[DMEC] Essay Finalist: Inspiration
Hiya! I’m nik385 D. I’m going to talk about Teen Second Life, a massive online game where you can interact with friends! I think that Second Life is a great place for kids and adults alike. In Second Life, you can do just about anything or be anything. In Second Life there aren’t very many bullies. There are a lot of gay and bi people, and unlike in real life, they aren’t taunted by jerks and mean people very much. Me and a few friends hold little parties for everyone usually shunned by society, like nerds, gay/bi, disabled, and just about anyone else that feels bad about themselves.
Without Second Life, some people wouldn’t have many friends. It’s not just Second Life that has groups of people, as there are other games such as Runescape, a massive multiplayer role playing game, but there are a lot of mean people there. There is also another thing that separates people on Runescape: character levels. Character levels can cause people to be mean to the 'noobs,' which are new people. On Second Life there aren’t levels to judge your ability. Second Life isn’t about how good you are at doing things. It’s about having fun and being with friends.
There are moderators that work for Linden Lab (the creators of Second Life) named Lindens; they get paid in US cash. Some people don’t like the Lindens but I think Lindens are cool. Nigel Linden is one of my best SL friends. Whenever Nigel is on the Teen Grid (that’s the place where teens go in the game) we try to hang out for a while and make things and script things. Scripting is when you make something do stuff. He has given me lots of stuff. The only reason Lindens may seem 'bad' to some people is because they enforce rules that some people don’t like. I have learned my lesson about having illegal items; I got reported and suspended for a week for having an object of 'mature content'. At first I was really angry because I had been suspended, but then I realized it was my fault for having the object in the first place.
Unlike lots of other games, SL lets you build anything. It can be a house, a vehicle, clothes, ANYTHING!!!!! On World of Warcraft, another massive multiplayer online role playing game, the only things you can make are clothes and weapons, which isn’t all that fun.
I just learned a good lesson about saving back up copies of important documents. Not going to delete this essay again! There are games on which you can’t save backups of your projects, but on Second Life you can save as many copies of your own objects and scripts as you like. They also make it easy to send things to your alternate accounts if you have them (I don’t but I want one).
My friend has a few alternate files, and a main grid account (the Main grid is the adult place). I wont report them but I know they will get caught at some point. I have busted over five adults on the Teen Grid, who are supposed to be only on the Main Grid, but are here by accident. One large problem is items brought over to the teen grid by people that have been transferred from the main grid. There are all sorts of drug paraphernalia, alcohol paraphernalia, and ‘sex toys’ floating around. Illegal objects have ‘animations’ in them that can be removed and renamed so the person can recreate the item of question and not get caught. Animations are things that make your character move and do things like dancing. There are rumors about the abuse team checking inventories, and I am pretty sure they are true. I’m glad to say I have no more illegal items in my inventory that are of that sort.
I have not seen Nigel for a few days. He was on today so we chatted for a while, but it was the end of Nigel Linden’s shift so he had to leave. I was talking to Data Linden about the Starship Enterprise(es) that my friends and I built, so I sent him a few copies through the “find” feature in the edit menu on the Second Life toolbar. Speaking about Lindens, I make avatars that look like Lindens’ avatars. So far I have made a Cyan Linden avatar, a Blue Linden avatar, a Nigel Linden avatar, and a Guy Linden avatar. I’m going to make them of all the Lindens at some point, but I decided to start with my favorites first. It seems that I have a lot of favorite Lindens, but my overall favorite Linden is Nigel Linden. I run the Mega Nigel Linden Fan Club, which has nine members at the current moment. I seem to have really gotten off track. I meant for this to be about how people young and old can be what or who they want to be just by the click of a mouse.
The world of Second Life may not be that big if you are talking about land amount, but it is absolutely massive in the amount of people inhabiting the land. There are shops and little ‘romantic areas’. There are seasonal sims and holiday sims. I’m trying to promote National Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19th! There could be a pirate sim and a pirate Linden and even free pirate avatars!
Holidays are always fun on Second Life. On holidays there are parties hosted by Lindens and residents alike. There is always free stuff to go around and all sorts of Linden sponsored games. People that don’t have a lot of money can actually sell their Linden dollars for real life cash; sure it takes about one hundred sixty Linden dollars to make one US dollar, but there are lots of people with thousands of Linden dollars. We really have Phillip Rosedale to thank for Second Life because he created Linden Lab.
Second Life even has a simple scripting system so that it’s easy to create objects and bring them to life! The scripting is called LSL2 scripting which I think stands for Linden Scripting Language (version 2). You can even make all the variables in different languages such as Spanish.
Second Life is a place where you can meet friends and hang out when ever you like. Unfortunately I lost one of my good friends, as he had been transferred to the Main Grid, the place where you go when you turn eighteen. His name was Ephemeral Flan. We were really good friends and hung out a lot. I was saddened to say the least when I heard that he was moving to the Main Grid. We hung out more often until the day he had to go. There was a big party for him a few days before he was transferred. During the party he saw me standing in the corner alone, and he asked why. I told him that I was really too sad to celebrate. He then told me he was going to wait until after the party to give me something but he decided he would give it to me then. He gave me his original lab mouse furry! (a furry is an animal avatar) I wear that avatar every time I really miss him, which is usually about every other day. I have lots of things he made to remember him by, and a memorial to put up so others would remember him too. I would like to dedicate this essay to him.
Written in memory of Ephemeral Flan.
nik385 D. is a member of Teen Second Life and lives in New Hampshire. This essay was a Second Life Prize Winner in the 2006 Global Kids Digital Media Essay Contest. For more information, please visit GlobalKids.org.
