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Clothes Horse

Wednesday, February 24, 2010




This video was showcased on Shopping Cart Disco.  It is a time lapse machinima from an SL designer creating a lingerie set.  Its amazing and the it shows just how much work goes into these digital pieces of avatar wear.

Change your look

Monday, February 15, 2010


I've always found it fascinating that in a world with no limits to appearance, people cleave to stereotypical beauty types.  It has struck me as extremely pathetic.  And it gives rise to the notion for people outside the SL bubble that everyone in world is a fat, slobby shut-in masquerading as a super model avatar.

Whereas the pressures on male users may be immense, they are nowhere near the pressure on female users to use glamorous avatars.

This article at Your2ndLife is just one example of just who is deserving of "attention" in VR.

Just in the wording..."girl next door", which means "male avatars" won't speak to a female unless she looks like a male trannie on the Sunset strip.  And this hyper feminine look is abundant around the grid.  Why do I call it the male transvestite look?  Because it reminds me of a video I once saw at the Museum of Sex in NY.  It was a video showing men how to look like "women".  However this female look was nothing I recognized.  It exaggerated features that actual women never think about.  Such as our way of walking.  Or the fetishization of makeup, particularly eye makeup with extra long eyelashes.  So that the men who wanted to be feminine did not end up looking like women but only itemized pieces of female anatomy that "straight" men find attractive.  It was all Frankenstein's monster or Pygmalion's statue but not the essence of being woman.

The video in question literally blew my mind and my inculcated views of what is feminine.  And I realized for the first time, that what society thinks of as beautiful was really just a male interpretation of what is feminine.  We, women, don't know what is woman only what men think is woman.  And so the pretty women I saw walking around the city no longer looked like women but just another version of the male transvestites in that how to video.

And when I got into Second Life, I just saw more of the former.  Women turning themselves into caricatures that would be impossible in physical space but possible in VR.  They aren't women but body parts exaggerated by fetishists.  And acting in ways that fetish culture deems feminine.

In the article, a resident literally gives up her autonomy to others to create her "self".  Think about that...and how horrific it is.  Imagine not being able to control your own presentation in life.  To have it be subjected to the control of another.  To be someone with no self will.  This resident gave up a perfectly fine avatar with personal looks to be something lifeless.  She is someone else's fantasy.  A commodified body that will soon go out of style.

I'm not an advocate of style police.  I don't want to tell people how to look.  But I do want women to question WHY.  Why look this particular way?  Why is this considered more attractive than looking closer to human?  Is this really what you, as a member of the female population, would really find attractive or is it because the male gaze wants it?

My Beautiful Life - Piatto

Monday, February 8, 2010


This SL music video was featured on New World Notes.  It is one of the best machinimas I've seen from SL.  Usually SL machinimas are strange with jerky frame motions and somewhat hokey theme premises.  They are still light years behind what is made inside of Warcraft.  However that is because most of the talented, free lance machinima creators are in Warcraft.

For some reason, which still fascinates me, Japan and other asian cultures get, really get, virtual reality.  I'm not sure what it is that make them so successful in the transition and why their efforts show up so strongly in world.  Perhaps it is because their youth culture is already a VR-like movement that it finds its natural home in SL.

The Other Family

Saturday, February 6, 2010



On the recent Frontline special "Digital Nation", there was a focus on the possible dangers and also the wonders of technology.  Many in SL were disappointed because they felt the episode focused too much on the dangers.  But I thought the show was very balanced and it's ultimate conclusion was an ancient code that we all know and rarely practice "All Things in Moderation".

Because I'm an inhabitant of VRs (SL, Warcraft, Warhammer, inactive in Eve Online) I found the information about a guild in Warcraft and IBM training employees in SL the most enjoyable.  What stunned the hosts of the show (Rushkoff and Dretzin), was that VR customers were seeking connection perhaps even more than entertainment.  Yes, these places are game worlds but many players have joined in with an eye to turn the places into a public forum, a commons.  Which I think is a bit bittersweet as a goal.  Since all the VRs are ruled with restrictive EULAs that put the kabosh on free speech when it isn't to the fancy of the ruling company elite.  EULAs are a problem that must be dealt with soon if our societal ideals of free discussion without prejudice are to survive the new tech.

While Rushkoff and Dretzin held off on making any evaluations on people trying to build communities in game worlds, it was partly addressed in the section regarding internet game addiction.  In that people who seek out these worlds are, for the most part, people who are not happy with their present status quo. That there is lack in their lives.  So in essence VR residents run off to Warcraft, SL etc to build a social network and support system.  One that is lacking in real space.  Some are successful in this search and some are overtaken by addiction.

