Wagner James Au / New World Notes
Author, strategist, virtual world reporter
recent posts
- Welcome to New World Notes’ 2006-2025 Archive!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
- Top Five Posts Including: Huge Rec Room Layoff & Meta Boots Neal Stephenson Off Facebook (Briefly)
- Four Glorious Second Life Sims to Explore — After Watching Sabina Valeska’s Machinima Tributes to Them!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
about
Category: Avatars and Identity
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With news that Meta's Horizon Worlds metaverse platform is finally coming to mobile in the run-up to next month's Meta Connect developer conference, here's an excerpt from Making a Metaverse That Matters on the fundamental mistakes Meta is still making in its approach to avatars — including insights from Second Life co-founder Cory Ondrejka, who…
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PANEL 1 Richard Bartle, MMO/virtual world pioneer, has been playing around with Midjourney lately, and was curious how the AI image generator would visually interpret MMO avatars across the decades: "I went to Midjourney and gave it the following prompt: 'character from [name] MMORPG //photorealistic –ar 2:4", where [name] is the name of a past…
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While trolls recently griefing a Second Life flag with a trans flag may have the new-ish twist of adding pro-Russia propaganda, reader "yup" notes that antit-trans trolling is a constantly occurring issue in the virtual world: Sadly these anti-trans trolls infiltrate everywhere in Second Life too and they target trans places since awhile. They are…
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This has been hinted at for months and even accidentally popped up on the test grid recently, but Linden Lab finally launched new starting mesh-based avatars and a "customize your new avatar" mini-game-type experience (similar to what you get at the start of The Sims franchise) for new users right on the homepage: We're excited…
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The Screen Actors Guild strike is now in full throttle, with artificial intelligence a key component of the walk-out. (SAG rejected a proposal by Hollywood studios to create and own AI versions of actors in perpetuity without compensation.) Inevitably, that's caused some AI evangelists to wonder: Do we even need human actors any more at…
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Back in March we had our first in-depth preview of Life by You, the new life simulation game by ex-Linden Lab CEO / former EA/Sims lead Rod Humble, now here's a granular look at its avatar customization features — bodies and clothing above, more below (with an emphasis on facial characterization). It's a great look…
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Pretty much the moment after the latest trailer to Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie dropped, SLers have been taking the official meme generator, and uploading pics of their avatar to it. Here's a gallery of some so far on Cajsa's Flickr gallery, which — Second Life being Second Life — may be a bit edgier than…
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Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting Cecilia Nansen has created a special photo album offering her photographic tributes to her favorite authors and a favorite photographer. I didn’t need her description to recognize the iconic features of Virginia Woolf. She even captures how Woolf seemed to be looking…
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Since TikTok Can Turn Users Into Avatarized Versions of Themselves, Will the Proteus Effect Kick In?
, As a general rule, when people create a virtual world avatar for themselves, most tend to opt for a conventionally idealized version of their offline selves — younger, more symmetrical, in better shape, and so on. Basically, hotter. TikTok, everyone's favorite social media app controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, has taken that to…
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It's a common misconception that virtual worlds are a safe escape from our offline prejudices. This is sometimes true but often not the case. In fact, the anonymous nature of metaverse platforms and other virtual worlds can make expressions of racism worse – especially when avatars are based around a realistic human model. Our best…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 