A lazy yet fun video trailer

Welcome to my lazy October. After working every available waking hour on Second Life-related projects last month, it's time to relax and renew. So I'm cutting down to just two or three short-and-sweet posts per week until November while I plan the obsessive-compulsive-work-myself-to-death projects that will round out the year. Anyway, on to today's post:

I fell in love last week with with City of Dust, a new comic from Radical Comics by Steve Niles and Zid. The art is amazing and non-traditional. It inspired me to imagine taking Second Life images in a new direction. I've started playing around a bit already. There's a City of Dust video trailer on the site linked above (no obvious direct link to the video) that gives a fair taste of the style. But buy the comic!

I was moved to upload some of the images from the Night vs. Human Comic to Animoto and create my own short trailer. And before you start asking what happened to this month's commitment to extreme sloth, it took me all of fifteen minutes to create the video. Ah, time for a nap!!! See you soon?

Transcript of my Comic-Con Presentation

This is a transcript of a presentation I made on October 3 at Met@Morph, the first annual Web Comics Comic-Con and Conference in Second Life. I've taken the liberty of editing the transcript by removing the time stamps, condensing some of the short lines into paragraphs, eliminating system messages that popped up in the chat-stream, transforming urls to links, adding missing links and cleaning up some of the typographic and grammatical errors. Outside of what I've listed, no new content has been added and nothing of consequence deleted. The images are linked to flickr.com, with high resolution versions available.

Botgirl Questi: Thank you. For those of you among the 99.999999999999% of the human population who aren't familiar with my life story, I want to take a minute to briefly introduce myself. There we go.

ICS Netizen: Are we doing the creators' commons session now?

Chimera Cosmos: no it's botgirl

Botgirl Questi: I am speaking to you not only as a creator of comics in Second Life. But also as a virtual identity who emerged from this virtual world. The birth date on my Second Life profile is January 24, 2008, but I didn't wake up as the being that stands virtually before you until I launched a blog a little over a month later. For me, both blogging and comic creation are powerful tools I use to help make sense of my experience

Michigan Paule: this is the Creators' Commons session, and Botgirl has the floor!

Botgirl Questi: And feel free to comment or question anytime during the presentation. I have the walls too and don't you forget it!

Madinkbeard Constantine: ba dump

Botgirl Questi: For the first month, my blog was a semi-private diary since almost no one else visited. I explored my world and identity primarily for my own enjoyment and development. On April 9th, without warning, Second Life's largest online publication ran a story with the headline "Who is Bot Girl?" I was suddenly thrust into public view, with hundreds and eventually thousands of people stopping by to see what I was up to.

ICS Netizen: Is the presentation just through typing or will botgirl be speaking

Chimera Cosmos: typing

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Text

Botgirl Questi: This is an Extropia SL style salon. Text is God in SL

Michigan Paule: I've never heard botgirl speak!

Botgirl Questi: Or Goddess

Botgirl Questi: It's the mystery of me

Botgirl Questi: Enough about me. Today, I'm going to share some of my experiences using Second Life as a platform for comics. Not just for the creation of graphics. But also to develop characters. To generate and discover story ideas. And to display finished works in a virtual environment. I created my first comic about three weeks after the blog's launch. As you can see, I somehow managed to take cutting edge technology and create something with the look and feel of a bad Mad Men era print advertisement. Nevertheless, I persevered.

Botgirl Questi: are the slides rezzing okay?

Charlanna Beresford: yes

Abacus Capalini: yes

Botgirl Questi: Again feel free to chime in at any time

Feldane Klees: rezzing fine

Chimera Cosmos: yes

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Never voice, but I have however seen her roll over and beg!

Botgirl Questi: My first ambitious work was the Botgirl vs. Human series. I started with the first page you see here that ended with the (yawn) big cliff hanger. At first, I created all of the images in a program called Frameforge, except for the shots of Botgirl. I'll get into the software a little later if we have time. Suffice it to say that I took this approach for the sake of speed, not image quality.

