Second Life’s Social Policy
After some live demos of interesting Second Life apps at BarCampLeeds and a few interesting questions from fellow Yorkie John Holmes about whether there was anything more than hyperbole in the Guardian’s two page spread on virtual worlds this weekend, I thought I’d better finally get round to properly checking out Second Life to see what the fuss is about.
My view has long been that I am sure that virtual worlds hold great potential, but at the moment the investment of time needed to get up running on a platform like Second Life is still too high for truly mass usage to be a possibility. After setting myself up Second Life, I can see that the investment of money needed should not be underestimated too: my nearly new MacBook Pro struggles a little at times to keep pace and no other application I use sends the cooling fans whirring so regularly! Moreover, after a few hours wandering around I can’t say I was anything other than moderately entertained by the whole thing, not least because linden dollars - the Second Life currency which can be bought using real world dollars or earned by selling goods to other Second Life citizens - are needed for just about anything of real interest. (Indeed, it seems that in the Second Life, income poverty is as exclusionary as in the first life.)
All this, I guess, is what I expected. What came as a real surprise though was the representation of the welfare state in Second Life. After mastering the basics of Second Life (choosing hair style, deciding whether to have baggy or tight fit jeans, making my avatar taller and thiner than the real me etc…) I searched for some popular places to hang out and right there in the top five most popular destinations was ‘Welfare Island’. The promise of some modest assistance appealed, not least because as a new character with no linden dollars I couldn’t actually get up to much fun.
Now, having long ago dipped into Howard Rheingold’s work on virtual communities, I thought that some of that old hippy counter culture spirit might still be alive and well in Welfare Island: some support for new comers perhaps or friendly support at least. I couldn’t have been more wrong. If Welfare Island is indicative of Second Life’s culture then it is way off the scale on the right hand side of the social policy spectrum.
First off, the ‘Welfare Office’ on Welfare Island pays out money not on the basis of entitlements or need but through ‘Welfare ATMs’. No social contract here, but a cash machine that dishes out dollars in an indiscriminate manner to anyone who turns up looking for them. This is pretty bold anti-welfare imagery, but is only the start, with visitors told they can ‘make more money on Welfare Island than anywhere else on Second Life’. Welfare is described in terms of ‘free money’, the ‘easy way to earn linden’ or ‘handouts’. An Uncle Sam like figure (Uncle Sands) appears regularly (a figure of the state’s beneficence?) and exhorative proclamations to ‘get off those camping chairs stupid’ and learn how to ‘make it out of the ghetto’ by actively seeking more welfare payments rather than ’standing in line’ fly at your character from all directions.
Added to this, welfare has no dignity in Second Life. Welfare payments are never a right, but are offered in exchange for some activity. For the most part this is filling in marketing surveys. I guess this could be seen as some sort of work-for-the-dole style system, but the labeling of recipients with the phrase ‘I’m on Welfare’ above their head doesn’t do much to alter the view that it’s some kind of punishment. Worse still, the main alternatives on offer revolve even stricter control and degradation of the recipient of welfare: dancing for cash with ‘I’m on welfare’ above your head for instance or, staggeringly, the offer of $75L for users taking a picture of themselves holding a piece of paper with one of these phrases written on it:
- I’m On Welfare !!
- I’m a Welfare Millionaire !!!
- Welfare Island Rocks !!!
- Welfare Pays !
- Welfare Island Supports Me!!
- Uncle Sands Rocks !!!
- Uncle Sands Paid Me !!!
Note: these are pictures of actual users and NOT their avatars. These pictures are to be used, at some stage, on the island’s own web site at www.WelfareIsland.com, presumably as a marketing campaign, though no sign of them at the time of writing. Amazingly, users are told ‘You will get paid *BONUS* Linden for creativity. Examples: Dressing as a Hobbo’. Fucking hell - did the love-child of Charles Murray and Margaret Thatcher design this island?!?! I won’t even hazard a guess as to why the main social area of the island is a bar called the ‘Stoned Crow’…
Now, if it’s only a game, perhaps none of this matters and I am not one for making simple virtual world gaming equals real world problems links. (After all, I love stealing cars, shooting people and causing mayhem in Grand Theft Auto, but wouldn’t say boo to a goose in the real world.) But if Second Life has aspirations to be a genuine (virtual) community, what does it say that so many Second Life users draw linden dollars from an island that completely trashes the welfare state and takes cheap shots at the poor? There are rules in place in Second Life to protect the social fabric of the virtual world: the first thing I tried to do on being landed into Second Life was fly someone’s helicopter - a natural action in GTA! - only to be prevented from so doing because I didn’t own it, so it’s not like anything goes there. In other words, a virtual ’state’ of sorts exists, but it is a minimal state and the idea of welfare is only there to be scoffed at.
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of scoffing of course, but welfare island isn’t sophisticated political satire, it’s just weak cover for a marketing operation. Indeed, there is a good reason for the minimal state in Second Life: it is so much more than a game for the owners of Second Life and the real world companies - such as Welfare Island - who have ambitions to develop profitable real world companies within the Second Life platform. Second Life citizens need linden dollars to do pretty much anything in Second Life (including developing their own personality by buying new outfits etc and buying land and property in order to properly join a community). If they have real world dollars they can exchange them for linden dollars. If they don’t, then tough: you start with $0L and will have to get yourself off to Welfare Island to get yourself up and running. Desperate citizens will stoop low: they will fill in marketing surveys that they wouldn’t otherwise fill in that will lead to real world profiling and mail shots; they will offer their own real world image up to the Welfare Island company for future real world marketing campaigns; and, they will generally waste their time in a hived off portion of the Second Life game performing stunts for linden dollars so they can access the regular parts of Second Life they really want to be in. I guess that if all citizens started off with $1,000L then very few would need to buy more linden dollars from Second Life’s founders and companies like Welfare Island wouldn’t exist at all.
In short, at first glance Second Life looks a pretty mean spirited place and its institutions (i.e. rules) foster this spirit in order to drive profit. A far cry from the virtual utopia that some present or the value laden community celebrated in earlier literature on virtual communities.
