“Ahem.. excuse me! Can I have the attention of the class for one second?” ~ Eminem
Grace has volleyed up some interesting questions that I’ve been personally wrestling with since the dawn of Salome. Well, before, actually, but never quite as intimately as with Salome.
In the world of new media, where reincarnation, re-branding, and re-invention are sometimes just a few clicks away, what is the value of a virtual identity? The more I examine this issue and read the input of others, the more I can’t help wondering if it’s the right conversation to be having at this point about where we are as Second Life citizens. Are we allowing ourselves to be pushed to a level of theoretical discussion that just breezes over the issue of who is demanding our identity and what rights they have to assign value to us or anything else in the dysfunctional playground where nothing seems ready for the big show? Are we being co-opted by our own intellectualism, milked for a sense of outrage to distract us from asking the simplest questions about who the people are behind the curtains and what are they doing about the existing problems before creating new ones and what rights do they have to our information?
Background: Grace’s post branches organically from the tree of Wallace Linden’s somewhat clumsy post addressing the management of virtual identity. Shock and awe, a week to the day of Wallace’s “things that make you go hmmm” style post, Linden Lab announced their acquisition of Avatars United. An acquisition that Grace points out comes with its own share of clumsiness.
It’s getting to the point where sighing and highlighting Linden Labs failure is feeling a bit like picking on the slow kid at recess. But, ironically, many of us seem to be in this abusive relationship with the slow kid. He kicks the ball over by us, we take it back to him all big smiles and friendliness and he knocks us down for our trouble. It’s all Lucy and Charlie Brown practicing place kicks. “What? You trusted us? AGAIN? You really are a blockhead.” Good grief.
So it really doesn’t shock me, nor do I think it shocks anyone, that Linden Labs fumbles their user base again. I keep thinking of the World of Warcraft episode of South Park where the Blizzard executives are trying to hand off an in-world item to a player only to discover none of them actually have accounts or play the game. “I don’t have a World of Warcraft character! I have a life!” More and more, this feels like how Linden Labs also views its users. They are making SL, but they’re not of SL. Virtual identities are just their business tools — their DBAs — their stage names. I don’t know that any of them tie themselves into a virtual identity the way many of us do. They certainly do not seem plugged into the issues that matter to their users. To some extent, of course, there is always a betrayal of the first generation of early adapters. The shucking off takes place when most start-ups edge into the mainstream. In theory, this happens to homogenize things for a bigger audience. The one SL keeps chasing and never quite catching.
But it’s a disservice to dwell just on the usual SL fail side of this particular issue, because the concept of value based on a virtual identity is, actually something even virtual lifers disagree on. I touched on this in a previous post where I addressed an ex-acquaintance calling me untrustworthy because I do not publicly attach my RL identity to Salome.
My own feelings on the issue are a bit schizophrenic.
On one hand, I get exhausted by the endless stream of lackluster twattle that tries to pass itself off as professional grade in SL. The reality is that the majority of SL businesses, media, artists, etc. are all just hobbyists playing at being qualified for the tasks they take on. Much of it is self-absorbed and self-promoting on a level that is just shy of repulsive and it’s as vulgar in these ways as it is unexamined and unchallenged. When you cast too bright a light in most corners, the paint is peeling, or is simply a primer base that never got its final coat.
But for 95% of SL, that’s okay. It doesn’t matter if the talk show host is a self-centered nit who doesn’t research their guests or have so much as a basic grasp of new media issues. It doesn’t matter if the musician’s manager is just a “look at me” credit hog who does nothing beyond a little digital paperwork. It doesn’t matter if the news is brought to you by sensationalistic creeps or shills that regurgitate the shiny happy corporatespeak.
It doesn’t matter because no one is asking you to take them at more than their presented worth. No one is forcing you to watch or read or use their services. So their credentials are based on a brand in a virtual world. And their brand is what you get to take or leave. There’s nothing wrong with that.
To that end, the services most people are seeking in SL aren’t that major. Just like most services in RL aren’t all that major. Amid getting all riled up about identity, ask yourself, what have you ever engaged in in SL where a RL name, resume, etc. would matter? Then ask yourself how much does it even matter in RL?