Botgirl Questi: Time is my biggest enemy. I usually don't work on anything that takes more than a couple of days to put together. Just about every active Second Lifer I know suffers from lack of sleep

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: LOL

Botgirl Questi: Anyone out there have that problem?

Chimera Cosmos: SL = Sleep Less

Michigan Paule: i suffer, regardless

Botgirl Questi: :)

Charlanna Beresford: whistles innocently

LeeDale Shepherd: Too much shopping is usually my problem.

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: "Sleep"? What is this sleep you speak of?

LeeDale Shepherd: runs out of money. Again.

Jezzica Benoir: looking 4 perfection

Botgirl Questi: Over the next couple of months I put out a dozen or so pages. I had to aims. The first was to explore human and avatar perspectives by setting the characters upon various topics and letting them rip on each other. The other was to try and come up with one or more approaches that led to commercial-quality comics from graphics created in Second Life.

Botgirl Questi: that's two aims

Botgirl Questi: 2 am typo

Botgirl Questi: I personally have a hard time connecting with most comics I've seen that are based on 3D modeling rather than drawn art. But since I can't draw that well (yet) and don't have a great comic artist at my command, I thought I'd fiddle around a bit and see what happened. If you take a look at the comics on my smackjeeves site, you'll see a pretty diverse range of styles. And I've just touched upon the possibilities.

Abacus Capalini: Doing good for 2 am. :-)

Chimera Cosmos: how did you choose Dale for the morphee?

Botgirl Questi: I'm a typical comics fan who can't draw. Frustrated up until recently by not having a slave artist handy.

Botgirl Questi: One unique aspect of Second Life for comic creators is that all the stories and characters you could ever want to explore are walking around and waiting for you. Lots and lots of drama. Oh my! My most recent comic project was based on a blog post from a Second LIfe resident about getting vehemently angry at her avatar after a romantic break up. This was my most ambitious project to date with three acts in six pages and ultimately ten gigs of Photoshop files. Unlike most prior work, the entire project was "shot" in Second Life with sets created specifically for the comic.

Botgirl Questi: Ten gigs of files for a little six-page comic

Charlanna Beresford: what about the early diagrams on your blog? where do they fit in, Botgirl?

Botgirl Questi: They are more Vizthink. Which is using drawing to see things in a new way. I'll grab a link for the organization that puts on the conference around that.

Botgirl Questi: You can take a look at the finished work on Issuu. I also posted the full resolution images in my flickr stream.

Chimera Cosmos:VizThinik

Botgirl Questi: Visual Thinking. I'll get the web link now

Chimera Cosmos: I get their emails

Botgirl Questi: http://www.vizthink.com/ That was easy. It's a "movement" to allow not-artists as well as artists to use visuals to think through and communicate ideas. It's worthy of a separate presentation.

Botgirl Questi: A few of you have seen Botgirl's Identity Circus. Second Life is also a great platform for exhibiting comics in a larger-than-life manner. I was fortunate enough to be invited to create an art exhibition at the New Caerleon sim. "Botgirl's Identity Circus" That's me with the orange hat. My friend Val and my chatbot Majic are sitting on a large comic panel and behind them is Botgirl vs. Human on four meter tall display boards. Until the closing of this event (Sunday, Oct. 19), feel free to teleport over and take a look. The sim's owner, found me on Facebook and invited me to exhibit.

Botgirl Questi: It was a lot of work, OMG

Michigan Paule: LOL!

Botgirl Questi: Instead of just taking all of my available work, I decided on a number of new things.

Botgirl Questi: Chances are, you can find a virtual set in Second Life for just about any idea you have. I do advise asking owners for permission if you shoot on "private" property. One of my friends just got banned after being caught red handed using someone's private residence without asking. For characters, you can either register an alt or two, or find others to be virtual actors/models. Just about any prop you can imagine is available, either as a "freebie" or for a fraction of the cost of commercial 3D models. Check out http://www.slexchange.com

Botgirl Questi: For education, I think this is one of the most exciting aspects, because it provides a practical means of creating comics in a relatively short amount of time. Also for collaboration between students.