This takes me back to idea about the cave of dreams.  Elaine Supkis, at her intriguing blog Culture of Life, describes this cave as the entrance to the deepest parts of our brain.  It is the very subconscious, the font to which we all return to each night in our dreams.  Within this cave holds riches, wishes, luck, love and hate.  The fairy tales always hold warnings about the cave.  The cave is a wonderous place but there is always a fairy tale warning that we cannot take any riches from the cave, we can not eat the delicious food of the cave or love the gods/goddesses living in the cave.  Because to do so is to become entangled in unbalanced desires and to bring down ruin.  In essence to take means to suffer the fate of Midas.  The only people who survive the cave are pure of heart and free from desires.

A new Fairy Tale that holds a warning about VR is the film "Coraline".   Its a classic tale of the cave.  A young girl who is unhappy with her life, who has lost her old home and social network, discovers the cave entrance to another world.  And in that world she discovers "the other mother", "the other father", and "the other friends".  In that world, these others are all perfect, happy and live to make her feel better about herself.  This question of other family reminds me of SL people who do indeed have  "other families" inside the game.  It strikes me as incredibly unbalanced.  Yet it gives them sustenance.  But at what cost?  These are people who don't know the nitty gritty of each other's lives.  They are not experiencing the same set backs or joys.  We are all in SL as others and with the goal in mind to be accepting...supportive.  We are all there to share in the fantasy and that is dangerous.  It tricks us into thinking we are living a life when really we are just crawling down a cob webbed corridor to something dark that lies in the deepest reaches of our brains.

Here is a link to the online stream version of Digital Nation.

Fascist Aestheticism

Friday, February 5, 2010


I was wandering around the net and visited the page of Copyranter.  He usually mocks the inept advertising of various agencies around the world.  A while back he posted a mockery of a CK ad for male clothing.  In this ad, it showcased a beautiful black model nude and dressed in CK clothing.  I added a comment to Copyranter's blog stating it looked like a rip off of Riefenstahl's Nuba photography.

In the small part of my brain, I remembered a discussion of fascist aesthetics in my college film class while we studied "Triumph of the Will".  There is no denial that Riefenstahl was a visual genius.  She forgoes intellectualism and speaks straight to our darker and deepest genetic desires.  The desire to mate with perfection.  The desire to be and for our children to be perfect beings of humanity.  This ideal was perfectly described by Susan Sontag in her landmark essay "Fascinating Fascism".

Although the Nuba are black, not Aryan, Riefenstahl's portrait of them evokes some of the larger themes of Nazi ideology: the contrast between the clean and the impure, the incorruptible and the defiled, the physical and the mental, the joyful and the critical.
Susan Sontag, "Fascinating Fascism" on Riefenstahl's work "The Last of the Nuba"

As I thought about these connections between ads, Riefenstahl and fascist imagery, something about SL screenshots seemed to hold an eerie relation.  By and large SL screenshots worship Gods and Goddesses, almost perfect examples of humanity.  In SL everyone can be a part of the perfect genetic family.  In fact the whole perfection mystique, which is forced upon us in popular culture through diet, fashion and surgery is indeed a fascist trope that is ever present in society.  Fascism is about transcending  the dross and achieving purity.  To live in a kind of bodily Valhalla over other human beings.  And unfortunately this mindset does exist inside Second Life.

Sontag points out in her essay why Riefenstahl is so dangerously attractive compared to the other now forgotten fascist artists.  While the unknowns were rather amateurish in presenting the ideology in their art, Riefenstahl was talented.  Her images are devoid of amateurism and ineptitude.  They are timeless, which is why her photography and films look good to us now just as they did when they were initially released.  I suppose the real question regarding Riefenstahl is how much did the fascist aesthetic cleave on to Riefenstahl's work and how much a true believer she really was regarding the movement's ideals.  Her extensive work with Hitler's government showed her craven enough to grab opportunities to further her artistic vision.  And her obsession with the perfection of man is in tune with Fascist ideals.

And on this angle, Sontag wisely separated the fascist ideal from Nazism.  Riefenstahl was no longer a Nazi when she created her landmark photographs in Africa.  But she still celebrated the bodies of her Nuba models in exactly the same way she did the German athletes in her Olympia film.  It is Sontag's idea that fascist aesthetic lives on and separately from fascist movements that fascinates and disturbs me.  Throughout societies these ur fascist ideals float haphazardly until a new movement harvests them.

