Second Life – Page 3 – Ruby Sinreich

Wonkette posted Rik’s machinima of the protest – without attribution 🙁 – and generally made fun of us, called us hippies, etc. As Rik pointed out: “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” And as I replied: “there’s also no such thing as a kind word from Wonkette.” In other words, I’m honored to be on the receiving end of their snark.

Give it up for liberals: they managed to find the one way left to make traditional protests even more ineffectual and embarrassing. Have ‘em on the internet!
– ‘Second Life’ War Protest Ensures Continued Occupation of Iraq For Next 1,000 Years – Wonkette

Unfortunately, this post wasn’t nearly as funny as most Wonkette entries, but it’s a start. I see we’ve caused them to create a new category for politics in Second Life, so we’re clearly having some kind of impact, 😉

Here’s Rik’s machinima video ~~with music by Sweet Honey in the Rock~~. I understand a longer video may be in the works.

Post-protest processing

January 31, 2007August 15, 2007

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First, you can now hear my interview with the pods & blogs show on the BBC HERE! I’m not sure how long this audio will be available, so listen now…

A lot of reporters have been asking me for statements about the march so to save us all time, here it is. Use at will (with attribution):

I was thrilled with the event. The owners of Capitol Hill reported that we had 126 people attending, which is a lot in a world where it is technically difficult for more than about 40 avatars to gather in one space at one time. Our group SL Netroots had envisioned doing something small and symbolic until last week when we realized that we had clearly touched a nerve in the Second Life community. The turnout was amazing, especially considering we did very little to promote the event, and everyone there was engaged and having a great time.

The fact that a normally apolitical population like SL residents responded so enthusiastically shows how widespread the opposition to the Iraq War is. People who heard about it told their friends or blogged about it, and spread the word themselves. We simply facilitated that by linking to our wiki and making it easy for people to share the information. Most of the participants were from all across the country, and a few came from other countries – including Iraq! I think this reinforces the idea that most Americans agree with world opinion in opposition to the war.

SL is a very creative medium, and events like this help to develop it as a outlet for activism and political expression, as well as a place where people can find and participate in a community of like-minded advocates. This person-to-person connection is as “real” as any other. This is movement-building. Although we can’t vote in Second Life, we can raise awareness and connect people and show our strength. We will continue to do so!

Rik Riel and In Kenzo put together Video of “Avatars against the War” Peace Demo in Second Life. It doesn’t exactly show the narrative of the whole event, but it has some great looking avatars breaking it down as we danced for peace. (I have some more video that I will share with them.)

There are now a bunch of pictures on flickr, and they’re not all by me! Although this one is:

I have been been contacted by many members of the (surprisingly-large) SL media corps, but I haven’t seen any of those stories come out yet. I’ll post links when I get them….

A smashing success

January 29, 2007January 30, 2007

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We had ~~over 80~~ 126 avatars in attendance which ~~is pretty much~~ exceeds the limit of what Second Life can tolerate (SL Capitol Hill is TWO islands mashed together). We had people from all around the country and a few from around the world, I think we broke Second Life, and I was interviewed by BBC radio!!!!

Lots more links and pics to come. Now back to my first life…

Thanks to Errcheck Hicks, Effulgent Brown, Rik Riel, Kiwini Oe, TROI Timtam, Drew Frobozz, and everyone who participated in any way!!!

Update: After I left, an Iraqi refugee who is living in Jordan came by and shared his experiences. Several people reported that it was a touching and apt closure to the event, really bringing the problems back home to a personal scale. I got the transcript of that and will try to post it later.

I posted some more pictures from today and made an album on flickr. More cool pictures and an interesting blog entry were posted by the only furry at the march.

Because of SL crashing, I lost much of the chat log which includes people saying where they were from and making up slogans and stuff. 🙁 Hopefully someone else who was there will send me a copy.

Someone from Capitol Hill also sent me some pictures of the event, but I don’t know how to get the images out of Second Life!

I’ll keep watching to see what turns up…

Monday we march

January 29, 2007August 15, 2007

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Tomorrow this space will be full of avatars:

You know, some of us just thought this peace protest in Second Life would be a fun thing to do, but we really hit a nerve in the community. I think we’re going to make a big splash at 5pm EST today (Monday)!

In the past few days I have met tons of anti-war residents of Second Life, as well as several in-world reporters and machinimatographers who want to cover the march. The creators of SL Capitol Hill will be on hand to support us as well.

Keep checking our wiki for the latest on the Avatars Against The War events. I’ll see you in-world!