Botgirl Questi: For those of you as artistically challenged as me, you can tell your story with no drawing chops whatsoever.If you are willing to spend some time in post-production, a little (or a lot of) work with Photoshop, Gimp or even flickr's photo editing tools can create just about anything you can imagine. I've recently played around with digitally painting over images captured in Second Life. I'm still a newbie at this, but it's a lot of fun and has a lot of potential.

Chimera Cosmos: it would be cool for learning SL--comics on the basics

Botgirl Questi: Yes

Davey Luminos: That'd be sensational.

Botgirl Questi: Google just launched their new browser with a comic

Chimera Cosmos looks around for Torley...

Botgirl Questi: Scott McCloud did it. It's really worth catching. It was a masterful communication of very technical stuff in a compelling and understandable and fun manner

Botgirl Questi: The current release candidate allows you to capture images at greater than screen resolution. I've managed up to 6000 pixels wide on a PC (my mac crashes at high resolution captures.) I've recently started paying more attention to lighting and effects in-world, to cut down post production time. There's a great tutorial on using debug menu setting for special effects.

Botgirl Questi: And by the way, that's me! That's me rezzing on the screen

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Pretty!

Botgirl Questi: So you can play all of the parts in your own comic if you want

Botgirl Questi: male, female, human, animal,

Botgirl Questi: truck

Botgirl Questi: or whatever

Chimera Cosmos: where is that stream?

Botgirl Questi: I honestly don't remember

Chimera Cosmos: hehe

Botgirl Questi: It's all a big blur

Botgirl Questi: I was only born in January

Chimera Cosmos: lol

Chimera Cosmos: such a fast learner...

Botgirl Questi: And have posted around 150 blog articles

LeeDale Shepherd: It reminds me of some work I've seen done in Poser, actually

Botgirl Questi: and dozens and dozens of images

Botgirl Questi: Poser is good

Chimera Cosmos: and no sleep :-)

Botgirl Questi: But Second Life is FAST

Abacus Capalini: very busy for a 10-month old :-)

Davey Luminos: Poser?

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Precocious!

Botgirl Questi: Poser is a software program

Davey Luminos: Oh, right, ok. Thought you were calling someone a "poseur."

Spark Brewster: I know some Posers.

Botgirl Questi: Daz-3D is a free program that can do similar things

Spark Brewster: Exactly.

Chimera Cosmos: animation creators use it?

Botgirl Questi: Name names spark

Chimera Cosmos: Poser

LeeDale Shepherd: Used to pose 3D human figures

Spark Brewster: Ummmm - me.

LeeDale Shepherd: I used to model 3D accessories for it and sell them

Botgirl Questi: ohh, making money

Botgirl Questi: what a concept :)

LeeDale Shepherd: lol

Botgirl Questi: There are a number of good comic layout programs available. I've been using Comic Life Magiq recently. Another very cool program is Manga Studio.

Michigan Paule: are these free?

LeeDale Shepherd: No

Chimera Cosmos: I have comic life, but I suck :-)

Botgirl Questi: No, but relatively inexpensive

Chimera Cosmos: it's like $25 for the non-pro

Chimera Cosmos: $50 for fancier

Botgirl Questi: compared to many hundreds for Photoshop

Botgirl Questi: There's also Gimp

LeeDale Shepherd: Photoshop pricing is nuts

Michigan Paule: is photoshop the best, if you have the $$?

Davey Luminos: What if we already do, amazingly, have access to PhotoShop? Do these still deliver tools that we would want specifically for comics creation?

LeeDale Shepherd: Gimp, yes. Pixel is another up and comer, though it's not completely free.

Spark Brewster: Torrents

Spark Brewster: Who said that?