The tech world in which Linden Lab, it's world and it's residents live in is not a culture that celebrates freedom.  It gives mouth to democratic ideals but it doesn't live by them.  The tech industry lives by their EULAs.  In which they straitjacket their customers into living their way or the highway.  A nascent movement infused with fascist aesthetics is taking shape with in the tech world...called Singularity.  In this movement, it's adherents think they will achieve immortality by creating super human intelligence.  And that by merging with this intelligence the human race will transcend it's "meat based" (the horrific term techies use to describe their bodies) origins.

But the real heart of the Singularity is the idea of better intelligence or smarter minds. Humans are not just bigger chimps; we are better chimps.
What is Singularity?  Website

Another dark heart lying inside this movement is that not all humans will achieve this singularity.  Only the smartest and the richest will be allowed to pass.  Hence by their purpose of "selection" the singularity fascists wish to create a super race.

The singularity fascist aesthetic lives inside Second Life and is nurtured.  Inside Second Life we are all a race of the super beautiful.  Some of us have even conned ourselves into thinking we are quicker than the average computer user because we "get" Second Life and that its more than a game.  There is no old age in SL unless a resident wears an old age skin as a kind of joke.  The fascist aesthetic ideal of purity extends to our sims.  In which the nature sims are incredibly popular compared to the rest.  As in my own example above, its more prevalent on the SL flickr sites to see avatars gamboling about in pristine nature settings then it is to see them in Blade Runner Sci Fi sims.  Again it is important to hark back to the separation of fascist aesthetics from fascist movements.  Therefore SL is not obsessed with tall and blond super gods.  That is not the point of this particular ur fascist aesthetic.  However I do notice a liking for the tall, dark and handsome for both men and women.  Another strange note is that the avatars are overwhelmingly caucasian or of mixed race.  But whatever avatar a resident wears, it must be beautiful.  Its rather hard to create a truly unattractive avatar in SL and more daunting to wear it.

Since I swim in this world, I have to question my own screenshots.  Is there such an aesthetic that lies dormant in my own brain?  Is this aesthetic inherent in all human beings but only buds when exposed to fascistic environments?  Since Philip Linden is a fan of Singularity, it leads me to question his company's methods of interacting with it's customers. It leads me to suspect even more that SL was a test bed for something more than a place to allow customers to create their own geegaws.  And its obvious to even the most obtuse that we fell short of some kind of measuring stick.  It all indicates that this movement needs to be closely scrutinized.  And I believe one way will be through the creations of it's residents...including my own.

New Directions

Monday, February 1, 2010


When I started my time in SL, Linden Lab was rather lax in the area of leadership for it's residents.  I was at the tail end of the "your world, your imagination" zeitgeist.  An idea that allowed it's customers large leeway into shaping their grid.  A lot of wonderous sims were created for exploration and interesting avatars roamed.  However many used that opportunity to create a very wild red light district, which Second Life has come to be known.  For years our grid was labeled the place where people come to cheat on spouses and engage in virtual orgies.  The permissiveness also led to underhanded tactics of griefer harassment and land blight.

It wasn't the best of all worlds, but I sometimes wonder if it will now be looked upon as a golden age.  Because the Lab is far from lax in it's leadership now.  And the new direction is far less permissive and far more involved in it's brand name IP.

You see, it was the brand name IP where Linden Lab fudged from the beginning.  It began as an experimental community between company and customers.  Philip Linden, the visionary behind it all, wanted to create a world that ran on personal transformation and enlightenment.  Second Life wanted to be a place that welcomed the creative efforts of professional media artists and the motivated amateur.  The fact that some of these amateurs turned to making prim genitals, I suppose was considered a sign of passing immaturity.  Philip Linden's Lab took a rather Montessori approach to the venture.  Perhaps he and the Lab thought the residents were just experiencing "Planes of Development" which would lead to more enlightened activity.  Even when the red light district was well in control of the grid as a whole, causing various social problems as blight, obsessive borderline activities and harassment, the Lab still took a hands off approach.  I suppose they didn't want to get in the way of our developmental learning.  But they forgot one important point...they were dealing with adults who already finished their development.  By and large it takes a motivated human being to undertake a journey of continual education.  Most are happy just to be.  We aren't all from the same cloth as Philip Linden.

