Women help make the Second World go 'round

I am not writing this out of some perceived superiority about my sex or gender (I am really not into male bashing or anything like it), but I believe that the high number of women in Second Life make it a richer world. Currently women make one out of every three players and spend a longer time in SL than men. http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/06/13/second-life-growth-cools-women-outnumbered-3-to-1/The percentage of women in SL has been higher at times to take with a grain of salt the constantly fluctuating population statistics. The point is, if you are going to create a virtual world, you had better have both sexes participating in it because it makes it a richer world.(As opposed to the old idea of MMORGPs be the domain of 18-35 year old males.) SL is paricularly affected because it relies to heavily on social interaction as opposed to simulated violence. Note that 84% of World of Warcraft player are male. http://www.motherjones.com/news/exhibit/2007/05/exhibit.html
Of course it is still tough to know how accurate these numbers are due to a decent number of men who use female avatars. Why do they dress up as females? I don't think it is always a form of sexual fetishish as it is assumed to be. I know several avatars that try on a female avatar as casually as an alien avatar. It is certainly a lot more familar and easy to role play or emulate the opposite sex rather than it is to emulate a space alien. Its the equivalent of wearing a halloween costume and to pretending to be that character for the day.


So why do women make the world go around?
Women and their impressionists provide a lot of what people come to view as part of a complete world. People crave social interaction, flirtation, sexual tension, a female sense of style, and just a counter balance for one style of mindset. The more variation in avatar the richer the world. Basically, when designing a virtual environment, having women in it bumps the level of sophistication and complexity of the world up a notch.

Social Disparity in Second Life

Are we all born equal into Second Life? Many like to think so and Second Life is often marketed as such. Yet as more people take Second Life more seriously, the truth about social disparity is revealed. In terms of the web, people are familiar with the concept of the “digital divide”, also known as the “haves” and “have nots.” This idea applies to Second Life but with a very complex hierarchical structure.


The first aspect of the digital divide in Second Life starts outside of the interface. Users must be non-disabled, computer savvy, have high-end hardware, high-speed internet access and understand the utility of a virtual world. These criteria automatically exclude scores of people including the poor, blind, deaf and uneducated. Getting users up to speed on web technologies has taken a decade and has plateaued in speed and growth. It is only from this group of web users that an even smaller population of Second Life users is found. The entertainment, commercial and educational benefits of Second Life are cut off from other people.

Within the elite group of Second Life users, there is an even more complex structure in-world. Users are “born” into Second Life without friends or social networks. Users over the age of 18 use the adult version and everyone else is on the teen version (also known as the teen grid.) From the very start some users have privilege over others. There are many different types of accounts that Linden Labs provides users. Free accounts give no advantages to the user. The multiple layers of paying accounts allow users to start their second life with money and for some a monthly stipend. This is instant capital for users who want to start a business in Second Life.

The major categories of users break down into varying levels: Lindens, commercial users, celebrities, organizations and the multiple levels of plebian account holders. This pyramid assumes a certain idea of what it means to be successful or powerful in Second Life. Second Life is so open-ended that there is no official measure of success. It is more of an interface or an exotic 3-D web browser than a game like World of Warcraft where something is keeping score.

Within Second Life, users take their first life with them. Those with expertise at video games, computer language scripting, graphic design applications or business are already primed for starting a business in Second Life. Second Life has an internal program for the creation of 3-D objects, but users with external applications like Photoshop are also at an advantage. Those with business experience or commercial backing can easily become Second Life monopolies or dominant brands. Users like the band members of Duran Duran or Susan Vega have pre-existing celebrity status. Such advantages may make regular users of Second Life feel like they are competing in the same way as in real life, and thus there would be no difference between worlds.

In real life we are not born equal. Some people are born beautiful, smart or rich, while others are not. In Second Life, people are free to be as beautiful as they want, but we carry our own intelligence and wealth from our real life into our second life.

Social Parallels to the Web - Circa 1995

Within the span of one week I have given out my avatar's name to two real life friends. I remember when I first started giving out e-mail addresses and getting blank looks in return. It reminds me of the mid-90's when I would explain the glories of the web and e-mail to people who were not yet in the loop. "Ok, so there is this thing on the computer you see and the computers can talk to each other over a phone line through this thing called a mod...." Well, you get the idea.

Heaven forbid I meet with these people in real life. That is way too time consuming and personal. Nevertheless, its so hard to explain what Second Life is to non-users. The learning curve is tremendous. Currently only one of my two grandmothers understand my real life profession as a web developer. I tried to explain Second Life to her and that was one paradyne shift too many. If you didn't understand the movie the Matrix, then you aren't going to understand Second Life.

I see the growth of the web as this major learning curve that grew for a while and then leveled out into a nice steady plateau. Sure there are newbies to the web everyday, but the web is not the uncharted, no-rules, wild west frontier it once was. Of the pool of web users who are now savvy, there is an even smaller group of Second Lifers. We are on the road over a much steeper learning curve. There are less of us, we are more computer savvy, and the interface and rules are still developing. The interface is richer, and is not two-dimensional like the web. There is a lot of "gray space" to be filled by user created content.

What are your thoughts about the parallels and differences between the web and the metaverse? When will the metaverse plateau? Will the emergence of a hollodeck-like environment lead people to drop the web and then Second Life like a hot potato?

Welcome to the Second Life Explorer Blog

Welcome to the Second Life Explorer Blog.

Yes, there are many Second Life blogs out there. How is mine different? I'm not sure, but I will tell you what my perspective will be like. I am relatively technical, and somewhat geeky, and I have a very healthy real life. I find Second Life addictive and I am doing a lot of first hand exploration of it. I want to ride the line between the SL zealot and the person who doesn't even understand what a MMORPG is. Interfaces (not a game, an interface) like SL are critical to the future of commerce, technology and human interaction. It is in a rough state right now, but there is so much potential. Help explore it with me.

Thank you,
Ancora Quintus