What happened to Second Life culture?

I'll dance for money! And kitty's nekkid, usually.

I agree with a lot that's said in posts above, but also realize that "to each his or her own". Me, I just hermit and script, that's what makes me happy. I don't get the club attraction, and definitely don't understand the attraction of humping cartoons.

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Welcome to the "Disappointed with SL" club!

Second Life cultural decline seems to me to have a very strong correlary with the cessation of funds to events hosts. The only way to be compensated for one's time and efforts currently is to run a game like tringo or a low-effort event for a club (only low-effort events seem to be what people are willing to do for no or low pay which is all club owners can afford since they are spending money to make the events happen rather than actually making money on them).

If there was a fund that hosts could apply to to make splendid, high-effort events, perhaps they would. My paid hosts, with the exception of my managers, make only low-effort events as I can only pay them $150 per event (my average dwell for the day). I continue to make high-effort events, but do so as a way to give back to the community. They do not pay for themselves in any respect other than in the satisfaction I get for doing something nice.

I would love to see the events work group come up with a way for funding incentives to happen for hosts so that we can put SL culture on its feet again. Sadly, the group seems utterly frozen on that issue and others. No progress can be made in a group that doesn't meet, doesn't tell members when it is meeting, and doesn't have some method of respectful dialogue. Perhaps with these added into the mix, we might get somewhere with events. I am quite hopeful that with cooperation between LL, SL's business interests, and those interested in building SL community and culture we could create some kind of fund to help hosts do good work and higher-effort events. *crosses her fingers*

For a positive spin check out this link .

Any one else have any ideas?

We need a new event category:

"No Tringo, No Clubs and No Free Money"

Seriously, though, I am hoping to see more cultural events. For me, I'm planning three, though as a new resident, it will take some time: The first will be the open house of a winery. The second is a cooperative poetry event - (no goal, and no prizes, just funny poems written as a group.) The third is a large art installation where the visitors help make the sculpture.

I see SL as a place to explore the kind of social interactions that just aren't possible in RL. For example, in RL, my art installation would require people to be able to carve large chunks of wood - and not many people can. In SL almost everyone can rezz a chunk of wood!

I have found a few: Brock Zander's Water Polo is a refreshing experience. The SL Sailing Club's sailboat races are fun.

I'm actively looking for these kinds of experiences. Anyone else putting them on?

And for the record: I love playing Tringo - just not all the time!

Being able to carve wood, I think, would make the single biggest light-years leap, the single biggest difference, in the game that there could be.

coco

Guess this is still a question lol

Bingo. Now let's see how long it takes LL to get it.

Well since this thread started regular club events and contests have started up again, and now there are double the events (Tringo Events and Club Events) yet to me this is still not "culture" in Second Life, though it is a form of a culture I suppose. Nothing wrong with club events, but it is just really surprising and disappointing that that is all there practically is.

What about more discussion groups focusing on different topics (Movies, Politics, Games, Philosophy)

More movie viewings, banquets, and such would be fun.

I am surprised there are not more live theater performances as these would be easy to set up.

I feel we need more of a variety of events other than just the club/gaming scene.

What was expected? LL dropped the stippends, dropped event support. What did ppl think would happen? Would ppl create interesting events out of the goodness of their hearts? LOL no there is no money in that.

For the most part IMO its all about the all mighty dollar because that is the direction that sl has been pushed in for the last year. What did we expect to happen?

Creative content for the most part for the sake of doing it for the enjoyment of others is dead because there is no profit in it. Welcome to the real world. or Real life. Take your pick.

Do I sound negative? I hope not just trying to look at things "realistically" as many have many have told me "get it threw my head". Fine I see it how it is, and I don't see much substance left. Hurrah.

Fine I “get it” but no I can’t honestly say I like this way better than I liked sl 2 years ago. I’m not living in the past. I just preferred it.

One reason there might not be as many discussion groups in SL as some would like is that SL is a really lousy chatroom.

SL's chat functions are crude, You can't doubleclick an URL in chat text and have that open a browser window or tab with that URL. You can't send files from one person to another. Plus the chat is likely to either have various messages from other groups, strangers not in the discussion, etc. And for a real discussion group it would be exceeding desirable to have a text entry field that is more than one one line and twenty characters long. I'm not sure there is any area about chat functions in which SL excels.

For actually watching a movie just using WinAmp or the equivalent gives a better view or possibly the TV set and a DVD player could somehow be configured to perform as a display unit by the audiovisually adventurous.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by banquets but I don't find the food here in SL to be very nourishing. Perhaps banquets for people on weight loss diets might work out ok.

Live theather works best when the actors aren't so prone to have problems such as having their mouths get stuck in the open mouthed surprise position. Watching crudely depicted avatars hobble about, slowy entering lines that might or might not arrive in the sequence they were entered, performing maneuvers which have to be produced in a fairly torturesome way in an expensive third party program is something of interest to only a teeny tiny part of the population.