More blogging about the march:
http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2007/01/28/march-for-peace-in-sl-on-monday

Avatars Against The War

http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2007/01/avatars_against.html

And a good time was had at our Peace Party earlier today:
http://djdoubledown.blogspot.com/2007/01/oyster-bay-house-events-for-peace-jan.html

Avatars Against the War

January 27, 2007August 15, 2007

2 Comments

Our weekend of peace in Second Life is already going great! The latest plans and SLurls are at the RootsCampSL wiki.

First of all, errcheck Hick’s workshop today was great and was attended by at about a dozen avatars. We now have a groovy sign you can carry that changes textures with a click, and that includes sign waving/pumping fist animation.

Tomorrow, errcheck will lead a talk on “Deconstructing Fascism” including his experiences with the recent protests against French white supremacists who have set up shop in SL. This and a Peace Party with a live DJ will be at Conscious Lounge.

On Monday at 2pm we will have a march on SL Capitol Hill! The creators of SLCH are very supportive of what we’re doing and will be on hand to make sure everything runs smoothly. Protesters should meet at RootsCamp first, where we will have a teleporter that will send people to the right spot. Then we will march around a circular path and wind up on the steps of the capitol building. At this point, we will probably pass a megaphone around so folks can say whatever is on their mind, and/or watch a streaming video of today’s march in DC. (Suggestions?)

We have already had some great blog entries about the protest:
http://www.rikomatic.com/blog/2007/01/reminder_virtua.html

Peace in the Metaverse, Goodwill Toward Avs

http://muveforward.blogspot.com/2007/01/political-science-civil-protests-in-sl_27.html

I have been amazed at the amount of excitement there is about the demonstration on Monday. People have been dropping in to RootsCamp all day asking about it. The March will be filmed by some machinima makers, so it’s especially important to get people there.

On a less happy note, errcheck pointed out to me that the SL Netroots group has been joined by one of the right wingers that have active with the Le Pen camp. Nothing bad has hapenned yet, and I don’t think he has visited RootsCamp, but we need to be cautious, especially since most of the stuff at RootsCamp has relatively open permissions.

See you in-world!

If you’re not going to DC…

January 25, 2007August 15, 2007

Second Life lawyers have a life

January 25, 2007February 27, 2017

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Several people have sent me links to the Second Life parody GetAFirstLife.com. I think it’s very funny if you use SL, otherwise you might not appreciate the humor.

Apparently the parody site challenged SL to send a cease-and-desist letter, but instead they sent a letter declining to sue.

“Linden Lab objects to any implication that it would employ lawyers incapable of distinguishing such obvious parody,” [Second Life’s attorney Ginsu] Yoon wrote. “Linden Lab is well-known for having strict hiring standards, including a requirement for having a sense of humor, from which our lawyers receive no exception.”
– Blogger gets ‘un-cease-and-desist’ note – Yahoo! News

Hee hee.

Peace in the metaverse

January 23, 2007

8 Comments

This weekend while hundreds of thousands are marching in the nation’s capital to end the long national nightmare known as the Iraq War, some of us will be virtually marching for peace.

The SL Netroots group in Second Life is sponsoring events and activities to coincide with the national March on Washington to End the War. Events may be spread around, but our space on Progressive Island will be the central place to find out what’s going on.

In support of the national march for peace in Washington, DC on January 27th, 2007, members of the SL Netroots are organizing in the following events.

Confirmed events:
* Posters for Peace. Gallery exhibition with free posters, on Progressive Island.

* Party at Solidad Sugarbeet’s Conscious Lounge with DJ Doubledown Tardino. Time & day: TBD.

RootsCamp / J27 events for peace in Second Life

Come to our weekly meeting this Thursday at 3pm EST (noon SLT) to help make this effort a success! We need lots of support and want to see a lot of people come to Progressive Island on Saturday so please help spread the word.

THIS is machinima

January 17, 2007

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Stephen Colbert’s fantasy comes to life… Second Life.

RootsCampSL today!

December 13, 2006

2 Comments

Well we didn’t meet two weeks ago because Second Life’s update took everything offlien for a few hours more than expected. Last week I was traveling and my co-organizer was to tired from RootsCampDC to pull it together. Now this week SL has another upgrade running over time, but it might be done any moment now.

If it comes back online before 4 pm EST, we will still be meeting. Please log in and the location will be sent to the SL Netroots group. Hope to see you there.

On the agenda: recent advocacy and education in SL including: Save the Children’s “Yack Shack”, Mansajeros de Paz’ homeless avatar, and Mia Farrow promoting Darfur awareness tomorrow.

Also, I’ll be taking suggestions for better meeting times. 😉