Finding your sub-culture?

As a n00born I would say that the hardest thing for me to do has been to find sub-cultures in SL where I will feel welcome.

Is there some kind of unified project that helps people find active communities that they might be interested in?

Here are the main big communities that I have found so far:
1) Dom/sub cultures (BDSM, Gorean RP, etc)
2) Furry
3) Live Music

That is it! I am sure that there must be a lot of cool stuff that I do not know about, but how does a new resident get hooked up?

---End of the easy and short part. Long semi-boring part to follow.---

I think it would be really great if there was some sort of "portal" that helps new residents explore their interests and find communities of like-minded individuals. So far my best technique has been to read all the events for the day and look for things that sound interesting.

If no such portal exists, then I think I will start a group to facilitate this. My thinking is very preliminary, but essentially I think that I would like to start a "SL Diversity Board."

The main idea behind this is that larger cultures tend to be very easy to find. This tends to squash "diversity" of play style, because people who are looking for a smaller sub-culture will feel dis-proportionately left out. It is a well-known phenomenon that a group that is twice as big as another does not just double its effectiveness: A small increase in size can lead to a huge increase in effectiveness for smallish social networks.

Here are some things that I would like to see done better in SL. My hope is that by collecting a good directory of "sub-cultures" or "play-styles" in one place, it will encourage people to stay and get active in the appropriate community.

1) Male AVs. The amount and quality of clothing for male AVs is fairly low, and can be discouraging.
2) AVs of under-represented shapes and skins. It seems that most AVs are caucasian, and the rest are Asian. The result is that there are few resources for African, Latin American, Native American, Aboriginal, etc etc AVs.
3) A good dissemination of RP opportunities. Since many RPs don't seem to leave their RP sims, it may take a new resident a while to find good RP opportunities. Also, it seems strange to me that "character" AVs like pirates, aboriginals, clowns, etc seem to be fairly rare at the events that I have been to. My AV is a witch doctor, and I get positive comments almost every day. Given that people want to see this kind of originality, why is it rare to see it?
4) Unusual AV/Character designs. Character design is such a huge part of advertising these days, it seems weird to me that there are very few different design types in SL. Very roughly speaking I would say that there are lots of Anthro/Human AVs, quite a few Anthro/Furry AVs, and then a handful of animal or chibi/tiny AVs. Where are the walking trees, meat-wads, and other characters that have become so popular in cartoons and advertising?

Anyway, hopefully I'll get some good comments on this. I'm tired of seeing everyday human girls with their oh-so-perfect-prim-hair and california beach-bodies. Obviously if that is what you want, more power to you. But for those of us that want something more artsy, where are the resources, and how do we find them?

I know there's Fantasy (ElvenGlen, Aurora) and Cyberpunk (Chaos, Nexus Prime) also..

I would add as a broad catagory Role-Play. As for specifics: Goth, Vamp, Tiny, Mafia, Jedi, Treker, Elf, Victorian. Cataloging them all would be almost undoable.

I would suggest reading peoples profiles and paying attention to titles they have chosen. Both can have clues about subcultures they are interested in. Then ask questions.

That has worked for me so far.

To paraphrase The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy, Second Life is big. Really big. You can't even imagine how big it is.

Well, maybe you can. But my point is that Second Life contains virtually anything and everything you can possibly imagine. Aside from the D/s, Furry, and Live Music areas you have mentioned, there are toons, superheroes, goths, vampires, werewolves, aliens, mechs and robots, orgies (yes, orgies), games of various sorts including arcade games, adventure games, Bingo/SLingo/Tringo etc., sci-fi buffs, roleplayers of all types, including war gamers and many others, the serious and the frivolous, amusement parks, newspapers, magazines, schools, shopping, drama groups, movie theatres, areas designed for specific people groups, including, thus far, a German area and a Korean area, vehicles ranging from the mundane to the near-miraculous (cars, bikes, planes, helicopters, jetpacks, spacecraft, and more), and pretty much anything your mind can conceive.

Now, I realize that not all of the things I have listed necessarily refer to a specific group's subculture, but that's the cool thing about SL -- it's more cosmopolitan than Manhattan. You can be whoever you want to be, and 98% of the people* in SL will say, "Cool!"

I'd also invite you to read the Metaverse Messenger, a weekly SL newspaper that my business partner and I publish, with the help of our fabulous team of staffers. It's very informative as to things that are going on in SL, and all back issues are archived on our website. It may help you to discover something that exists in SL that you have previously overlooked.

Welcome to Second Life!

P2

*The other 2% are the cynics, the jaded, and the griefers. Don't let them bother you too much.

I mean, you may think it's a long way down the Linden highway to the casino, but that's just peanuts to SL.

OBR, I think you just haven't been around enough. There are a lot more cultures, subcultures, and sub-sub cultures than what you mentioned. I'd give it more time. You're seeing some prominent features, but there's more to it than that.