Outside of the Linden Montessori Finishing School for Wayward Adults, Blizzard Entertainment was enormously successful with it's World of Warcraft MMO.  Most residents poo poo my continual habit of comparing WoW to SL.  By the mere fact that SL is not a game.  But they are missing the point entirely because they are too entrenched in the old SL Montessori approach.

Warcraft is like SL in that it allows cooperative play and socialization.  In fact it's rudimentary quest structure establishes a social learning experience that some have lauded as a prototype of basic corporate management training.  However the developers of WoW never had such lofty ideas in mind.  They just wanted to create a fun world and an easy introduction experience into their world.  However, unlike SL, WoW exerts tight control over it's brand name IP.  It's few concessions to customer creation are extended to screenshots of their world and game machinima.  They are not totally successful in keeping out the outre behaviors.  But they certainly managed to not be known for their ERP (Erotic Roleplay).

It is also important to point out that WoW was released in the same timeframe as SL.  The Second Life grid came to life in 2003 with a small community of Beta residents but started to hit big in 2004.  Warcraft was released with large fanfare in 2004, the anniversary of the Warcraft franchise.  Granted Blizzard already had an established brand when they released their world.  But it was nowhere near the popularity it has today.  Both companies were essentially on the same footing.

I don't believe anyone in the virtual platform business knew that Warcraft would achieve the success it has today.

But what has Warcraft to do with Second Life?  Everything.  Warcraft by it's very juggernaut success has changed the world of VRs.  Second Life was created pre-WoW and it's venture capitalists allowed it's groovy "Your World, Your Imagination" in a search to discover the BIG VR success.  There will never be another Second Life nor would money men back it.  Because it's game over...it is now clear what the public wants, what it craves is the Warcraft experience.  Indeed, SL thought it would be a success among the hardcore gamers that loved Warcraft and other MMO games.  Because in their world, it would allow the hardcores to create their own fantasy worlds.  That didn't happen, in fact Second Life only frightened the demographic they thought they would attract.

As Second Life failed in it's hands off approach to their customers, they watched Warcraft grow and grow and grow.  And anyone with a clear business approach would realize the key difference between the two.

A hands on and tightly controlled brand name IP.  Blizzard had it and rode to Daddy Warbucks' mansion with a big buyout.  Second Life on the other hand allowed it's brand name IP to be hijacked by the amateur sex community.

So that brings us to now and all the teeth gnashing as Linden Lab seeks to undo all the damage that has been wrought.  Each new development is created with a view to take back their IP.

The sex industry?  Sent to their own adult verified continent and banned from the old mainland areas.

Land Blight?  They have now created the program Linden Homes which is a controlled community with controlled landscaping themes.  No more wacky, tacky houses to blight the view or slow down a sim with bad scripting.

Premium Users?  Its obvious that Warcraft doesn't give away it's world free.  Their customers subscribe. The Lab dropped the ball in this area by allowing everyone in.  Their servers and infrastructure are not free, so I don't know how the Lab thought they would support everyone.  They now know they cannot.  Hence the subtle and growing push to premium.

In the process of this change around, the Lab realized that it could make more money catering to the dreams of Corporations.  The Corporations piled onto the SL bandwagon enthusiastically at first but failed due to the previous problems listed and their misunderstanding of VR.  But now the Lab is positioning themselves as a consulting company that will help Corporate customers make the leap into VR.  Time is short for this endeavor because another fledging company, Blue Mars, has started down this path.  And the Lab doesn't want to see another Warcraft pass by.

Now most residents would not deny that the Lab needs to make money to survive.  What the majority resent is the fact that the Lab has seemingly thrown us overboard in it's mission change.  Yes, we did louse up the grid but we also created some of the most fascinating customer created worlds that are found nowhere else.  I sympathize with them.  But I've long pointed out that...yes there are lovely additions to the SL world.  But those places aren't a part of the main brand IP.  Linden Lab can not point to them, like Blizzard can point toward it's imaginary Northrend, and say that they created it.  They can not promote it as their world.  And they need to.  Because no Corporate partner wants to invest in a platform that is not controlled by it's owner.

As I look around my own small piece of land, I enjoy it for the time given.  I know it won't be mine for long.  Individuals owning micro parcels cause immense load on the Lab servers.  It would be much easier if the Lab can control and direct resident spread.  So that means Linden Homes in various preplanned designs and sizes or to take a plot with one of the various Landlords that the Lab deems fit.  Its saddening to be at the end of a lovely but a failed experiment.  I wish protesting would at least slow down the changes or create concessions that would be more favorable to us oldies.  But I don't think it will.  So now I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.