From my experiences interviewing all of the lovely people on the Seychelles island in Second Life, I have come to the conclusion that you can indeed find a cosmopolitan canopy on this island. Cosmopolitan canopies are all about different types of people coming together. Nearly everyone I talked to on the island (see the above interviews…) told me that you can meet all sorts of different types of people at Seychelles. I think that Second Life makes it even easier for a cosmopolitan canopy to develop. It is much easier for a cosmopolitan canopy to form in a virtual community than it is for it to form in a physical one because in a virtual community, people are not afraid to be whoever they want to be. They have no restrictions. They feel freer to be themselves. Whereas in a physical community, people are not as willing to branch out and be who they truly want to be. The only thing holding this island back from becoming even more of a cosmopolitan canopy would be the language barrier. I suppose that this would be true for any situation, though. Mostly only French speaking peoples come to the island, because very little of other languages are spoken there. In order for this to truly be a diverse place where people from all over the world to congregate, the language barrier must be breached.
During my time at the island of Seychelles on Second Life, I had many interesting experiences and learned a lot of things about different people and their cultures, and most importantly their languages! I have decided to post some of my field notes from this experience. I first conducted a visual sweep of the island, and I’ll tell a little bit about the island overall. Hope you enjoy reading them!
Upon entering the island of Seychelles, it took me a moment to get my bearings, but I soon came to find that there were a lot of people who seemed friendly there. There appeared to be one area where all the visitors mainly congregated. The large campfire is where many of the residents of the island stand around and talk with each other. There are many other areas on the island, some with interactive objects like boats or other vehicles, but people are hardly ever seen out there.
Also, there appears to be quite a few places on the island where there are private areas, perhaps for more intimate interactions between the residents, even though that is discouraged on the island. I, personally, never saw any of these interactions, nor did anyone mention these things to me unless I asked about them specifically, but those areas have to be there for a reason, right?
Overall, the island has a bright and friendly atmosphere. It is very bright and colorful. It seems like a great place to relax and forget about the real world, which is one of the things that draws people to Second Life in the first place, or so I’m told by the residents at Seychelles.
Many were willing to help out with the interview questions, but some soon lost interest in answering. Also, I noticed that while talking to the people and asking them questions, they were very particular about the language that I used. I would tell them that I was an American student, but still they would often correct my French or ask me to ask the question in a different way.
It seems that people are buzzing about Apple in the realm of technology these days. This is hardly surprising; when are people not buzzing about every single thing that Apple does? However, what did surprise me is that scrolling down the CNN Technology webpage, four out of the first seven articles were all about Apple.
It appears as though even without it’s CEO and founder, Steve Jobs, Apple is still going strong. They nearly doubled their profits last quarter thanks to “stronger-than-expected” iPhone sales. I’m not sure why anyone would be shocked by this, though. Whenever Apple comes out with a new product, whether it be a new version of the iPhone, iPad or iPod, customers around the world flock to stores to buy it. Even if the product weren’t very good (which rarely happens), people would still buy it because it’s an Apple product. The iPad rose quickly in the ranks and is now Apple’s best-selling product.
So what does this mean for consumers? Is Apple taking over the world? Are their products really the best, or is it just the brand name that we like? Are other technological companies going to go bankrupt because Apple is outselling them? These are the questions that I think about when scrolling through a technology webpage and seeing so many articles about Apple…
Between Shadow and Light 