T'is the Season to Shop 'Till you Drop

It is true, we are a consumer culture. Face it, we spend millions on bling here in the USA around this time of the year and billions more on marketing that bling. According to an article on CNN.com/technology, "In the first two weeks of November alone, the company that created Second Life says there were almost 3 million digital objects sold on its site, though it's not possible to tell which of those were given as gifts." Second Life itself is nothing if not the ultimate expression of our very consumer culture. After all there is nowhere you can go in SL that you don't run into a mall or atleast some advertising. But is there anything wrong with giving your virtual boyfriend or girlfriend, your whole virtual family of friends a little something at this time of year?

Cynics say virtual gifts have no meaning. No substance. You can't really wear or use or touch them. the same CNN article also tells us: "Others call virtual gifts a waste of money -- a way of "pouring millions down the virtual drain," says Michael Bugeja, the director of Iowa State University's journalism school. He's been a vocal critic of the resources universities and students are dedicating to virtual worlds. This holiday season, he's challenging people to give money they planned to spend on virtual gifts to charity instead."

The response to that perspective is: "'It's easy to get caught up in thinking that it's not real because it's digital. But we have plenty of digital items that have value,' says Jeska Dzwigalski, who works in community and product development for Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life. 'Have you ever bought a song on iTunes? Have you ever paid for software?'"

The whole argument--is it okay? is it a waste of time? a waste of money?--seems rather spurious to me. We are trained from childhood to think of giving gifts to others at certain times of the year. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. If you don't send gifts on those occasions, you get labeled as a scrooge or a curmudgeon. But think about this: how often have you gotten a gift that is totally useless and sits in a drawer or a closet until you finally ship it off to Goodwill or sell it on eBay or just throw it in the trash? (My RL mother is addicted to Home Shopping Network and infomercials--I have 3 Eurosealers I will never use in a kitchen closet right now.) Isn't it far better to get an inexpensive virtual item for your virtual life that you will actually use instead of a useless item for your real life for which you are supposed to be appropriately grateful?

Here's my take on it. Say I get a fancy dress or toy or household item in SL from a friend or an admirer. Say it costs L700 (we are talking Lindens here, virtual money, so the equivalent in US dollars is $2.94). For less than the price of a large cappuchino my friend has given me hours of pleasure. Unlike a cup of coffee, I can use this virtual item again and again, and each time I wear it I will think of the friend who gave it to me. I'd say that is really what the giving of gifts is all about--the thought put into picking something of value to the person you wish to gift, the connection made, and the fond memories that are evoked every time that gift is used.

But there is an even larger upside to the virtual gift. No waste! The box or package you wrap it in does not end up in a landfill. You have not spent or wasted huge amounts of real cash. And the best part is you aren't broke or paying off huge credit card debt come January. And here's another thought: some of the money you save by buying small inexpensive gifts inworld rather than pricey useless RL ones can be spent on good causes. Bugeja has part of it right, we all should think of giving to charities. And, although we should be doing it more often than just at the holidays, this is the right time to get that last minute tax break, too.

So here is my plan for this holiday season: shop inworld for your friends and family who play in virtual games. Encourage them to shop inworld in SL for you, too. Give smaller gifts to those who are not inworld, but make it gift cards or cash so they can get something they really want. Then take a chunk of the money you've saved and give it to charity. My list for holiday giving includes: Public Broadcasting, the Sierra Club, UNICEF, the Girl Scouts, the World Wildlife Fund, and National Public Radio. Maybe I'll also finally clean out those closets and get all that stuff I don't need to Goodwill, too.

Second Life meets Television

No doubt like most of us, you already have problems explaining to your mother, your spouse, or other "concerned" relatives exactly why you have become a stripper / hooker / gambler / nameyourvicehere in SL. But brace yourself, it is gonna get worse. At least three major prime-time TV shows (The Office, CSI:NY, and Law & Order: SVU) have now aired episodes in which SL, or an obvious SL clone is prominently featured, and all within a few weeks of each other.

We knew it had to happen, a phenomenon like SL has a built in audience, with numbers the like of which TV advertisers drool over. But the recent exposure of SL in prime-time viewing is less flattering than how we SL addicts would like to be seen.

