The right type of hype

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The University of Leipzig has just published research on the attitude of youths to, among other things, Second Life. The study found out that 80 percent of the 1000 youths questioned during research knew of SL, but two thirds of those who had not yet entered the virtual world weren’t even interested in doing so.

What people reporting about the research appear to be overlooking is that it was done with youths between 11 and 20. Technically only those above 18 years of age can actually register with SL. But, as we all know from those “How r u, wanna dance, rofl, do u liek my lazersword?”-IMs, this is, sadly, not the case.

Recently, in fact yesterday afternoon, an acquaintance mentioned to me that the “hype of SL is a thing of the past” and then, even more recently, in fact yesterday evening, a friend IM’d me asking what had happened to the Jazz Club Hot Sax. At first (and in a moment of extreme panic) I though she meant it had disappeared. But what she meant was that it was almost empty of people.

This has all put me on the defensive - pretty much in the manner of someone who has been a regular guest in, let’s say, the hot spot in a smaller town and suddenly discovers that the place isn’t rocking as it used to. You’ve got two choices: Either you join the crowd of nay-sayers and add your voice to their chorus; or you sniff loudly and start pretending you didn’t want all of those other dumb people in the club anyway and finally, finally, things are getting back to where they should be before all those flighty, finical and fastidious strangers showed up.

I, for my part, am quite happy to take the latter attitude.

Still, I do wonder. Last Sunday SL reached 67335 users online at one time. I know that so exactly because I wasn’t one of them and had that number up on the login screen for quite a while. If SL is a club that isn’t that popular anymore, I wished they’d tell that to the other 67333 people (I need at least one other person, preferably Tia, to be logged in as well). If SL isn’t as popular as it used to be, I wish it would stop being so full.

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Baby, I ain't lion

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This is just almost funny. In fact, almost too funny to be true. In fact, almost too funny for me to do anything but just copy and paste the article here.
And, being slightly lazy I'd do that - but I'm also slightly more afraid of getting some mail from a copyright lawyer, so I'll just summarize it.
A woman from North Carolina has been arrested after trying to kidnap her SL boyfriend after he broke off the relationship after they had met in RL. Okay, that’s not really funny, more tragic.
What’s funny is that the article slips in little bits of information and wording on the side that just begs to be commented on. May I point them out:
„Ms Jernigan's boyfriend was a lion while she was a virtual woman.“ The article states. „The two began what police describe as "a full-scale relationship online" in the virtual community, but the man broke it off after they met in person.”
Two or three things immediately pop to mind reading that.
1) Okay, he was a lion, but she a virtual woman. Why the virtual in there – and if it is, why in front of woman instead of lion?
2) “A full-scale relationship online”: As a lion and virtual woman. Doesn’t that make you, well, just wonder?
3) He breaks off the relationship after meeting her. What were her feelings? It seems to me she should have been more surprised after meeting him. Where’s the mane? What happened to your fangs? Why don’t you roar sweet nothings to me?

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Limerick 1. House of V

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The House of V hosts a large spider
Who could be called, perhaps, a rough rider.
He seems so docile
Then gets incredibly vile
And puts parts of himelf inside ya.

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