Search thr groups and join ones you are interested in, and you can make friends with like people and find out where they hang and such.

I think the OP has an interesting point.

One of SL's problems compared to standard MMORPG games is "fragmentation of the user experience". Because things are provided by lots of different bits of the community, there's no one entity taking charge of the whole experience a new user has. So they can have trouble finding stuff, or find different versions of the same thing and get confused, or find one group, not like it, and think it's representative of SL as a whole.. and so on. Furthermore, communities can't guarantee to accept everyone - not even everyone who isn't a pain in the ass - which can leave some people straggling.

LL know this. How do I know they know this? Because the qualification for being a greeter is being able to provide an integrated and coherent experience of one of a few different types. But the problem is, all of these types are "meta-SL" ones: shopping, designing an avatar, building, etc. All well and good, but they can leave someone wondering "ok, I can look good and make stuff, but why would I?"

So what I'd say this "diversity group" ought to do is to create "greeters" for these communities with SL. Obviously they can't be LL official greeters, since LL want to sell SL as a world with general value instead of highlighting a finite set of communities, but it would still be really nice to have people helping others integrate with these groups.

It depends much where you go, there is some people that occasionally wear tree avs, walking furniture, phonecabs and stuff, but inanimate avatar isn´t as much fun like usual avatar with hands and legs plus you can find interesting stuff at helloween parties.

First of all its good that you discover from what subculture are you and then go for it.

Ah, yes. You have said it better than I did. I was thinking about how traditional MMO "Games" like WoW usually have an "orientation" phase that gently introduces newbies to the main ideas.

I think SL is so much MORE diverse, more powerful, and more interesting that this actually leads to it being LESS approachable. The learning curve is steeper, and what I advocate is trying to lessen this curve a little. I am already here, I will have to get by with whatever tools I find. But if I invite my friends, co-workers, and students to join SL...how do I convince them that this is an amazing thing, if they don't already believe?

I think that helping people find their niche will be important to building SL as both business and a community.

I liken this to people moving to a new city and wodering where to meet people and what there is to do.

Read the publications. Get out and talk to people. Attend some classes, games or meetings. Just wander around. Check profiles for people's picks and check them out.

This exploration phase can be part of the fun.

It's not quite the same, though. When you move to a new city, you're stuck there.

Someone who's just come into SL doesn't have any investment in SL yet, so they've no motivation to look too hard. Also, probably, they have a couple of other games or projects that they know will give them stuff to do right away.

I would argue that figuring out what is going on, meeting people and joining groups is something to do. Walking around and seeing the sights is something to do. Learning the modeling tools and scripting is something to do. RP is something to do. Concerts are something to do.

What motivates them to show up at all? The metaverse is at your doorstep, go find out what it is all about. I would suggest that if you want a place to go where you show up, are given the n00b quest and a notecard of tasks to complete to find SL Victory, then maybe this isn't the right environment.

Are we trying to warp SL into the same environment as the other multiplayer games because that is what is easiest and most comfortable? Or are we just looking for an updated Pathfinder's Picks or some kind of Tour of the 'Verse for the uninitiated?

This was one of the first "walls" I ran into, when joining the Second Life community.

So don't think for a moment, you're alone OBR. Everyone here has already posted some great feedback and suggestions for how you can best go about finding YOUR sub-culture. Just keep in mind that while SL has many possibilities, not everyone will take those to the limit and make something truly creative out of the experience.

Events, exploration, maybe socializing at the Welcome Area... you'll run into some like minds, eventually. SL's size can both hinder and facilitate the process. Just like in the real world, there are the popular categories in society, and there are those you have to dig to find depending on your area. Sometimes, you have to do the same here.

Unless you're like me, and really just don't belong anywhere in particular.

Good luck in your search!

What is "Pathfinder's Picks"?

I have found some nice lists of places to visit, but these don't always translate into finding *community.*

Of course, I think we all understand that.

People don't want to do just "something". They want to do something they enjoy. For some people, creating and shopping and meeting people is fun for its own sake - good for them. But that's not the case for everyone. When a newbie gets into SL, it's in everyone's interest to get them enjoying themselves as soon as possible. No, that doesn't mean they have to be given everything they could ever want for free.



What motivates them is that they want to give SL a try. But their trial time isn't endless, and remember, they don't know that these things exist at all. New folks have trouble. I've seen people wandering around general areas convinced that subcultures didn't exist (I actually had someone at NCI ask "does anyone have sex on here?" ) and get frustrated with that. Equally, I've seen people wandering around subculture areas (two completely new folks in ElvenGlen) feeling frozen out because they didn't know the basics of SL yet and felt they couldn't afford stuff. And I've seen people be incredibly helpful to newbies, take them off on tours of areas.. and then miss the next newbie who arrives 10 seconds after they left (that kind of "slipping through the cracks" is the problem with relying on the community without organisation) .



