Second Life

For my second free write, I would like to take a closer look at the "Sex Lives in Second Life" article.  I want especially focus on the trend towards homogenous sexual identity that arises in game. In doing this, I hope to gain a slightly different understanding of the attitudes towards gender and sexual orientation in American society.

                Second Life gives a person the ability to be digitally liberated from any physical binds. An unattractive person could have the means to look like a Ken doll; a woman could, if willing, choose to appear as a man. A person's avatar need not reflect their reality. It is because of this that playing Second Life has the potential to offer quality escapism and sexual liberation for those who need it. Unfortunately, judging from the article, Second Life really offers more of the same for people who want to explore alternative sexualities. In game, standard heterosexual relationships are seen as the "norm" and most choose not to play as a sex that contradicts their reality. While the latter seems sensible enough for most, the former may be the unfortunate product of a few different factors. There is little incentive for players of Second Life to show tolerance for people with different sexual orientations. In real American society, acceptance is, from my experiences, seen as being a positive thing. Those who discriminate are often seen as bad people, and bigotry is rarely allowed in the public sector. However, when people are able to hide behind their avatars, they can lose the incentive to behave in a civil manner. Thus, bigots are able to discriminate freely without consequence.

                Is it so that bigotry is widespread within Second Life? The fact that there are fewer consequences for discrimination does not mean that discrimination will happen. In this instance, it seems that bigotry does indeed prevail. This is especially true when speaking about the discrimination against the game's "furry" population. Furries in Second Life constantly are harassed by people who call them "furfag" and attempt to interrupt their various activities. It even got to the point where a furry death camp was create as a demonstration against furry avatars.

                Normal lesbians and gays fare much better than furries, however. While there is a significant amount of segregation within the Second Life world, gay and lesbian communities are largely left on their own.  There are certain mechanisms within the game that do degrade these identities, but this seems to be more of an exception.

                So what conclusions can be made about the relationship between Second Life and reality? In both cases, there is discrimination, but also some tolerance. Overall, there do not seem to be that many differences in regards to sexual orientation between the two realities. If anything, gays and lesbians are slightly better off in Second Life. There is a lot more choice on their part, and they can more or less do as they please without repercussion.

Zombie Blog

For my first free write blog post, I would like to talk about the prevalence of zombies in modern technological culture. To do this, I intend to first examine the history of zombies and their rise in popularity in various electric media. After this, I will discuss the immense popularity that zombies have been enjoying across various media.

                The premise behind zombies seems to have originated in African, and later Haitian,  Vodou religions. In the these tradition, it was believed that a sorcerer could bring a dead person back to life to do their bidding. Fortunately, it was believed that giving salt to one of these living dead people would cause them to return to the grave.

                Western folk researchers were the first to introduce the idea of zombies to the outside world. Some of the initial interest in this idea was due to the fact that some scientists thought it was medically relevant. If, after all, the claims of the Vodou sorcerers were to be found true, it would be a significant discovery. Sadly, the alleged zombies that were presented to the scientists appeared to be normal people in drugged state.

                It wasn't long after the discovery of this idea that zombies began to appear in their first medium: books. These initial zombie books date back to the early 20th century. In 1932, the zombie phenomenon spread to the film industry with the release of White Zombie. However, the sub-genre of zombie horror did not become popular until George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead in 1968. The 1960's also contained a band whose name referenced zombies: The Zombies. It was not until the 1980's that a few zombie-centric video games began to appear.

                With this history, it is easy to see why zombies have such an influence on modern technological culture. Zombies are now in a wide range of movies and video games. However, our conception of the zombie has changed over time. Originally, they were seen as magical beings. Then, as reflected in Romero's Night of the Living Dead they became slightly more scientific. The modern zombie is perhaps even more scientific, and usually the result of some sort of disease. Due to the fact that they are not really dead, their agility is much greater than that of the Romero zombie archetype. This increased speed is important for the modern movie and game consumers. In both instances, the hasty zombies create more intense scenarios. The fact that zombies have generally become more quick seems like a logical enough progression. In the case of games, they have become much more advanced. While slow zombies may have been acceptable in the 8-bit days, they simply do not add the excitement needed to appease the typical game consumer. The same could be said of modern film views. They do not want to see brave survivors be slowly overwhelmed due to lack of supplies. They would much rather see chase scenes and random explosions.