camelism

In his book ‘Imagined Communities', Benedict Anderson argues that 

‘Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuiness, but by the style in which they are imagined’

On this level we could equally discuss virtual communities… What about Second life for example?…
With more than 11 million users called residents (or Avators) and owned by California based Linden Lab; Second life is just as much a phenomenon as the other MMOE (Massive Multiperson Online Environments) platforms like wikipedia, ebay, facebook, or myspace are.
These platforms emerged out of the blue and within a short period of time their value and significance increased tremdiously. Second Life's core difference is probably only ‘the way it is imagined’... regarding its tools, usabilty and visuality...

It’s the dialectical interplay between structure and action, which I excessively discussed in previous posts… the blackbox which connects the two. the complex question I am failing to answer but aiming to discuss. The structure is transparent, linden lab is the creator, the almighty in position of power to define and change the ultimate conditions of second life. The Avators, like me, mimidiegans (as my second life counterpart is called) however are the ones who are the actors who  essentially influence these structures.

Second life is a world of its own, with its own currency and its own written and unwritten rules and codes of behaviour… Linden lab created the ‘Linden Dollar,’ a somewhat equivalent of the US Dollar. It touches upon the American dream of ‘everything is possible’ it is just a matter of how much time you are willing to spend, how much money you have and which skills you possess.
Avators are just as much producers as consumers since they are the producer and creator of their very own self at first place. But how will one find recognition? Who actually cares for you?
Well. Second life is rather a market place. At Help Island, Avators immediatly learn the formost lession, namely how to purchase an item.

It s a world created by its people, manipulating and rearranging shapes and objects.
It s just another online networking platform where individuals use the medium as an extension of themselves to travel around cyberspace, and without physical barriers just interact with those who will be carefully selected.

The great difference is the visual landscape, the visualization of a virtual identity. It kind of personifies the ‘you’, and the coded language of html interaction appears like a virtual but recognizable landscape. You probably know this from real life. And what about your chosen identity? The way you look. Is it really that important? Does it make any difference? It s quite impersonal anyway.

I ask myself what ten somewhat million users around this world actually are searching for. What?
 it?

Second life is a virtual community. There was is no obvious goal at first place, but simply to built a virtual world, which has no functionality either since it is simply virtual. But the whole dream of capitalism is flourishing, and has taking over the interactions of its users. The competition. In a culture of consumers. The sexyness of your chosen virtual existence. We might not be attractive in real life but I haven t meet anyone on second life who I found particularly ugly. Looks are certainly important. They look at their best.

I aim to emphazise on the coded language behind second life, which exactly works with the aspects of eroticism/aestheticism and commercial character. On the same hand the whole interaction is based on coded language of computer language, which evolves from the information of ‘one’ and ‘zero’ and is used as an extension of our self to act as an agent of desire in the virtual culture.Interaction is the key element. You are a member of many communities. Teleporting yourself from here to there. You are your own factory. The customized-ready made selves. Stimulating our visual senses. Ready to go. Always ready. Ready to interact. Fast and efficient. The homo oeconmicus. Self tailored, who functions perfectly in every respect because of rationally following its will in real time without interruption.

My first three encounters all had sexual implications. In fact my Second Life experience was incredibly scary, and I’d rather not go back…

‘You can buy penises and vaginas’, my first friend on second life let me know, as if it was the most essential information about this virtual sphere. We went to Amsterdam together – just teleported ourselves within a few seconds.
‘Now you must swollow it,’ the second one shouted at me and stalked me wherever I went. He was particularly threatening, in a way I would have never imagined a virtual encounter could… I was scared, couldn’t even fly... we were alone there was nowhere to hide, and I knew my only possibility would be to teleport myself somewhere else as fast as I could.
On my third session I finally got it. ‘I can’t help starring at your breasts,’ number three said. ‘So is it all about sex,’ I asked, realizing that I just found the answer myself.

There are those who are just curious. Those who stay and interact in their specific communities and follow a particular goal. Which is customized and individualized. So... that it might be imagined is entirely irrelevant in the whole world of Second Life just as much as in its real life counterpart...