very real question about “real feelings,” and acknowledging that people can care for others they meet online, was a little… patronising. It felt, towards the end, like Second Life users were being patted on the head with a, “There, there… go play nicely with the pretendy people….”

Yes, SL users can become incredibly fond (in real life) of the people they interact in world with. I myself have met some people I first met in world in real life – but even without meeting people “in real life,” you can develop intense feelings. I’m not just talking about romantically. In fact, for me personally, I don’t think I could fall in love with someone I met online, but in terms of developing platonic love for someone, care for someone etc… absolutely. It’s all perfectly feasible.

So in answer to that comment,

“For people like K, I realized, this pixelated world is all they have. Maybe Second Life is less about the casual gamer and more for those who truly can’t, for whatever reason, find companionship or fulfil their needs in the real world.”

let me just add that I agree, Second Life is probably not for the casual gamer. It’s not that sort of platform and isn’t necessarily a “game”, per se. But it isn’t just for those who are unable to “fulfil their needs in the real world.” It’s for people who want to socialise and interact with people from the other side of the world, it’s for people who want to attend poetry events from the comfort of their own home, it’s for people who want to display their artwork to a potentially global audience, it’s for people who want to raise money for charity, who want to carry out healthcare training, who want to learn a new language in a virtual classroom, who want to a run a business that actually does generate money (even if few businesses in world generate as much money as RL businesses), it’s for people who want to teach someone something, it’s for people who want to design, to develop, to explore other people’s imaginations… Second Life is for people who want to add another layer to their real life, who want to engage in a recreational and immersive hobby that is, by far, less mind numbing and trashy than much of the TV that so many millions of people become blankly engrossed in for hours and hours each day.

~Gracie Kendal

Who the Hell are you? A musician? A master? A shopaholic? A victim? A fantasist? Is your avatar an entity unto itself – something you created entirely to develop and “live” as its own character? Or is it an extension of yourself?

Those are just a handful of the questions posed by the numerous exhibitions at Second Life’s Museum of Identity.

20 artists have taken part, putting together exhibitions examining the Ambiguity of Identity.

I am going to resist the temptation to interpret the many exhibitions there because I think much of the appeal about this is in interpreting it the way you will. In particular, Gracie Kendal’s exhibition, “I Sing the Body Electric,” Botgirl Questi’s “Transworld Identity,” and Cat Boccaccio’s “Splint Personality,” were three I was particularly drawn to and entirely fascinated by. Every exhibition, though, poses questions or instigates some thought. I don’t know who came up with the concept of “Identity,” as a theme for a series of exhibits like this, but it’s an amazing one, particularly apt for the virtual world communities.

I don’t want to say too much really because this is an exhibition you have to see to fully appreciate, but it’s entirely wonderful and hugely creative. It opens on 2^nd October and you can find it here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caerleon%20Isle/219/128/40.