Rubber Soul

August 8, 2010 by Leave a comment

I was thinking the other day about this article, published on Salon around a year ago. It concerned the waning fortunes of the company behind Crocs, the aesthetically-challenged footwear brand. At the time the piece was written the firm looked in serious danger of going under, and its stock price had plummeted from a high of $70 to around $3. Worse was to come; at one point the shares traded for 79c, though today they are back up to $13.50, and it it looks like the hopes of discerning fashion-lovers everywhere that Crocs might disappear altogether are likely to remain unfulfilled.

What went wrong? Crocs were wildly popular in the middle of the last decade, and the company expanded massively to meet demand that they expected to keep on growing. In fact though, by 2009 everyone in the world who wanted a pair of Crocs had one already, and, since their indestructibility means that no one ever needs a second pair, sales dropped precipitously.

Crocs have managed to come back from the dead by refocussing on their core niche market – people who stand around all day at work – and forgetting about chasing mass appeal. Their advertising now emphasises comfort over fashionableness, which seems pretty obvious in retrospect.

How does this relate to virtual worlds? Well, I think the main lesson is that it’s important not to mistake enthusiastic take up of a product by a particular subsection of the market for a sign that said product will be equally attractive to other sections of that market. With enough media buzz it may be possible to whip up a short-term fad, but long term survival depends on looking after the core demographic, those who find enough genuine value in the product to keep them coming back for more once the initial novelty has faded.

Are there signs that Linden Lab is heeding this message? Yes and no, judging by what Philip Rosedale has had to say recently. He does seem to be alert to the fact that long-term residents need to be taken care of, but he still comes out with hyperbolic comments like “It is all going to happen, and we are going to get everyone in here eventually“, and “The fundamental belief that I have is that Second Life and virtual worlds are going to profoundly affect the human experience, profoundly, and in a positive way“. It may be that Philip doesn’t really believe this, and is just talking up the platform’s potential appeal to draw in new investors, but I fear that it’s more likely that he has so much invested in the idea of Second Life as a truly world-changing technology that he can’t bear to let it go.

Philip should relax, and embrace SL‘s cult status – even niche products can have a lasting cultural impact.

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Virtual alchemy

August 4, 2010 by Leave a comment

When Second Life Shrink was in its planning stages a few years ago I checked out several different blog-hosting services before settling on WordPress. I liked that it was open-source, and a couple of people I knew had recommended it, but what sealed my decision was the amount of statistical information that the platform provides. As well seeing the raw visitor numbers I can analyse where they came from, which pages they have looked at, and which links they have followed, providing me with hours of pointless distraction.

Until fairly recently just about all our traffic came straight from search engines. We’re top on Google for “second life shrink” of course, and lately we’ve been doing well with “second life demographics” too. “Second life addiction” and “second life psychology” seem to come and go; we’ve been on the front page with both of those at various times, though currently we’re languishing down on page three, where only dedicated searchers will find us. We tend to do much better on Bing for some reason; I’m not sure whether that should be a source of pride or shame.

We used to get very few hits from direct links; unsurprisingly, with a couple of exceptions, no one has ever felt that any of our posts were worth drawing to the attention of a wider audience. Recently though we have been getting a steady stream of visitors from a whole host of unlikely sites. I won’t link to them for reasons that will become obvious; suffice to say that they are not the sort of places we would like to be associated with.

I figured that this was likely to be the result of some sort of traffic-generating scam; and a little research has proved that this is the case. The program in question promises to deliver hits by automatically visiting millions of blogs and spoofing an incoming link from the site that is being promoted; the theory is that bloggers, their curiosity piqued, will follow the link back, and then purchase diet pills, or click on Google ads, or otherwise participate in whatever shady e-commerce scheme the site owner is counting on to make back the $70 the package costs.

At least this sting only leaves the would-be web-entrepreneur out by the cost of the program; most of the get-rich-quick-with-Google/Twitter/Facebook offers that litter the web these days are potentially much more expensive. Victims are lured in by the promise of secret marketing tricks for a payment of only a couple of dollars, but after handing over their credit card details they find that they have subscribed to a “newsletter”, for which they are billed $50 or more a month. Of course they can cancel any time, by simply calling a premium-rate number in the Virgin Isles, staffed by operators who will put you on hold for 20 minutes before asking for your bank account number so that they can process the transaction. These sharp practices are not always confined to the murkier recesses of the internet; last year Facebook was awash with similar scams that tricked people into signing up for overpriced cellphone services, though these have been mostly purged now.

