My second Second Life
When I last reported on Second Life (10 May) I quoted calculations from The Economist that more than 50% of economic activity in the virtual world – now standing at US$1,6m/day – relates to vice.
Prostitution inside the 3D Internet is permitted, but gambling is now so rife among the 6,3m inhabitants that the creators, a Californian company called Linden Labs, have had to call in the FBI.
After the Feds’ visit to Linden Labs, news agency Reuters (also a Second Life resident) reported that Palm Vegas Island would now not allow avatars (users’ digital representation inside the virtual world) from the United States into their popular gambling den. US citizens aren’t allowed to gamble online. Palm Vegas Island will enforce the law by simply asking punters where they’re really from.
Like that’s going to work. The pasty-faced 19-year-old student logging on from his basement in Seattle in the form of Paris Hilton with a raccoon tail and platform shoes is suddenly going to supply positive identification?
A study by a Dutch think tank (trust the Netherlands to spend time and money researching this) found that 16% of men surveyed fessed up to experimenting with a different gender in Second Life. The study also concluded that those surveyed most probably lied and that the true figure was much higher.
Well, I won’t lie to you: Having finally found my feet on Orientation Island, the place of my rebirth as a Furry Female (Linden Labs moniker, not mine), it was time to find other vital body parts. That’s because you arrive in Second Life looking like Barbie and Ken – down there. And as newbies soon realise, so much in Second Life revolves around megapixels on top of other megapixels that I decided to go for the whole shebang. So to speak.
It was easier than I thought.
Key in "penis" or "vagina" in the search box and a long list of purveyors of same – with or without a body attached to it – appears. I settled on DollParts, which looked like a reputable merchant, although in Second Life it’s almost impossible to separate repute from ill.
I teleported straight to the DollParts’ showroom. Apart from above-mentioned you can buy complete body kits to transform your avatar into your favourite celebrity: from just Janet Jackson’s caramel skin to a complete Vivien Leigh (who’s she?). I eventually settled on an Uma Thurman likeness. Not a great one, but it would be impossible to do her justice without very broad broadband and I had only 1 000 Linden dollars (R20 or so) on me.
Next step was to choose a place to show off my newly acquired look and, erm, feel. Number three on the official list of most visited places for Second Lifers was Nude Beach. The specialities of number one and two on the list I shan’t repeat here. (Maybe the 50% figure for vice is an underestimation.)
It turns out that Nude Beach isn’t the dive of dissolution I expected. I think I’ll stay a while. Maybe I’ll even buy the adjacent island. And, who knows, maybe one day we’ll come across each other there. So to speak.
Finweek
Loading ...