Customizing Your Second Life

There are basically three things you can do in Second Life. You can socialize. You can modify your avatar or the environment. And you can see how others have modified their avatars or their environments. If it were nothing more than socializing then Second Life would be little more than a 3D chat room. But there is a complex interplay between these three capabilities that produces an impressive synergistic result.

If it weren't for the social aspects of Second Life there would be no one to appreciate what you have done modifying your avatar and your environment. It would be like the old catch phrase "all dressed up and no place to go". But, there is something about having others appreciate your work that can be incredibly motivating. At the same time, seeing what others have done can be creatively stimulating. So, although I am going to focus on these mod capabilities, I don't want to downplay the importance of the socializing for giving significance to these mod capabilities. And, for the sake of brevity, I am not going to distinguish between modifications to your avatar and modifications to the environment. I will just refer to these generically as mod capabilities.

There are two kinds of mod capabilities in Second Life, those created outside of SL and ported in, and those achieved in-world. Mods created outside of SL and ported in include some avatar shapes and skins, clothing, animations, gestures, music, and textures (images). If this were all that Second Life had to offer, it would not be distinguished from other virtual worlds that allow mods created outside of the world to be ported in. It is the in-world mods that really distinguish it.

Mods created in world include 3D building and Linden Scripting Language (LSL) scripting. While these in-world mod capabilities are not completely unique to Second Life; they are what give Second Life its unique flavor, unique capabilities and unique possibilities. Between these two, it is the 3D building capability that Linden Labs got mostly right. Not completely right. But certainly in the right direction. LSL has promise but falls short of building in its potential. Since I have taken this long to get down to these two mod capabilities, I will save further discussion for the next post.

First, What Did They Get Right?

When I first entered Second Life in November of 2006 I was completely unaware of the state of the art in virtual world technology. Hence, I was completely blown away by the 3D world with little avatars running around and chatting with each other. It wasn't until I read Edward Castronova's book Synthetic Worlds that I realize that there were other virtual worlds - largely massively multi-player online games. In fact, Castronova barely mentions Second Life. After reading his book, I decided to become more familiar with video game virtual worlds and took the plunge into World of Warcraft. Since then, I have tried a number of other, similar, games which have provided some useful data points for comparison.

To understand what Linden Labs got right, we can compare Second Life with a MMO video game. In a MMO video game the primary purpose for users to join the game is to go on quests. A secondary goal is to socialize and that is usually for the purposes of engaging the help of others on more complicated quests. A third goal is to customize your character. This can be done initially by making some character design choices and later by acquiring better clothing. Forth, vastly more sophisticated players can create custom objects which can be used or sold to other players.

Second Life can be most easily understood in the way it treats these basic goals. First, there are no quests in Second Life. People enter the world and can do pretty much as they please. Since users are not focused on satisfying quests, the environment opens up enormous possibilities for creativity and personal exploration. Not having quests has its downsides. But, this is really the distinguishing feature of Second Life. Linden Labs got this right and only later dropped the ball.

Socializing is improved as well in Second Life. Granted IM, voice chat, and groups are not unique to Second Life. But with nothing to do but hang out and be creative, the social aspects of the virtual world move to the foreground. Whereas users come to a video game to complete quests, people come to Second Life to hang out and socialize. This leads some people to claim that Second Life is just a 3D chat room. While this may be true at some level, the impact of a customizable 3D should not be underestimated. Bringing virtual world technology to the world of social interaction was another thing the Linden Labs got right. But, it is hard to appreciate these accomplishments with the sound of all those balls dropping in the background.

Second Life truly excels in the extent to which you can customize both your avatar and the environment. And it is unequaled in the extent to which users can create in world content. These final goals and how they were handled or mishandled will be taken up next.

The Staggering Ineptitude of Linden Labs

Albert Einstein once said "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." I think the staggering ineptitude of Linden Labs is giving human stupidity a run for its money. Yes, I am beginning a rant, if you haven't figured that out already. To paraphrase another quote that I have no idea who to attribute to, Second Life has enormous potential and always will. That is to say, that the prospects of Linden Labs actually exploiting the potential of Second Light grow dimmer every day. It will remain, forever, a promising technology with unexploited potential. Why? Because of the staggering ineptitude of Linden Labs.

