Watching The Jackpot from a café where the world ends

The COVID-19 pandemic has repeatedly reminded me of William Gibson’s latest version of the apocalypse, which appears in his 2014 novel The Peripheral and again in his 2018 book Agency: a long duration event called The Jackpot. As imagined by Gibson, The Jackpot is not a sudden catastrophe, such as a nuclear war, but a […]

5 useless items that we love in Second Life

The other day, I was thinking that, while Second Life as a whole may be considered a simulation, some particular elements of what we see and do there could be thought of as a simulation in the simulation, or a second-degree simulation. Let me try to explain what I mean. Our avatars sometimes reproduce things […]

New trailer homes at SL16B: a turning point in Second Life?

The trailer-style living units in the Linden Home preview area at SL16B (running from June 20 until July 8) indicate that we may be on the verge of an important change in the way we conceive housing in Second Life. Of course, one cannot guarantee that the transformation will actually take place, and in any […]

Pixel lust: the peculiar eroticism of Second Life

It has been already said both about sex and love in Second Life: their manifestation is above all a narrative. Still, at least for sex in SL, pixel images seem to be fundamental for creating a mental imagery that supports and contributes to the process of raising sense from that narrative. Certainly, most people will […]

Why are some prices so high in the SL shape market?

The market for shapes in Second Life has gone crazy (or maybe it has always been crazy and I hadn’t noticed): prices vary from around L$ 100 up to L$ 1,500 – and I’m not counting either freebies and dollarbies or some that may cost even more than L$ 1,500, but seem to be exceptions […]

Being 10 years old in Second Life: a decade of transformations

I joined Second Life 10 years ago yesterday: on April 1st, 2007 – always as Ricco Saenz. Being 10 years old in SL means that I have seen a number of technical and cultural transformations there, and it is interesting to remember what has changed since I first rezzed on the grid. By thinking of […]

A little bit of kindness could do us some good

A few days ago, I received an email by a moderator of a Flickr group related to Art Box, a place in Second Life that I have already written about on this blog. The message was to let me know that a number of pictures I had added to their photo pool had been removed, […]

What is a home for in a virtual world?

“Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.” Herman Melville In Second Life, many of us build homes. We have houses, apartments or skyboxes and fill them with stuff that we like. We decorate, we landscape, we create our own safe havens. We try to mirror ourselves in them, we hang photos and artwork on the walls, […]

When prejudice infiltrates the virtual world

Because Second Life carries the aura of an idealized world, we may develop the illusion that, while connected, we are protected from the main prejudices of the atomic world – except, perhaps, if a griefer crosses our way. The reality is though that we are not. How generalized is bigotry in SL? I haven’t heard […]

A pornographic tour

There is a reasonable chance that my readers are already aware of the polemic episode involving an article on Second Life by Eric Grundhauser on Atlas Obscura – or, more precisely, about Hamlet Au’s reaction to it on his blog. A lot has been said regarding that subject. Nonetheless, I became curious about the sims […]

In SL, we write our lives

In my journey in Second Life, I have met a number of people who were willing to date, find a partner and have a relationship. Another important contingent is formed by those who are searching for sex regardless of having a partner. I think it’s safe to say that these two groups – and sometimes […]