The least worrisome is perhaps The Office, which is described by Caroline McCarthy on the CNET blog Crave:

On Thursday night's episode of The Office on NBC, dweeby Dwight Schrute (played by Rainn Wilson) revealed himself to be a Second Life addict--something that doesn't require any suspension of disbelief. The Second Life banter began when Dwight's notably less nerdy co-worker, Jim (played by John Krasinski), asked Dwight if he was "playing that game again." "Second Life is not a game," Dwight replied authoritatively. "It is a multi-user virtual environment. It doesn't have points or scores; it doesn't have winners or losers." With all the deadpan wit that's made The Office the hit that it is, Jim fixed his glance on Dwight and commented, "Oh, it has losers."

So in SL we are all nerds. Not necessarily a horrible image. A tiny bit more worrisome is the CSI:NY episode that features a killer (yep, you guessed it he has an avatar) who is tracked down by the forensic team with the help of Linden Labs and some SL residents. SL Insider notes that:

Second Life, as it is portrayed, is given a pretty reasonable treatment--the skepticism of many of the core characters is not unusual--however, this is not the Second Life you know, just as CSI is not the forensics department you'll find if you go downtown.

Oh, but wait... you missed that episode. Never fear. Aside from being able to watch it on the web through the CSI:NY site, you can now get in the game in SL too. Just go to CBS's Virtual NY and join up to help solve virtual crimes. Yes, the TV marketers have noticed that you are spending more time on the computer than as mindless zombies in front of the boob-tube and they've decided that if they can't lick SL they can join it. All very exciting (like you don't have enough to do in-world already). And you can buy CSI paraphenalia and brands in-world. So we are nerds and they want our money. No surprize there.

The one that was the most problematic was the Law & Order: SVU episode called "Avatar," that aired a couple weeks ago though. In this one it's not called SL, it is "AU," Alternate Universe. And the interface looks like a cross between SL and Facebook. (Watch out all you Internet social networks, you're on the list!)

The difficulty with this episode is not the storyline itself: a young woman is kidnapped from her home by a lunatic who stalked her in the virtual world first and chose her there to be his RL victim. Nor is it the obvious distaste the police have for the idea of virtual worlds, though they gain a grudging respect for the Lab that runs the AU world and which is instrumental in the crime solving. The difficulty is the way this virtual world is portrayed and that all the residents there are seemingly sex-starved pedophiles. I have ranted about this episode before, so I won't go into it further here, except to say that it still makes me angry. More so now having looked again at the website for the show and seen a recent viewer post:

Lexi says: "Every Parent of a teen or pre-teen should have their child watch the 10/2 Avatar episode. It shows what can happen and even has a short "how" it happens. Normally I find the content a bit too mature for my little one, but this epison is six stars in my book for it's educational value."

Lexi clearly missed the point that there are no children in this episode. At all. Ever. That the crime was against a 20-something young woman. Instead what she took away was a need to warn her child about SL-like environments. Oh boy, yeah, that'll keep her baby safe on the street. (I hope Lexi spends more time reading to her kids than she spends watching adult shows with them; besides, given her spelling and punctuation, she could use more reading time herself.) I am not really surprized that Lexi missed the point. It was a convoluted plot. But the take-home message of that show was that SL-like virtual worlds are is a breeding grounds for sex-offenders.

My point here is not to "diss" concerned loved ones, but rather to point out to those of us who do engage in SL activities that we may have the same fight on our hands that the music industry and the gaming industry has dealing with people who want to blame heavy metal music for suicides and video games for school shootings. These recent television offerings with SL or SL-clones will only reinforce the opinions of those who see virtual world residents as nerds or worse as perverts.

So what do you do? Well wouldn't it be nice to see more of the stories about the kindnesses we find in SL? How about sharing some of those with the people who are concerned for your SL/RL welfare? Like the one about the SL widow whose partner died in RL and all her SL friends raised funds to get her a plane ticket to the funeral? Or romantic stories of the real people who meet fall in love and get married in SL as well as RL? And let's not forget the in-world art, concerts, even fund-raising events for RL charities.

Yes, there are people with problems, even violent people with psychoses, in SL--just like there are in the real world. Yes, there are sexual relationships in SL, from flirtations to marriages, and even divorces--just like in the real world. And there are also friendships, love, pain, joy, broken-hearts, great romances, and great creativity--just like in the real world, too. Yes, you can find all that in SL. You also find the bad with the good in the real world . . . But I don't see anyone advocating giving up on real life just because real humanity has its problems and downsides, too.