If I sound a little angry, I suppose I am. I came to Second Life just a little over two years ago and was astonished, as many people were, with the future potential of this amazing technology. Over the past two years I have invested an enormous amount of time believing that when this technology catches on, playing catch up would not be an option. And now it looks like this technology might never catch on the way I thought it would. And that is because Linden Labs has just dropped the ball. They simply do not know what they were doing. They created a gold mine and had no idea how to mine the gold.

In my early days on Second Life, I added some pages to my website to discuss my experiences. Way back then, I wrote "I am fully aware of the fact that by the time this technology becomes mainstream the name of Second Life might be little more than a historical footnote like the name of the first PC operating system (CP/M) or the first electronic spreadsheet (Visicalc)." As I was writing that, I had no idea how prophetic that might become. So, I thought it might be worth while to digress on a new thread to explore just how they managed to screw up so badly. What did they get right? What did the do wrong? What should they have done instead? Stay tuned.

The Mall vs the Red Light District

In real life we have a wide variety people pursuing a wide variety of interests. And, in general, this is a good thing. Within reason, people should be able to find socially acceptable vehicles for their self expression and need fulfillment. But, we also realize, in real life, that one person's pursuit of well being might conflict with another person's pursuit of well being. So, we segregate interests. You would not expect to find, for example, an adult book store next to a church, nor a half way house for pedophiles next to a high school.

These are extreme examples but more subtle examples are not hard to find. Most cities and towns have zoning restrictions. So you cannot place commercial establishments in residential neighborhoods. People need to live and people need to shop so both are legitimate needs. But, most municipalities feel that orderly development is preferable to letting anyone do whatever they wish where ever they wish. In fact, a town or city who followed that philosophy would deteriorate and become unlivable in very short order. And that is exactly the problem that has occurred in Second Life.

Linden labs makes a faint and almost perfunctory effort at segmentation by marking islands as PG or Mature. However, this is grossly inadequate for the variety of activities found in Second Life. The answer, somewhat glibly, is that Second Life needs zoning. Actually, the answer, somewhat more seriously is that Second Life needs to develop a segmentation scheme so that conflicting interests do not collide. Using very broad strokes their needs to be areas in Second Life where you go for business or education, and other places you go to explore personal expression and needs. I would characterize these broad strokes as The Mall vs the Red Light District. And over the next few posts we will explore the possibilities and pitfalls of segmentation.

What ARE These People?

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a socially alienated individual. For some reason, life has not gone well. Perhaps, you were mercilessly bullied in Junior High School. Perhaps, you have a physical limitation that prevents you from fitting in as well as you would like. Perhaps you grew up in a majorly dysfunctional family. Perhaps you are driven by compulsions that you cannot fully control and do not fully understand. Most people grow up with some sort of adversity and overwhelmingly most adjust. However, some don't. Some just become increasingly more alienated and increasingly more angry. In real life there are behavior traits that might tip us off to be wary of such a person. They may avoid eye contact. They may have very limited social interaction or poor interaction skills. They may dress or behave in ways that reveal their underlying rage. We cannot totally avoid such people in real life, but we do get warning signs.

What is such a person comes into a virtual world? What if they purchase a very normal looking avatar and dress is in a moderate and acceptable way? What if their entire purpose for being in a virtual world is to get you to lower your guard so they can punish you for all the insults that they have suffered in their life? Or worse, what if they wish to make you miserable just because it is fun?

I was told a story once, by someone who was visiting my Academy. They had gotten to be friends with someone they met in a chat room long before the days of Second Life. At one point the friend appeared to be becoming despondent and talked about committing suicide. Then, the person simply stopped appearing in the chat room. The person who was relating the story was frantic and contacted the chat room administrator. As it turns out, this person 'faked' a suicide to disturb (or 'mess with') the person who was relating the story. And this person, from the chat room, had done this a number of times before.