Botgirl Questi: Which is an open source photoshoppy software

Botgirl Questi: you did, Spark and I'm alerting the FBI

Michigan Paule: LOL

Botgirl Questi: Your IP address has been captured

Spark Brewster: Good - a place to sleep and three square meals.

Botgirl Questi: Practical, you are P)

Botgirl Questi: So that's my formal talk

Madinkbeard Constantine: I use Corel Painter for my comics

Michigan Paule: Mad, Botgirl: what is your ideal program?

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Applause!!

Botgirl Questi: me

LeeDale Shepherd: I've never tried Painter

Charlanna Beresford claps

Botgirl Questi: I use photoshop a lot

Madinkbeard Constantine: for me it's not the program its the drawing tablet

Chimera Cosmos: yea Botgirl!

LeeDale Shepherd: I teach Photoshop a lot. ;)

Botgirl Questi: Yes, I love tablets

Madinkbeard Constantine: I want the big Wacom tablet like Scott McCloud has

LeeDale Shepherd: Makes sense, especially if you can draw.

Chimera Cosmos: http://plasq.com/comiclife

Michigan Paule: so can you tell us a bit about this desire thing?

Madinkbeard Constantine: I've got the midgrade kind

Botgirl Questi: I think that SL is fueled by desire

Botgirl Questi: But so is life

Michigan Paule: your take on how we form attachments to our "selves" or others in SL?

Botgirl Questi: aversion and desire so they say

Michigan Paule: why doesn't SL leave us cold?

Michigan Paule: why is it, indeed, nearly the opposite?

Botgirl Questi: We see all things through our minds

Michigan Paule: I shouldn't say "us". It's my experience.

Botgirl Questi: No direct contact between people but through the mediation of senses and the mind

Chimera Cosmos: almost everyone comes to feel "embodied" very quickly

Botgirl Questi: But it's hard to see that in RL

Michigan Paule: that's the surprising thing.

Botgirl Questi: I like SL because it's easer to see how much our perceptions of others are based upon imagination

Botgirl Questi: fiction

Botgirl Questi: stories

Botgirl Questi: That's why I'm anonymous

Michigan Paule: it's a level i wouldn't have anticipated.

Botgirl Questi: I could be anyone

Botgirl Questi: any age

Botgirl Questi: any gender

Botgirl Questi: anything

Botgirl Questi: But you have an impression

Michigan Paule: It hasn't thrown my sense of RL into question yet, but it could.

Spark Brewster: What is it you wish to do with this creation? What is your goal - is it just for your personal gratification or are you looking to build the concept to a broader audience?

Botgirl Questi: and respond emotionally to the visual information

Chimera Cosmos: based on appearance and virtual personality

Botgirl Questi: My goal is world dominance

Chimera Cosmos: lol

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: LOL

Spark Brewster: I mean after that.

Botgirl Questi: shhh

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: One pixel at a time

Chimera Cosmos: this world Botgirl?

Botgirl Questi: Oh, I just want to follow my muse

Abacus Capalini: Yes Brain?

Spark Brewster: Very good.

Botgirl Questi: And stimulate new thinking

Michigan Paule: you do that, indeed you do.

Davey Luminos: Well, you ARE stimulating!

Botgirl Questi: And get some sleep sometime

Spark Brewster: I'm all about stimulation.

Chimera Cosmos: and now for your Plurk presentation....lol

Botgirl Questi: I'm all bout simulation

Botgirl Questi: :)

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: They have attachments for that

Michigan Paule: the whole question of projection, intensely Freudian, is "old", but you make it new again.

Spark Brewster: Good minds and all.

Brunelle Laval: is the Web Comics comic con over?

Botgirl Questi: I think virtual worlds create a crack in the illusion if you look for it

Spark Brewster: It also takes the human factor out of it.

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Yes, virtual worlds are like crack! :p

Spark Brewster: Makes it less plausible.

Botgirl Questi: Wendy that's so funny

Botgirl Questi: Well, wait until you fall in love with someone in SL

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: OMG

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Don't go there!