Excellent!

The problem with the whole 'metaverse - let's be like Snowcrase and make the future' gimmick is that it completely and utters conflicts with the 'business - let's make some money and keep our personal needs met' objective.

When I have the patience to wade through the tringo/slingo events I can sometimes find small gems of intellectual, cultural interesting offerings. I often have friends IM me to ask if I have found anything interesting….

Transylvania has weekly poetry events, they were on Tuesdays, now moved to Thursdays I believe at 5pm. Participants submit their own poetic works to be read.

The Eleven clan also has had poetry events. Participants submit read their own poetic work.

Laukosargas Svarog had an Art show, now a Flower and Garden show is planned.

Your jazz club featuring Astrin Few is awesome, the live performances are totally wonderful.

There is an Art thread where we spoke of museums and of the potential for an Art Crawl

Oh, now I see we have the FRC too- this may be a step in the right dierection ?

Maybe the answer might perhaps be divide the Events Discussion Forum section up like they did the Event Categories ?

I think there is something fundamental about IM-style one-line discourse that forces it to be shallow.
OMG those shoes are great - where did you get them?
Especially in largish groups
I can't believe that LOL
me neither
And that's about as far
HEY - check this out, a newb and two alligators go into a bar
As I've gotten with my thesis - the culture of thought-bites
hehe

I have chosen these two quotes to highlight a question.

Athel's original post contains the words 'social culture.' I take that to be, somehow, different from 'high culture' (I put these words in quotation marks because I feel that these two words, together, are elitist).

The graphic arts, music, writing, theatre, film--are all represented in SL. Many of the events are beautiful amalgams of the social, the intellectual, and the artistic. While the live music scene is beginning to take off, some of the other arts are still looking for patronage.

My question: Is there a way to make poetry as popular as live music? How does an event planner reach his/her core audience, persuade that audience to attend an event/ participate in a contest, and maintain momentum and interest until the event is offered again?

What people don't seem to remember is that when the Lindens dropped event support, all of the events were pretty much the same as they are now- trite little "contests" and club gatherings.

Nope not a fact.

There was much diversity of events prior to the elimination of support.

In SL, I think the answer, to reaching poetry readers and writers, is unfortunately, cash. At least at the beginning. After a bit, of having a group of people come together that are there mainly for the enjoyment, with the cash being a bonus, then you could drop the cash and keep your core niche. You would then have enough to be self-sustaining enough that it wouldn't matter if new people showed up or not. If this makes any sense (it does in my head but typing it out says no to me )

I think, however, if you also found a venue willing to host a daily "cultural" event, that could be posted in event listings, people would start noticing the listing and coming out for it. However, you'd have to find a venue that wasn't that concerned with dwell and being in the top 20 list of popular places, as until it obtained the core niche that would give these things, it would be a dwell loser, unfortunately.

As an event host, the single most important thing I've found to retaining people and bringing them back is host interaction. A host that can keep talking to old and new people in the room as well as move the event along, goes a long way towards attracting and keeping guests at a place. As in real life, people want to feel welcome at an event, or they want to feel that if they came back, people would remember and greet them warmly, strike up conversation and generally treat them as an entity, rather than just a stumbling avatar.

In its attempt to do everything and be everything - creating and building, chat and communication, various delivery mediums, economic and social platform, representations of a near-total world experience, etc. - SL does none of these things particularly well. So the culture's a Quarter-Pounder and not a New York strip steak - not surprising, giving the product's design and performance.

One of the problems is not being able to find the events. The category pull down menu has really helped with that. In fact, had it not been for the categories I would have missed a really great event two weeks ago.

Someone held a story telling event, where you get a topic and then have to spin an impromptu yarn. It was a hoot and I haven't seen it offered since but I really enjoyed it.

It was done sort of like the Chowder Club from the book Ghost Story, where everyone sat in a circle and there was wine. Great Stories, great fun and I could kick myself for not remembering who held the event.

Unfortunately, it was also held very late and I'm on eastern time, which is my issue with a lot of the events held.

OMG! I loved that book and the concept of the Chowder Club. That is the only book to have scared me to the point of jumping at noises in the past five years.

Check out the elbow room in mare. A nice little community has formed around the evening mvoeis on the weekends. Its a failry active group, and most of the ime there is someone there to talk to.

Also Check out Margaret Mfume's place in the new continent. She has created a wonderful bumper boat park and a skate park, with a little diner and a working pool table.

People are making things, but part of the problem is the event listing are swamped with mmuch the same things. Also the event listing focus on doing something at a particular time, and don't guide you to places where you can hang out and play, but don't have particualr events per se.

I think a guide to second life might be an interesting project for a resident, although keeping it up to day might be a night mare. I wonder though, if breaking the events and places features down by categories would be feasible. You could have a category for shopping, for tringo, for clubs, for music, for galleries..much liek the weekend section of any city's newspaper.

I loved that book. Wasn't it "The Chowder Society" though?