Wolf Richter

As part of their quest to understand the wonders of the universe with particular focus on the Internet, a small group of dauntless OII investigators decided to launch an initiative to explore Second Life, currently the most talked about digital community. Following proper research in the respective sources, they were promised a “user created immersive entertainment”, where people “attended class” or “even run businesses”. What would you expect?
A privately owned, but self-governed playground for digital citizens? A parallel universe, large enough to even attract the attention of the U.S. internal revenue service? A large social experiment to study, what people would find worthwhile to transfer to the new world and what they opt to leave behind? Jacked into the OII’s state of the art digital exploration equipment they took of last Thursday. Here is what they found:
Berkman Island – An obvious starting point for anybody with an academic interest in Second life. Meeting room and desk space for cyber scholars and obviously a popular meeting place for digital high school field trips. The OII investigation team gets stuck in a group of art students, who listen to the instructions of their teacher on how to use their cameras to take pictures of their discoveries. They are not very much interested in talking to us once they found out, that we were not sitting in the same computer lab as they do. Investigator Z. (a former Harvard student) is taking the lead and shows us around the Berkman center. At the fountain behind the Austin Hall we meet the usual drop-outs of the high school trip, who tell us how boring they find the whole excursion, ask us for cigarettes and shout as many four letter words as possible to check if their teacher is still listening.
So off we go to the Creative Common Island, admire the exhibited pieces of art and equip ourselves with politically correct T-shirts and posters.
Next stop: The Reuters building. News from all over the world is flooding the building, but except for the OII investigation team only few visitors frequent the building. Our first conversation is quit after a few sentences: “My house is burning, I need to go”. Is this cyberhumor? We definitely need to bring this up with the appropriate OII research group.
After so much hard work we sit down at a candle-lit dinner table in Holt island. The menu (unspecified game with vegetables) and the surroundings evoke sweet memories of the Keble dining hall. The sentence “What is this? Tastes like Keble” leads to some irritation with the other dining guests. After dinner Investigator McL. starts dancing the “Timewarp” on the table, which the other guests understand as an invitation to leave. So do we.
To relax after dinner we choose Bora Bora Island. We are greeted by a couple of mating cows fighting a scuba diver with light sabres in front of a Polynesian long-tail house. Not quite what we expected! Behind the unequal fighters four kinds of waves wait to be surfed. Surf boards are not quite cheap (~£8), but at least two are available to “test drive”. Playing in the wave is really quite fun. After the wipe out (and crashing a jet ski on the beach) it is time for the obligatory beach post card to send home and leave before we get a sun burn!

It is already evening, so we decide to join a Ibiza theme party. Cheesy music, light sticks and plenty of dancers with minimal textile covering are giving us a warm welcome. Investigator JJ interviews a local to get to learn the basic dancing steps necessary to survive at the pool party, while Z and McL play with their light sticks. Suddenly the night is over and the sun is looming on the horizon. Time for the after party!
Hidden behind a fashion store and a mountain we discover a large group of party people pushing it hard all dressed up in black fantasy outfits. Surrounded by dark mountains the party is going on despite the increasing daylight. White CC and red penguin t-shirts do not quite belong here. People dance in pairs or small groups and seem to know each other quite well. Conversation is scarce and non-ambiguous.
To recover from this glimpse into another culture we meet at the Sony BMG building and relax for a while in the Christina Aguilera mausoleum. Again all by ourselves we feel lonely in the perfect designed halls of the Sony representation, where everything is designed by purpose. Tired after the long excursion we decide to return to our first life. We are not much smarter then before, but under the impression of the amazing contrast of self-organized and commercially designed communities, the strange people we met and interviewed, and the large uncharted territory, we are determined to get the funding for another exploration and come back soon!