Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Writing about the new homeless camp in Hangars Liquides last week reminded me of another instance of virtual homelessness in Second Life as a political statement — back in 2006, at the peak of SL hype, NBC (yes as in the actual Saturday Night Live/The Office/30 Rock etc. TV network), owned a Second Life sim modeled after the company's headquarters in New York, even holding a Christmas tree lighting event there like they do in the real world every year.  But when I visited the sim, I came across a figure who'd be sadly familiar in real Manhattan, but was brilliantly out of place in the virtual world — a homeless kid squatting on the sidewalk, begging for change:

It had been built to promote the television network owned by General Electric, but last night when I went to take a screenshot of their New York City ice rink and their lit-up Christmas tree, he was already there, silently using NBC's site in Second Life for a purpose of his own.  I said hello several times, but the thin frail kid said nothing– though if you clicked on his cardboard box, an automated message told you he was collecting Linden Dollar donations for a Spanish NGO to help the real world's poor.   (And if you're going to do that in an online world, why not do so in a virtual recreation of the world's richest city?)

Read about it here, and watch the NGO's trailer for the project below. I really miss these moments of serendipity and ideas clashing with each other in the virtual world — reminding us that Second Life wasn't always just a shopping and fashion social game, as it mostly seems to have devolved into now.