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Nov 9, 06:01 am: Roots Camp in Second Life
I’ve finally had an evening to try more than just signing on to Second Life. I’m in and have an avatar (despite what Beth and Susan pointed out, I still can’t figure out how there are more than two representations of gender).
I visited Roots Camp and the TechSoup kiosk. I promptly broke things. Took the TechSoup stage, making it go away. I figured out how to put it back. Tried to take a RootsCamp poster and share it, but that seemed to just do a change the wallpaper kind of thing.
In sort, fun to start playing around. I’m hoping to get into the Roots Camp. Hope I stop breaking things.
tagged: secondlife, techsoup, rootscampsl, rootscamp
Kitten Lulu
Avatars in SL are made of two basic building blocks: the base body and attachments.
The base body is what you change thru the Appearance window, where you saw the Female/Male switch.
Do not consider it a sex switch, just a shape trigger between a more feminine body with breasts and a more masculine one with more muscular features.
In fact, if you choose Male, you’ll pretty soon discover that you lack… uhm… something. Soon enough, you’ll find out that there is a huge market for penises and sexual attachments: with well-enstablished firms that have been in SL for multiple years.
The penises fits quite well a transgendered figure too.
Additionally, there are avatars that completely ignore the base body part and just use attachments to make non-anthropomorphic shapes.
For example, I generally prefer a female or transgendered avatar on the main grid; but people who meet me on the beta grid often find me as a tentacled octopus.
Ruby Sinreich
I look forward to seeing you at RootsCamp, Marnie!
Nobody Fugazi
You have definite hangups with gender… :-)
Kitten is right. But here’s the thing – does it really matter, and why?
Marnie Webb
Nobody Fugazi, You’re right. I do! It would be great to get away from in it in a virtual world. While I get that, once there, I can make modifications that get to a more nuanced version of gender, it gets kinda of tiring to constantly be choosing two options that don’t fit. And, erally, I’d guess I’m not alone there.
Ruby Sinreich
Yes it matters, Nobody! We all deserve to be able to determine our own identity. That’s one of the reasons people like SL so much, you get even more control of it.
Almost all human bodies are born being distinctly one gender or another (but not all), and SL does make that binary assumption as a building block of avatars. But as Kitten pointed out, it also gives you a lot of flexibility about what you do with that body.
Phil F-R
I wish I could get out there and break things with you, Marnie! But my damn video card on my damn new macbook isn’t beefy enough!
Uh-oh. I’m complaining about my mac, and the Democrats just won big. These must be signs of the apocalypse!
uneasy rhetoric
Wait a sec Phil—a macbook that can’t run SL without extra video beefiness? The world has turned upside down!
Beth
Okay, I must have missed you. What’s your name there? Hope to see you at rootscamp at some point.