I don't know whether or not the anecdote is fully true, partially true or made of whole cloth since I did not investigate the incident myself. However, it rings true based upon experiences that I have had. And it certainly represents, if only anecdotally, a malicious form of griefing.

Why would somebody do a thing like this? How could they enjoy such a thing? The problem, of course, is that when you are dealing with anonymous people in a virtual world, you never know, for sure, who is at the keyboard and what there motives might be. And all you need is one bad experience with this sort of thing to put you off of virtual worlds for a long time.

So, anonymity has some major benefit and some major drawbacks. If you prevent anonymity you limit the ability of basically good people to explore who they are and express themselves in ways that they may not be able to express themselves in real life. On the other hand, anonymity can be a hiding place for psychopaths, sociopaths, and all manner of maladjusted individuals. Is there a solution? Yes, there is. And that will be the topic of the next post.

Who ARE These People?

In the last post I discussed the problem of griefers and trollers in Second Life, and how they can seriously diminish the enjoyment of others. And yet, however annoying these people might be, they rarely rise above the level of 'annoying'. A much bigger problem is the friends you make in Second Life, who might not be as good of friends as you think they are.

When we meet people in real life, we usually evaluate them in some sort of social context. We gravitate towards people who are similar to ourselves in terms of values, education, and social status. This isn't to say that we never venture outside of our social circles. It is only to say that a friendship or a relationship has a much better chance of succeeding if you share similar values. In fact, dating and matchmaking websites often use this premise as the basis for finding matches.

Unfortunately, when you meet an anonymous person in Second Life, you do not have access to this information. If you met this same person in real life your warning alarms might go off and you might well get away as quickly as you can. But, since you don't have this information, you lower your guard and get to know the person a little better. This is not entirely a bad thing. You get to meet some lovely people that you might otherwise never get to know in real life because they have some social markers that would cause you to avoid them. However, some social markers can be very important.

At a superficial level you may get along fine. You might even find it very interesting to get to know somebody who is unlike anyone you have ever met before. You might even become very good friends. And then once you have invested in a friendship or a relationship you find out that this person is nothing like you thought they would be. They may not even be a 'bad' person. They may just hold different values than you hold with regard to simple things like loyalty, trust, obligations in a friendship and so on. Before you know it, they have done something horrible, from your perspective, like betrayed a confidence, talked behind your back, failed to hold up their end of the relationship, or some similar violation.

I have heard time and time again from people who have read my note cards at Cosmos Academy and IM'd me about this kind of experience. This can be innocent and benign and yet painful. Two people may have very different standards of acceptable behavior. Their guards were down. The values collided and somebody got hurt. This is unfortunate and unpleasant. And it arises from not knowing who you are dealing with.

But, it can be much worse. What if the problem is not just a collision of values. What if the other person is bitter about their role in life; vindictive from past failed relationships, sociopathic, or just has an axe to grind about life. Then it can really get ugly and that will be the topic of the next post.

The Blessing of Anonymity

It is easier to be yourself in Manhattan that it is to be yourself in a small town of a few hundred people. Overwhelmingly, most people in a large city do not know who you are and do not care. So, if your behavior is a little quirky nobody even notices. When everybody knows you, the pressures on you to conform are much, much greater.

Everybody has quirks in their behavior, most of which is harmless and only some of which would be cause for real concern. So the anonymity of a large city where the boundaries of acceptable behavior as less confining provides individuals with greater freedom to just be who they are.

Carry this a step further, and consider the anonymity of a virtual world. In a real city, you have a physical presence. People might know where you live. They might know some of your friends. They might even know some members of your family. So, even though there is a great deal of freedom, it is not unlimited freedom. In a virtual world you can change your appearance, your ethnicity, your social class, your age, and even your gender. Try doing all that in a big city. You’re short? No problem, just make yourself tall. You’re aging to fast and want to recapture your youth. We can handle that too. You are lower class and have always wanted to be a refined aristocrat? No sweat. It is within your reach. People come to a virtual world to be whoever they really want to be and your wildest imaginings cannot cover the full range of possibilities.

And one of the elements of a virtual world that makes this possible is anonymity. So, anonymity is a blessing, a real contribution to individual freedom of expression.