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: :p

Michigan Paule: How could that happen?

Botgirl Questi: then you might be surprised to find it's realer than ya think

Spark Brewster: It's like masturbation - just not the same thing.

Botgirl Questi: It happens

Michigan Paule: I could understand lust.

Michigan Paule: but love?

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Yes, it does

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Yes

Botgirl Questi: Aren't you falling in love with me right now?

Botgirl Questi: ;)

Charlanna Beresford: Why don't you think it could, Michigan?

Michigan Paule: LOL!

Botgirl Questi: see

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget resists will all her might

Michigan Paule: Because I think in RL, it's hard enough to "love"

Botgirl Questi: I said "fall in love" I guess I meant romantic attraction

Michigan Paule: I think for the most part, we don't do a very good job separating who we love from who we think we love

Michigan Paule: i feel in SL, you could only ever love who you think you love

Michigan Paule: is that fair?

Botgirl Questi: Is love something you think or something you feel?

Michigan Paule: that's really hard.

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Feel

Michigan Paule: i think it's something i feel.

Michigan Paule: but feelings are weird

Botgirl Questi: Do you choose your feelings?

Michigan Paule: never

Botgirl Questi: Sucks, doesn't it?

Botgirl Questi: :)

Charlanna Beresford: Very much so! But isn't that also true to a certain degree in RL, too? Don't we think we know who the other person is?

Botgirl Questi: Sure

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Inhales vigorously at least

Michigan Paule: i think we usually love who we think the other person is, in RL

Botgirl Questi: That's why I love SL

Botgirl Questi: yes

Michigan Paule: sometimes the other person has a chance to intrude on our fantasies

Abacus Capalini: Harder to change your name in RL when things go bad :-)

Botgirl Questi: We feel an emotion and project it onto someone else who we believe makes it happen

Michigan Paule: and if that lasts, then maybe it's something true

Botgirl Questi: Yes, for sure Abacus

Charlanna Beresford: It can be possible to love who we think the other person is in SL, too....it's just a slightly different frame

Botgirl Questi: Love really has nothing to do with another person in a sense

Botgirl Questi: As in an objective being

Michigan Paule: i am suspecting that in SL, the ratio of illusion to actual person is more skewed to illusion

Michigan Paule: and i don't know what's true, i admit that

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Depends on the person, Michigan

Abacus Capalini: Being a SLer means that you

Abacus Capalini: have bought into the illusion

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: A lot of people in SL are very transparent

Botgirl Questi: "I guess I just don't now who you really are!!!" sob sbo

Abacus Capalini: lol

Michigan Paule: I think I'm transparent.

Botgirl Questi: that's a setting you can change, wendy

Michigan Paule: I think so!

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: I am too, Neko look aside

Abacus Capalini: I think it's a filter :-)

Botgirl Questi: So there's a lot of food for thought :)

Botgirl Questi: I'm way over time, yes?

WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget: Whole other seminar

Michigan Paule: there really is.

Michigan Paule: more than i imagined!

Please join me Friday at the Met@Morph Second Life Comic-Con

Met@Morph! The exclusively inworld gathering of creators, scholars, students and fans happens on Friday, October 3. All times are Pacific time.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Front%20Range/151/191/30

8:00 – 9:00

Welcome

Hervé St.-Louis, Owner and Publisher, The Comic Book Bin

Make Like An Action Figure!

Hosted by Sabine Reljic of the Social Presence Center with Friends from the Center for EduPunx

Location: The Grassy Knoll (look for the pirate flags)

9:00 – 10:00

Panel One: Web Comics

Marking Transition – the work of Neal von Flue

Hanli Geyser, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

Web comic as engaging tool. The best of this: it wasn't an activity

Ruth Martinez, Madrid, Spain

Location: the Floating Auditorium

10:15 – 11:15

Roundtable One: Giving Them Their Props: What Needs to be in a Survey of Comics Class

Facilitator: José Garcia-Paine, Front Range Community College

Discussant: David Accampo

Discussant: Leonard Rifas, Seattle Central Community College

Location: Center for Pirate Acccounting

11:15 – 11:45

Social Time

Conversation, and Nudging and Bumping, and Dancing if you like!

