First SL Class Meeting

My first class meeting in SL was a bit marred by technical difficulties. Even though the meeting lasted a really long time, I didn’t feel like we covered much ground, literally. Well, I guess I mean virtually. We got to see Kamran’s home (our professor), which was nice, although after walking outside we were immediately bombarded with all the gentrification that Jason (also our professor) had talked about in class. The land around Kamran’s home is being developed into a virtual electronic music venue, with large screens, stages, lights, etc. We watched one of the DJ videos that could be played on one of the screens, which was an interesting experience (viewing things through 2 screens), an experience I was sure I would come across a lot more in the future of my SL travels. The owner of the DJ venue who is trying to buy Kamran’s land actually showed up while we were there, so they spent time talking about that; he even teleported us to another sim that he owned which he suggested he could trade for Kamran’s current property. The situation was really interesting to me – the issues that rise up with the gentrification of virtual property don’t seem all that different from RL, but you really wonder why it shouldn’t be. Again, the whole idea of scarcity in a virtual world. After that, we made a pit-stop somewhere – forget what it was called – with Jesus pictures on the wall and if I remember correctly, some scripture quotes and a fireplace. I didn’t get a chance to ask what this place was – a religious meeting place? a joke? – but I’m not going to lie, I thought it was a little bit creepy, the way that religious things can be creepy. After an unsuccessful attempt to go to a billiards place, we ended the class meeting at the art museum I had been to before; while there, I think we met the owner of the museum whose avatar looked a bit like a fairy godmother, and she told us to vote for it at as a popular place at the voting box near the entrance of the building – something I’m noticing a lot of places are doing.

~ by glycerine517 on October 10, 2007.