LGBT spaces in Second Life

Tonight I read through chapter 3 of the Rymaszewski  text and was excited to see that as Bubba mentioned there are some specific LGBT communities. As soon as I feel more comfortable with my avatar I hope to visit the Welcome Pavilion: Monty (56, 74, 43). This chapter also introduces a plethora of very fascinating places to visit ranging from the midnight bus at Atrocity to the beautiful greenhouse (63, 113, 22). Just a short look at the options made me realize how right Bubba is when he said that Second Life is a vast and expansive Virtual World. I was a bit disappointed not to find more educational environments. 

Second Life and Gender

Chapter 2 of the Rymaszewski text (Second Life: The Official Guide) gives some useful suggestions for getting started in this virtual world. Very helpful was the link for keypad shortcuts in Second Life. This can be found at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Help:Keyboard_shortcut_keys and has shortcuts for everything from changing one’s view to looking at one’s inventory. Once logged back into Second Life, I was able to hit Control-I to see my inventory and found that I, much as expected, had not accumulated much of anything.

Further reading in Chapter 2 informed me of advantages of different views (e.g. the first person view vs. the mouselook – top bar under views). Upon trying the mouselook, I could see its potential advantages but found that it made me a bit motion sick. This did, however result in the most serendipitous occurrence for as I was winding around with the mouselook, I found a PowerPoint presentation on my current Ed Tech Island and was stunned to see that the slide displayed was that about gender in Second Life. Fascinated by this topic I had just finished reading in the Rymaszewski  text that women often feel much greater equity in Second Life than in real life. One quote in the text put this well, “SL is a world where women have equality to a much greater extent than in RL. The primary advantage men have over women in RL, which influences many things, is physical strength. Here I am just as strong as any man….” – Jennifer McLuhan (Rymaszewski , p. 14). Thus, I felt quite elated as I scanned through the PowerPoint presentation before me in Second Life. The birds were chirping in the background and I could hear the occasional tugboat on the ocean. I read, “Players who have tried Gender-bending oftentimes talk about how the experience has changed their understanding of gender roles….” (Yee, 2004, p. gender-bending). I cannot tell you the excitement that I felt upon finding this one presentation! With each experience in Second Life and with my continued reading, I begin to think that I may be able to establish connections with individuals and resources that will assist not only in teaching but in educational research. This was further confirmed when I logged onto my dashboard on the Second Life website and saw that there is to be a Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education Conference on March 12 and 13. I better get my avatar up and moving so I can find the right place.

Reading Second Life: the official guide

Yesterday I received my copy of Second Life: the official guide by Rymaszewski et al. Purchased online for $1.65, the book appeared to have never been opened. Thus, I cracked the spine and began reading Chapter 1, What is Second Life? After only a few pages I began to enjoy the text and found that I had learned several useful tidbits. While not surprising, it was exciting to recognize that nearly all of the content of Second Life is user-created and that really Second Life can and should provide anything for which the user is looking. After a brief introduction, Chapter 1 delved into a bit of Second Life history noting that the idea was conceived by Philip Rosedale in 1991. Beta testing began in 2002 and “on June 23^rd, 2003 Second life went live.” (p. 4) After an actual revolution against the original tax system, new tax and time systems were introduced.

After a brief history, Rymaszewski et. al delve into the details of how Second Life works. I learned that within this virtual world, sims (as we have come to understand are simulations) actually refer to regions. I became educated about how a user can create objects and that Second Life actually keeps track of all of these objects (and, of course, all avatars) by assigning them unique identifiers. I learned that objects can be built from solids called prims and that prims can be made to take on whatever shape you like. Further coverage concerned the local currency, called the Linden dollar. At the time that the book was written the US $ was worth 270 Lindens. I was stunned at the opportunities to make money, sell objects and even score free stuff! Thus, when faced with the section in the book entitled What to Do With Your New Life?, I felt that the answers were limitless. However, for me the most poignant passage in this section was, “It’s also a great place to interact with people not just one-on-one, but via group instant messaging, where dozens or even hundreds can participate in live conversation – an important communication platform that’s become more in important in recent years as the population has grown.” This passage gave me hope that Second Life may just be a good forum for conducting interviews for educational research. 

Becoming Serratia Warcliffe

My exploration of Second Life began today as I created an avatar and logged onto this virtual world for the first time. As I answered the questions, first filling out my real-life name and then choosing my virtual world name, I began to feel excited about the freedom to choose who I would be in this other world. As a microbiology instructor, I have always been taken by the name of a red-pigmented bacterium in the genus Serratia. I thus chose this as my first name. I then became very enthusiastic as I realized that with freedom to choose my own name, I could share my partner’s last name for the first time (she already has an avatar). However I was saddened to see that there were only very limited options for last names and I thus settled for Serratia Warcliffe. Though I had hoped for a virtual world complete with the social justice so lacking our our real-world, I was pleased with the ring of the name that I had chosen and I suppose I was not surprised that any work of art (including a HIVE) would be a reflection of our current culture.

 

I continued on to choose a look for my avatar that seemed most appropriate. This truly was a strange but liberating process. Being able to select an appearance that most reflects oneself is both terrifying – forcing one to consider a physical manifestation of one’s nature- and utterly liberating. With the exception of eyes and hair color, I chose a basic look to which I felt most suited and moved along.

 

After receiving a conformational e-mail and logging in, I was shocked by the extent of the terms and restrictions; they ranged from age to intellectual property. However, I agreed to all terms and began my second life. I found myself on Help Island and originally unsure of even the simplest actions, walking for example, I somehow managed to find a map and teleport to Ed Tech Island. Built by a professional educational technology organization, I felt safe once here, located my partner (who has already spent time on the island) and began to edit my appearance. Now this was when things became overwhelming. Ranging from lip width to underwear color one has a buffet of options, enough to boggle the mind. I am embarrassed that I spent far too much time trying to change my eye color and most importantly give myself the appropriate athletic build. As the minutes ticked on I finally had to pull myself away from the appearance editing, consoling myself that I would return later to achieve a satisfactory hair color.