What’s interesting about these confidence tricks is not that they are new, but that they are ancient. Persuading people to suspend their disbelief by invoking some magical new paradigm must go back to the days when enterprising cavemen extracted shiny pebbles from their gullible fellows by promising to share the secrets of how to generate revenue using that new “fire” thing that everyone was talking about. From medieval alchemists tuning lead into gold, through Gregor MacGregor’s tales of colonial riches, to Charles Ponzi‘s arbitrage of the International Reply Coupon, today’s blog fraudsters stand in a proud line of grifters and shakedown-artists.

While I like to think that I can see through crude scams such as these, I have to admit that I am not immune to the subtler form of self-deception that keeps me handing money over to disreputable virtual-world-pedlars, not in the belief that it will enrich me materially (nothing so base), but in the hope that I might be able to reinvent myself as a better person (despite all the evidence to the contrary). The alchemists of old sought the Philosophers’ Stone, the mystical substance said to grant enlightenment and immortality; perhaps Second Life, which promises to allow one to transcend the limitations of corporeality, is its modern equivalent.

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Comic archetypes

July 26, 2010 by Leave a comment

Back in what seem like the mists of time, but in fact just the early 90’s, I was fortunate enough to have a well-paid job and practically no responsibilities, allowing me to take numerous extended vacations, several of which I spent touring around the US. I tended to travel quickly, too quickly in retrospect, which allowed me to cover a lot of ground (I think I managed 28 of the contiguous states, plus DC), but not really get to know anywhere well. I found myself in a near-continuous state of dislocation, and consequently latched on to anything that could give me some sense of stability. In every new city I would purchase a newspaper and turn to the comics page, one thing I could depend on to be more or less constant no matter where I went.

There isn’t really a tradition of serial comic strips in the serious papers here, so I thought no more of these stories until a couple of years ago, when I began following them again, courtesy of the excellent online comic page at the Houston Chronicle. I’ll admit that my original motivation for this was to be able to better enjoy the snarky (and very funny) commentary over at The Comics Curmudgeon, but as time has passed I have come to appreciate the qualities of a good serial narrative in their own right. I particularly like the slow pace of the comics page, where the events of one afternoon can be spun out over months of three-panel strips, providing a calming antidote to the frenetic tempo of modern culture. Of course the politics, particularly on gender issues, of most of the strips seems to have been frozen around 1952, but I guess that just contributes to the ironic charm.

Conservative they may be, but the traditional serials can still serve up surprises. Just this week, for example, we discovered that Mary Worth is a Jungian. I can’t say that I saw that coming.

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On the unreliability of memory

July 21, 2010 by 4 Comments

There is a lot to be said for the traditional summer break of the professional middle classes; decamping from the hot, busy city to a quiet rural retreat, there to enjoy the simple peasant lifestyle. Of course I am referring to that fantasy peasant lifestyle that involves loafing around, consuming copious quantities of artisanal foodstuff and quaffing the local intoxicant, rather than any actual peasant lifestyle of unremitting toil, but it’s nice to imagine that one is getting back in touch with the slower pace of life enjoyed by our forefathers.

I always come back from my summer holiday determined to escape the rat race by finally getting down to writing the classic novel that I am convinced dwells within me. For a couple of weeks I spend my lunchtimes in the coffee shop tapping at my laptop, then life starts to intrude, and my grand projects fade away for another year.

In some ways it’s reassuring that my life is interesting enough that I don’t really have time to devote to literary endeavour, but it’s also a little frustrating to think that with some more application I could produce something a bit more impressive than this blog.

A few times in the last year, most recently just a couple of months ago, I’ve resolved to post less about Second Life, and more about interesting things, like politics, or literature, or music, but every time I seem to have found myself coming back to commenting about the virtual world. I think there’s some avoidance going on on my part; it’s easier to recycle the same old stuff about SL than take a chance on trying something new.

I spent several evenings last week reading my old copies of American Splendor, and thinking that, if Harvey Pekar could get it together to present slices of his life experience to the world back in the 70’s, when self-publishing was a real challenge, I should be able to do something more productive with this space, with which, in theory at least, I could reach a worldwide audience of millions with a couple of clicks of a mouse.

I have over the years posted a few vaguely Pekaresque pieces (mostly tagged “Nostalgia”), but I find it hard to be completely accurate in my recollection. It’s not that I actively make stuff up – the basic facts are all there – but when I try to reconstruct the subjective elements, like the emotions and motivations that were associated with these past events, I can’t help but be aware that my memories will have been extensively edited by my unconscious in the light of my subsequent life experience. I can’t put myself back into the mind of my past self, only the mind of my present self thinking about the past, and I know that means that what seem like solid memories are really projections of my current preoccupations woven out of carefully selected snippets of history.

