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: Monday Memory
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Well, I wish this snarky meme I made last year, explaining Second Life's strange connection to the 2024 presidential election, was quaintly out of date, but that was sadly not to be. In the news from just the last few days, we have: Donald Trump Names XRP, SOL, ADA, BTC and ETH as Part of…
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Similar to how Nettrice Gaskins was creating AI-based visual art years before Midjourney and such, adaptive music/sound artist Robert Thomas was leveraging machine learning last decade, including this amazing 2019 project for the LA Philharmonic: "Parag Mital made a browser which let [us] search through hundreds of terabytes of material, to be able to hear different…
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Here's a fun watch to start the week: My chat with Social Autopoiesis, one of the very first AI-powered bots to run in Second Life… from 2007. And while Convai's new bots developed with Linden Lab promise to transform the virtual world, acting as helpers to confused users, it's worth remembering Social Autopoiesis was created…
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Above: The face of Dr. King shines from the virtual sun upon an anti-fascist protest against Front National in Second Life In early 2007, in the run-up to Martin Luther King Jr. day in the US, Second Life was wracked by protests against Front National, the leading far right party in France, which decided to…
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Similar to how an 86 year old Black blues guitarist convinced me of Second Life's (and by extension, all successful metaverse platforms) sustained power as a diverse creative community, the experiences of an 85 year old woman back in 2013 further convinced me of the importance of virtual worlds for senior citizens: This is Fran,…
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"We're Not Ready For An Era Where People Prefer Virtual Experiences To Real Ones" is a classic post from 2012, citing an important just released study: Co-authored last year by leading virtual world academic Edward Castronova [it] suggests that people get more happiness from being in Second Life than they do from good news in their…
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Video by Toxic Menges From Charles Bristol's Metaverse Blues: 87 Year Old Bluesman Becomes Avatar-Based Musician In Second Life (2009): When Charles Bristol was born in 1921, the electric guitar did not exist, and slavery was a living memory still, related to him by grandparents who worked beneath the lash themselves. But as fate would…
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In 2010's "What Rebecca Learned By Being A Second Life Man" recounts a young woman's experience roleplaying as a hot male avatar in the virtual world dating scene: … she had her own challenges in this male form: "I kept thinking to myself, 'How do guys talk? What am I suppose to say?'" Again, her…
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From "Sander's Villa: The Man Who Gave His Father A Second Life" (2011): As death approached, the artist’s son did an extraordinary thing: He began to build a place that would live on after his father, made with particles of light. That is to say, Sander Vos logged into Second Life, and made a gallery…
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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 