No, it doesn't have to be the same environment - it just has to be (or have the option of being) as accessible - initially, at least. And why? Because it's also most successful!

The difficulty is that all of the content of SL is player-made. It's not as if LL can just put in a window listing everything to do. The best the CAN do is provide a way to search SL, which they have with the Find window. But because the content is player-made, it's up to the players to promote it.

Now, can LL make the search functions better? Definately.

But no matter how good the search engine is, it's up to the content creators to put information in, and the player to actually USE the search.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is any solution other than the current one (with some tweaking) that will provide a portal to the 'subcultures' of SL without excluding some.

Promotion - that is, knowing that a subculture exists - isn't the same as knowing how to get into it.

There's a lot of joy in simply finding stuff. Try this:

1: pick a starting point at random somewhere on the mainland.
2: pick an ending point, equally at random, somewhere far away on the mainlaind.
3: journey between those points, using a variety of vehicles. When you crash one vehicle, or get stuck (you're in a boat and the water runs out), switch to a different vehicle.
4: land/park/pitch anchor anywhere that looks interesting and explore.
5: finally, reach your destination, rez a nice seat and relax, watching the sunrise.

It is an enjoyable way to spend an hour or so, you see a lot of fascinating things, and you get a real sense of adventure doing it. It's a shame you can't do the same with private islands. Perhaps just island hop and explore some each day?

Musuko.

It is important when selecting a sub-culture to consider the availibility of a compatible dom-culture.

I'll admit that I just don't get how SL is not accessible, so I'm giving people the credit to be able to look on the wiki, read the forum and participate while they figure out out what they want to do.

I hear an awful lot of stories from folks on the front line working with the poor aimless new residents.

It seems like there are a lot of things going on to help those that seek help, but maybe I'm wrong (this is assuming no technical problems, I make no claims for support in those situations).

What are your suggestions?



OneBigRIver, someone else could probably explain this better, but Pathfinder's Picks was/is a notecard available at the welcome area with a compiled list of interesting locations in SL done by Pathfinder Linden and, I believe, not updated that often anymore (someone else please check this for accuracy and further explanation).

As for "community", I still think just diving in and trying out the various aspects of SL is the best way to find like-minded people and a community that you can be comfortable with.

I guess part of it is "What do you like to do? What are your interests?" then it's just a matter of opening FIND and typing it in. See what comes up. Explore!! I have found some really cool places just by picking random spots & going there. Even if its something "not me", I still check it out.

And after you're here a while, if you dont find what you like- Make it!!

Most new folks I've met don't look at the forum, and certainly not the wiki.

Generally the first thing I'll ask a new person who's wandering what to do is "what are your interests?". Lots of people respond "just anything", but I'm pretty sure that's because they're expecting a more limited range of "game" activities and are trying to fit themselves to SL instead of vice versa. (The other popular answer, of course, is "making money" which is usually not because they want to make RL bucks but because they've cottoned on to L$ as being their "score".)

But even when they give a clear answer, I'm not familiar with every subculture on SL! I don't think anybody could be! I'm certainly not familiar with the smaller, newer possible-subculture-to-be's - which are the ones that most need new members. If they ask about metagame things like building or "somehow" making money I can help with that, and if they ask about one of the subcultures I know about I can point them to a few areas or sims or groups (although sometimes I don't know how active areas are, or whether they're still active, or similar).

But referring people to areas isn't that great... as I saw from the new folks who were wandering around ElvenGlen, baffled, looking at all the people in neat fantasy avs and wondering how they get to play too. If these subculture could actually appoint their own "greeters", who wouldn't just refer people to the areas but actually introduce them to people within the subculture that'd be much more valuable than what I can do. (And most of the bigger subcultures have multiple groups within them which I'm only familiar with one or two of.)

You know, Yumi, nothing's stoping you from setting up a "subculture greeter" thing. Talk around the subcultures, find out who (if anyone) is a "mover and shaker". Propose a concrete idea about arranging for one or more individuals to help newbies explore their particular subculture(s).

Just waving your hands and saying "they should do X" and otherwise trying to "volunteer" other people for your idea, which seems to be a common theme in many of your posts on any specific subject, isn't going to do anything except up your postcount.

The SL world is driven by its residents (with assistance by LL to provide general form to the reality in which the residents operate). You might get better responses if you stop being a backseat driver, put your hands on the wheel, and step on the gas yourself.

Hard to make an impression, being one person among 200K members? Sure, no argument at all from me on that. But complaining doesn't get anything done. Acting may not have a great effect, but it generally does do something.

(This post brought to you by The Committee for Having Repeatedly Uttering the Phrase "There Oughta Be..." Turned Into a Capital Offense. )