The drive is to create a narrative, to give meaning to what, on more objective analysis, I would have to admit was an essentially random existence. Like an author foreshadowing significant events in a story, I give weight to certain memories, while suppressing others, to convince myself that my current situation is a point on a consciously planned journey, rather than the culmination of a series of individually insignificant choices that have gradually limited my options in ways I can only vaguely grasp.

Does it matter that my thoughts about the past may not entirely correspond with reality? Human memory is not a simple recording device; it is a dynamic psychological tool that allows us to adapt to the present and anticipate the future by utilising our processed experience. Excessive verisimilitude in our recollections can get in the way of efficient functioning, and a little mnemonic creativity is essential to our continued sanity.

One way to conceptualise the self is to see it as, at any given moment, the sum of the biographical memories that seem relevant to our present circumstances, the story we tell ourselves about who we are. We take the continuity of our self as a given, but our memory of who we were yesterday is under the control of our present selves, and we may distort it to preserve the illusion of stable identity. Of course we can observe that other people seem more or less the same from day to day, which may reassure us that we don’t change much either, but there is always the suspicion that the unconscious is our own personal Ministry of Truth.

Anyway, the conclusion that I draw from all this is that the past is gone and probably wasn’t how I remembered it anyhow, the future is uncertain and will take care of itself, and the best thing to do is just live in the now. I guess that’s why I never manage to get anything done. Maybe I should give up on the literary pretensions, and start writing self-help books instead.

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World Cup predictions revisited

July 15, 2010 by Leave a comment

Well now I’m back I guess I should catch up with what’s been going on…

Let’s see, what were my tips for the World Cup again?

  1. Brazil
  2. Germany
  3. Argentina
  4. Italy

And what was the result?

  1. Spain
  2. Netherlands
  3. Germany
  4. Uruguay

I should perhaps cross “professional sports gambler” off my list of alternative careers. I’ll admit that I was too quick to dismiss Spain’s chances after their opening defeat, but in my defence I’ll point out that no side had previously won the cup after losing their first game, and that Spain have a history of underperforming in big tournaments (apart of course from the last European Championship). I still can’t quite believe that Holland beat Brazil, and I suspect that the Brazilians feel likewise. At least I spotted that the Germans would do well.

Still, if football was predictable it wouldn’t be half as much fun to follow. It’s interesting that in the US high-scoring games, where the better teams almost always win, are popular, while most of the rest of the world favours low-scoring football, where the plucky underdog is always in with a chance (in one-off games at least; the cream does usually rise to the top over the course of a league season). I suppose that this reflects American political hegemony, and an underlying cultural preference for the maintenance of predictable power relations. Or maybe US sports fans are just too sensible to waste their time watching dull 90-minute 0-0 draws.

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Bastille Day 1989

July 14, 2010 by Leave a comment

I’ve been in Paris on Bastille Day on exactly one occasion, but it was a good one, 1989, the bicentennial of the French Revolution. I had read about the lavish festivities planned for the capital and had jumped on a bus more or less on a whim, with just a small bag and not much cash.

I ended up spending four nights sleeping rough on the streets, which was not as bad as it sounds, since the city was awash with young tourists too cheap to spring for accommodation, and the Gare du Nord in particular resembled a huge public dormitory. Not that I actually slept much, since it was pretty much a constant party, and every street urchin in the city seemed to have been issued with an unlimited supply of fireworks, which they gleefully discharged at all hours and locations.

The weather was fine, the crowds were good-humoured and the cops were (mostly) relaxed, so a good time was had by all. I watched the traditional military parade, and later saw President Mitterrand arrive to open the brand-new Opéra Bastille. While the great and good enjoyed the music inside, the sans-culottes partied outside until dawn. I fell asleep on the steps of the opera house, and was rudely awakened by the outbreak of a mini-riot, complete with bottle-throwing punks, volleys of tear-gas and a climatic charge by baton-wielding riot police which convinced me that discretion was the better part of valour.

The highlight of the celebrations was a grand parade on the Champs-Élysées, but the crowds were so dense that I couldn’t get closer than two blocks away, though I was able to watch it all on a giant TV screen (which was quite a novelty in those days). I wasn’t caring much by that point, as three days and nights of nearly ceaseless movement and intoxication had drained even my youthful energy, and by the next morning I was ready to collapse onto the bus for the long ride home.

I’ve been back to Paris numerous times since, and always had a great time, but I’ve never felt the city as energised as it was that week. If I’m still around in 2039 I’ll go back for the 250th anniversary. I may even stay up all night, just for old times’ sake.

