A Threat to Second Life

I have always been interested to learn what the big stink over second life was based on. I’d hear small reasons here and there but never did my due diligence in actually trying to figure it out. Reading this article “Living a Second Life” was the perfect start to a journey I am now sure I will continue. I find the concept of second life not only creative but as an opportunity for people to implement anything they wish to have in their real life but don’t into their life in some way shape or form. As the article stresses it is way more than a simple game. It is “an enhanced communications medium”, “intellectual property”, an extension of reality, and perhaps most importantly something that “celebrates individuality” while connecting those individuals all around the globe. I think that where second life is right now is great. However, as I continued to read the article and learnt that second life is facing similar gentrification threats as the lower east side I felt uneasy. Looking out my window onto Astor place each day I struggle with having to stomach a beautiful and unique non-linear street in New York City that was once occupied by individual artists and has now been taken over by major corporations like Starbucks, Walgreen’s, Cold Stone and until last year Barnes and Nobles. While I do appreciate the fact that a virtual world can so flawlessly come to represent the real world, I worry that the original motives for creating the virtual world in the first place will cease to exist.