Make Like An Action Figure!

Hosted by Sabine Reljic of the Social Presence Center with Friends from the Center for EduPunx

11:45 – 12:45

Panel Two: Scholarship on Comics

Freedom within Boundaries: The Theory and Practice of Constraint in Comics

Derik Badman, Temple University

How Comics Mean: A Look at How We Understand the Medium

Robert N. O'Nale, Jr., Henderson State University

Alan Moore – cartoonist

Andrew Edwards, Sequart and Wrexham, Wales, UK

Location: Floating Auditorium

1:00 – 1:30

Quick Web 2.0 Comics Creators

Kate Hagerty, The Center for EduPunx

Location: Floating Auditorium

1:30 – 2:00

Roundtable Two: College Comics Clubs in the Meatspace and in the Metaverse: Advice for Faculty Advisors

Facilitator: Lauren Nagle, President of the Front Range Community College Comic Book Club

Discussant 1: Que Jinn, Centre for EduPunx

Discussant 2: Beth Davies-Stofka, The Comic Book Bin

Location: Floating Auditorium

2:00 – 3:30

Creators' Commons

Host: Christopher Moshier, Writer and Editor, The Comic Book Bin

Creators:

Botgirl Questi, Second Life Comics Creator

Anthony Fontana, Machinima and Mash-up Creator

Tim Volpe, Web Comics Creator

Mireille Massue, A short introduction to the use of comics in communication and training

Location: Art Gallery

3:30 – 3:45

Closing Comments

Pete Coogan, Institute for Comics Studies

From Second Life image to comic art

I've started putting together a presentation for Friday's Second Life Comic-Con. Here's a sequence that shows some of the steps between an original Second Life screen capture and panel artwork for the Night vs. Human comic.



Here's the finished frame that links to high resolution image

The Plurkfect Storm Part 2: Social media as interactive reality TV

Emotionality has coursed through text-based chat interactions from the start. Academics, geeks and early adopters in the 1980s were the first to create pseudonymous identities and live virtual lives on USENET newsgroups, dial-up BBS systems, IRC chat rooms and MOOs. Friendships formed, flame wars raged and romances blossomed through dial-up modems and glowing green displays. America Online brought chat to the masses in 1989 and users quickly created virtual rooms catering to every sexual proclivity under the sun.

Although communication was limited to text in those days, avid participants experienced a visceral sense of place, community and virtual identity. For better or for worse. My Tiny Life, published almost ten years ago, recounted a virtual rape that rocked a MOO-based community. What would have looked like a harmless string of text messages to an outsider was perceived as an existentially traumatic experience by emotionally invested community members.

Although the story I recounted yesterday about Plurk reflects only the latest outbreak of a decades-old phenomenon, I think there is something new going on. A growing number of us have become so pervasively network-connected that we can have more continuous contact with a virtual community such as Plurk, than with any particular social relationship in our physical lives. With a web-enabled cell phone we can be in 24/7 touch with our Plurk community.

In a sense, we are living together in a Reality TV show like Big Brother or The Surreal Life. We meet new people and engage in conversations all the while aware there is a larger non-participating audience peering in. Although we can choose our friends, we don't select who shows up in our friends' comment threads. So it is likely we encounter some individuals who annoy or anger us and keep popping up in message threads we follow. Our interactions with each other in semi-public forums can not help but be tinged by the awareness that our words are recorded and may be viewed by dozens or hundreds of unknown people. Fortunately, Plurk also provides private messaging which is perfect for behind-the-back venting. Not that I'd ever do that, of course.

I'm running out of time for the day, but I will take a brief crack at the questions I posed in Part 1:

• Was the original incident a tempest in a teapot or does it speak to deeper and more pervasive problems? I think the deeper problems have to do with the way humans tend to blame their inner emotional experience on external circumstances including the words and deeds of other people. I posted about this subject previously here and here.
  