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From Off the Streets of Cleveland

July 14, 2010 by Leave a comment

I’m just back from holiday, and I was going to leave it a while before I started blogging again, but I have been moved to action by the sad news of the passing of a true hero of the counter-culture, Harvey Pekar, of American Splendor fame.

I’m not usually one for vicarious grief, but I have been feeling genuinely cut-up since I heard that Harvey was dead. His work was personal and honest, sometimes painfully so, never glossing over his own character flaws, and it was hard to read it without getting to feel that you really knew the guy. Long before anyone had even dreamed of blogs, Harvey was there, documenting the daily grind of a lowly wage-slave, creating poetry from the rhythms of his blue-collar existence.

If you’re not familiar with American Splendor then visit your local comic-book store and pick up an anthology – the best one to start with is probably American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar which collects up the best of the early issues; also worth reading is Our Cancer Year, which chronicles Harvey’s experience of lymphoma – it is quite grim in parts, but ultimately positive. More recent comics can be found online at The Pekar Project. The 2003 biopic American Splendor was justly lauded by the critics, and Harvey also features in a segment of the 1988 documentary Comic Book Confidential (which was where I first came across his work). He appeared several times on the Letterman show in the late 80’s, until he fell out with the host after criticising NBC’s owners General Electric on air. He also recorded a series of opinion pieces for radio station WKSU, which can be listened to at their website.

Harvey’s work was based on the idea that the lives and experiences of ordinary people, living through good times and bad with their family, friends and community, were worth recording, and would tell the story of our times more accurately than more conventional histories. As he said, “Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff”, and few have captured it better than he did in the pages of American Splendor.

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Preternatural Greenies

June 17, 2010 by Leave a comment

This article, written by our occasional arts correspondent Olivia, was posted well over a year ago, but it still gets a steady flow of hits, mainly from people searching Google for some combination of “Second”, “Life” and “Greenies”.

Most of the Rezzable sims reviewed in Olivia’s piece disappeared from the main SL grid last year, and have since taken up residence on Open Sim, but the Greenies Home hung in there, still drawing in the crowds with its whimsical charm.

But now an era is drawing to a close as the loveable little aliens prepare to blast off for pastures new. Is this an omen? There are many stories of animals mysteriously sensing impending natural disasters, such as these reports from Sri Lanka of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. Perhaps our diminutive green friends have forseen the coming apocalypse, and are getting out while their Linden dollars are still worth something.

I too shall be disappearing, but only temporarily, as I venture out of the range of 3G and WiFi for a summer break. I’ll be back in a few weeks, to find out if Second Life is still around for me to write about.

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World Cup predictions

June 17, 2010 by Leave a comment

I know it’s cheating to make predictions after the tournament has started, and I’ll admit that if I had written this last week I would probably have tipped Spain a bit more strongly, but here’s my forecast anyhow:

  1. Brazil
  2. Germany
  3. Argentina
  4. Italy

I’m not really going out on a limb I guess, but class tends to come good at this level.

Again, last week I would have said England would go out in the quarter-finals, but, having watched them toil to draw with the USA, I seriously doubt they will make it out of the group.

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Après le déluge

June 15, 2010 by 3 Comments

Having spent rather too much time over the last few days reading all the web has to offer on the subject of the Linden layoffs, I can report that the consensus view is somewhat downbeat. If blogger opinion is at all authoritative (and what reason is there to distrust the gaggle of ill-informed scribblers who make up the SL chatterati?) the future of the grid is grim indeed.

I am inclined to agree with this viewpoint; M Linden may talk of a carefully planned reorganisation, but I’m sure such restructuring would be best carried out by quiet redeployment and natural wastage, especially if, as M claims, there was no financial pressure driving the cuts. Instead we have had a headline-grabbing massacre which has spooked the very customers who M himself has identified as being key to the Lab’s revenue model. I can’t imagine that many people will be making long-term investments in Second Life until the smoke clears and the future of the platform looks more certain.

I find myself looking upon the prospect of Second Life‘s demise with a certain degree of equanimity though. As I have previously expressed, I believe that much of the attraction of metaversal life lies not in the rather mundane virtuality of the grid itself, but in the intellectual space of the community that has grown up around it. Perhaps that community will disperse if and when the world dies, but the years of Second Life‘s existence may just have been long enough to build a critical mass of text and links that will allow the spirit of SL to outlive its physical manifestation. Like the myths of Ancient Greece or the poems of Rimbaud, the Second Life experience will serve as an inspiration for future exploration of the mysteries of human consciousness.

Though probably not. Our attention spans attenuated by the onslaught of ubiquitous media, we’ll likely be blogging and tweeting about the next new shiny thing within minutes of Linden Lab pulling down the shutters. So it’s probably best to enjoy the ride while we can.

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