Shaneequa Scharfberg

That's me!

Here are some initial observations from my first experience in Second Life:

Tone
In light of Thursday's conversation about the tone of Weinberger ("Everything is Great") vs. Chun (fear and paranoia), I was intrigued by the tone of the What Is Second Life? blurbs on the website.  For example:

• Amazing things are created everyday in the Second Life world, but the depth and power and capabilities of SL mean that we have just scratched the surface - join and become one of the explorers!  (citation)
  
• The Second Life world is a place dedicated to your creativity. After all, an avatar is your persona in the virtual world. The picture below shows how easy it is to create your avatar. Despite offering almost infinite possibilities, the tool to personalize your avatar is very simple to use and allows you to change anything you like, from the tip of your nose to the tint of your skin. Don't worry if it's not perfect at first, you can change your look at any time.  (citation)
• Second Life residents are eager to welcome you and show you around.  Within this vibrant society of people, it's easy to find people with similar interests to you.  (citation)
• And from the Community Standards:  We hope you will have a richly rewarding experience, filled with creativity, self expression and fun. The goals of the Community Standards are simple: treat each other with respect and without harassment, adhere to local standards as indicated by simulator ratings, and refrain from any hate activity which slurs a real-world individual or real-world community.
  
  

Clearly, SL falls on the highly optimistic end of the spectrum, although it does attempt to ward off problems with its "Behavioral Guidelines."  But these are about the actions of the "residents," not the actual technology itself.  In this respect, the technology is transparent and is presented as being completely in service of the creativity and imagination of the player.  (Of course, they never use the word "player," except perhaps in-world when residents are playing a game.  Otherwise, you dwell and act and move and build relationships within SL; you don't play it.)

Technology
For me, however, the technology was definitely not transparent.  The program crashed twice for me and three times for my husband (whom I cajoled into trying out SL with me from his laptop - maybe we overwhelmed our wireless connection).  Also, movement in-world was sluggish and often delayed, which got pretty annoying.  I'm sure part of the problem was my lack of skill (I liked the "thud" sounds whenever I or someone near me ran into something; I also liked the fact that it let me walk underwater when I accidently missed the bridge).

Identity
Given our conversations about avatars and identity, I purposely chose a name with a different racial marker than my real world identity — Shaneequa (it didn't let me choose Sh'neequa) — and a goth image, although I still chose a female avatar.   I don't know what to make of this, in Nakamura's terms.  It sure didn't seem like a big deal, although I admit it was a little weird to be greeted by SL with "Welcome, Shaneequa Scharberg!"  Perhaps this will matter more when I interact with more with others; so far my conversations have consisted of "do you know how to do [blank]?"

Writing in Second Life

I haven't looked into this more but on Help Island, I saw a sign advertising:  "Check out the Second Opinion: A newsletter for the friends and residents of Second Life."  Hmmm...could there be a career in this?

I'll write more when I get the chance.... I've had real-world corn on the cob cooking the whole time I've been writing.