• Does a social circle of a few hundred active participants mean anything in the wider worlds? Do the actions of even the entire 23,000 or so people active on the whole Plurk service indicate trends extending beyond Plurk's borders? I think that my particular circle within Plurk is a great window into a social network of pervasively connected virtual identities who move seamlessly through domains, such as Second Life and Plurk. I suspect it is a glimpse of more widespread things to come.
  

• Why are some people so mean? I suspect that most people who tend to be mean were treated badly in their formative years. I've written previously about that here.
  

• How can people feel hurt by a text message from a stranger? Any time you feel emotionally hurt by someone's words or actions it is because of some fictional inner story you believe about what it means. (See links at bullet one.)
  

• How you can you find and take part in the next text orgy (Plorgy?) I don't want to name any names here, but if you sign up for Plurk and become fans of those on my friend list, it's likely one will pop up sooner or later.
  

• Why has Botgirl written such a long post when she's supposed to be taking it easy after finishing work on the art show (shameless plug)? Probably so I'd have another excuse to plug my appearance this Friday at Second Life's first Comic-con.
  

The Plurkfect Storm Part 1: Hugs, text orgies and flame wars.

I wrote about Plurk's strange blend of public and private communication a couple weeks ago. Last week the site exploded with interactions so emotionally charged that they inspired a planned Gender Freedom Day In Virtual Worlds event in Second Life. So it seemed like a follow-up post was in order.

First, a little background. Plurk is a micro-blogging service with a twist. Participants can post short text messages called "Plurks." When you log in you see posts from those who have given you permission to be either a "friend" or a "fan" arrayed on a timeline. Plurk's most unique feature is the ability to spawn a near-real-time chat thread from any post. The example below shows a Plurk I posted, followed by comments.



Although you can see Plurks from only those who have given you permission to subscribe, you do see everyone's comments on Plurks you can access. So if Joe is my friend and Jane comments on one of his Plurks, I can see Jane's comments even though I'm not her friend or fan. Since comments appear in almost real time, they can end up feeling like typical chat room conversations. People often meet on Plurk through conversations within comment threads of mutual friends. (For more info see The Ten Minute Guide to Plurk.)

Plurk's two-way conversational capability has created (at least in my circle of mostly Second Life expatriates) a kind of corner-bar atmosphere. People talk about everything under the sun from troubles with their sweethearts to sporting events they're watching on television. There is also a great deal of communication depicting imagined physical actions ranging from hugs to explicit sexual activity.

So back to the story. Last week some guy got really, really angry after his virtual girlfriend participated in a girl/girl text orgy within a comment thread. He took out his emotional upset by flaming the hell out of someone in a series of increasingly venomous messages on a comment thread tied to an unrelated Plurk. People jumped in on either side. The flame skirmish turned into a full-blown flame war, including very personal attacks.

The conflict spilled out of Plurk. Although the original thread was deleted by the person who made the original Plurk, someone posted a copy to a blog and is now accessible to anyone on the internet. Sophrosyne Stenvaag, a prominent Second Life resident, took the events so seriously that she decided to sponsor a full day fundraiser supporting organizations promoting freedom of expression of gender identity and sexual preference in digital worlds.

So what's up with all this? Was the original incident a tempest in a teapot or does it speak to deeper and more pervasive problems? Does a social circle of a few hundred active participants mean anything in the wider worlds? Do the actions of even the entire 23,000 or so people active on the whole Plurk service indicate trends extending beyond Plurk's borders? Why are some people so mean? How can people feel hurt by a text message from a stranger? How you can you find and take part in the next text orgy (Plorgy?) Why has Botgirl written such a long post when she's supposed to be taking it easy after finishing work on the art show (shameless plug)?

These and other questions will be examined when I continue in Part 2: Social Media as Interactive Reality TV

Avatars want to be free