Pixel flesh matters

Here's my August column for AVENUE magazine. Photography this month is by Annough Lykin and features Canary Beck's KamaSutra Exotic Dance and Strip club.

I’ve mentioned in the past that one of the biggest obstacles to acceptance of SL by the mainstream is the ‘snigger factor’ (or, I suppose, ‘snicker’ factor, if you insist on using the US vernacular).  Often well-meaning people, when handed the topic of Second Life® in conversation, can’t help but struggle to suppress a smile at the thought of people conducting at least a portion of their social affairs in an online world.  The phrase, “get a life” is usually nearby, lurking in thoughts if not actually spoken.  That an SL® resident can potentially meet and interact with more people from a wider range of continents in a week than non-residents might in a year (during the hours they spend watching television) is a detail often lost on them.

Building matters

Due to some technical difficulties, the July issue of AVENUE magazine was a little late.  Here's my column, and this month photography is by Brie Wonder, who is one of my very favourite SL photographers.  Brie's pictures are of my very own - never released - furniture range that I talk about in the column.

Incidentally, this month's issue runs a feature - STAND4LOVE - with photography from one of my other all-time SL favourites - Paola Tauber.  Well worth checking out.

In recent months, I’ve not been around in Second Life® all that much.  It’s not so much that I’m fed up with it, as it is to do with having RL projects that require my attention, although it certainly wouldn’t be true to say that SL hadn’t lost its zing somehow.  We all suffer cases of SL fatigue from time to time, some of which – as I’ve discussed previously in this column – can turn out to be fatal to our second lives.  In my case, I decided it was time for an RL sabbatical.  After nearly five years of life as Huck, I expected the withdrawal to be horrendous, but it turns out it was actually pretty easy.  Then again, it wasn’t as though I’d committed myself to leaving for good.  And leaving has its upsides: for starters, I don’t have to keep putting off the organisation of my inventory any more.