We all like to think that we do full research on anyone and everyone we hire or do business with, but in reality, most people in RL don’t jump through huge hoops for the great majority of our daily transactions. It’s all first impression and luck. You pick a name out of a phone book (okay, Google search these days, but you get my point), you call, if the person talks a good game, you let them fix your sink. You get the number of a teenager from a friend and let her babysit your kids. Maybe you run a Google for the important stuff. But you hand over your credit card every day to god knows who behind the counter of Store X and Restaurant Y. The vast majority of service agreements and exchanges in RL boil down to the word of a friend, a good phone impression, the tidiness of a uniform, the brand name of a franchise. Even in some of the “important” institutions and practices of RL, this is the case. Most people get away with overpumped resumes because employers don’t bother to check all references. The package, the brand, the haircut, the suit, the ease of conversation — in most cases these will take the place of established credibility. Anyone who plays office politics will tell you it’s not usually the work horse that gets the rewards, it’s the person who sells themselves to the right people in the right way.
Few people in SL will render services that require access to your credit card, your home, or your real identity. So why this push for unnecessary transparency? Why are we so uncomfortable taking people at avatar value? Is it to do with the trust we have in others, or the trust we have in ourselves to do our due diligence when the time comes?
Unlike most people, I have no issue taking someone at what they present to me. I have every right to ask, research, and examine every relationship (personal or professional) to the limits of good taste. That is my responsibility. If a person has kept themselves private, then I will temper my interaction with them accordingly. If I want to get to know the person, I will. If I feel I need more information before engaging in any sort of business project with them, I’ll tell them. How they respond will dictate how things progress.
A great deal of Second Life residents and businesses are fringe or unpolished. But there are also actual professionals that work and play within the format. Generally they’re not loud, showboating posers. They’re too busy doing stuff to care about make-believe celebrity or fisking a handful of L$ out of consumers that are too lazy to become educated consumers. It’s a frontier society, so you have the shadows and the light.
But RL names and identities aren’t going to add anything to that pool that isn’t already there. That’s not how society works with new media. Not in SL. Not anywhere. A guy named Justin on twitter posts things his 70-something Dad supposedly says. It’s entertaining, so no one cares who Justin really is other than a few media types looking for a human interest story. But Justin’s brand reaches over a million people every time he tweets, not counting what goes viral when those people forward to others. Most of those million probably couldn’t even tell you that Justin was the guy’s name without checking first. They don’t care what his last name is — he entertains them. They don’t hand over anything to him he doesn’t earn with the name “Justin.”
There are a handful of cases where RL identities matter and they all have one thing in common: the point where something virtual finds its way into someone’s meat space life. At that point its the responsibility of the parties involved to engage in proper disclosure, or, if legal procedures are involved, for everyone to cooperate in good faith to resolve issues. Beyond that point, debates about credibility and the value of identity feel like distractions. Important theoretical avenues to pause and consider while we wander down Alpha Ralpha Boulevard, but not the crux of the matter.
The fundamental issue for me is the fact that most of Second Life is not ready for prime time because the format and company brand are not on par with what professionals demand of anything they invest their valuable time into. Before Linden Labs can seriously begin to float concepts into its user base on issues like identity and professional integrity, they need to get their own house in order, present themselves with credibility and professionalism, and show that they can offer a product that invites real professionals to the table. Until then, the theoretical discussions are that of a lot of small time vaudevillians dreaming of becoming Ziegfeld headliners. They’re distracted from the quality of their own offerings because the dreams of the big time shine too bright in their eyes.
I know a few people like Grace in-world who have the teeth and RL background — they can lay down resumes that would make your head spin. The vast majority of these people aren’t about putting their ego and their credentials on their forehead and making you call them Doctor. They don’t chase approval or applause. They certainly have little interest in the celebrity of a make-believe world. They want to explore, create, connect, develop on their own terms. And none of that requires their credit cards, their corporate resumes, or their driver’s licenses.
Their world. Their imagination. Their brand. Their value.
What do I think? I think virtual identity value is an important issue and it merits exploring, but I don’t want to stop holding Linden Labs’ heels to the fire and giving them a pass just because they’re trying to wedge us into the right corner.
Making us register identities, demanding our transparency, these issues aren’t about credibility. These are things that make us sexy to the business world on a consumer level. They want our information, our demographics, our names and our spending habits. And they’re right to want those things. They’re a business, they need collateral assets — and our consumer information is a big part of that.
But once we give it up, that’s the show. Our bargaining chips are gone. It’s all iPad downhill from then on. They give, we consume, and those are the options. There is a small window here for us to be smart consumers and leverage our value by protecting our identities and making them improve their products before locking us into billing cycles.
That’s the value this conversation isn’t addressing. Maybe I’m too cynical, but the more I see where the theoretical conversations take us, the less strength I see us consolidating as a community to demand a better product. That troubles me more than what the RL identity of the avatar next to me is, or what the credentials of the avatar that textured my shoes happen to be.
Have the distractions of intellectualism, drama, and indifference rendered the educated consumer a thing of the past? As such, is our only real value left that of how much we consume, how fast and how quietly we do so?
