I began a second adventure in Taiwan tonight. It was around 11:00 and I began my search for users by following my regular routine of searching the map for green dot clusters and teleporting until I found users who seemed open to conversation. The first several minutes of my journey yielded no results. After teleporting to my 5th location, I ended up in an empty building selling SL houses and land. There was a cat there named Romeo and I allowed my avatar (who now resembled a wood elf) to sadly pet the creature.
I continued teleporting, determined to find a person. I finally came across a cluster in the south and teleported to what looked like a club. Throughout my journey, I ended up in mostly clubs for people to romantically meet each other and places that looked a little like casinos so I wasn’t alarmed at the place and the people seemed to be very friendly. However, I noticed the sign was a women’s only club and my avatar being male, I decided to stay outside.
This was a good decision, coincidentally, since I found a user sitting out on the dock. Her avatar looked like a ferret or a small cat so I decided to say that she looked very cool and I asked if it was ok if I asked her a few questions for my class. I gave her the option of remaining anonymous and our conversation went a little like this:
[20:38] huxleybnw8: Well to begin with, how long have you been on Second Life? What’s your favorite thing about it?
[20:39] User: Wow… Uhm…Since 2009, 2010?
[20:40] User: As for what I like most about Secondlife, I think honestly the people.
[20:40] User: You find all these various people from all over the world.
[20:41] huxleybnw8: Cool. 🙂 Is it hard talking to people and making friends?
[20:42] User: It can be, but, unlike RL, you’re a bit freer here.. Since you have a shield to hide behind. But, like RL, you got bad people here.
[20:43] huxleybnw8: What kind of “bad” people? Like, what do they do?
[20:44] User: You got like griefers, who seem to get their rocks off making others miserable. And you just have people who… Are just jerks.
[20:44] huxleybnw8: How do you handle those people?
[20:45] User: With griefers, you hope they don’t do anything permanent to your avatar, and get away from them, or hope the region staff get rid of them asap.
[20:46] User: As for the others… Ignore them. Mute them. Or complain to the staff. if you feel it’s warranted
[20:47] huxleybnw8: What can the griefers do? Like, how do they do things to your avatar?
[20:48] User: There is coding that can do things like lock up your avatar, or distort how they look, or a myriad of other things.
[20:49] huxleybnw8: D: That’s scary.
[20:49] huxleybnw8: Do you have recommendations to new users who want to meet people?
[20:50] User: Yeah.. And some of the stuff you can get here if you know where to look. Like Wishmaster. Which is why it’s frowned upon
[20:50] User: As for meeting people, WELL, if you’re a female avatar, THIS place is awesome for meeting people. They’re friendly here.
[20:51] huxleybnw8 whispers: Last question 🙂
[20:51] huxleybnw8: Could youtell me about this place then? Do you come here often? Anything about it really.
[20:52] User: It’s a dance club, great music, great people, lots of fun.
[20:53] huxleybnw8: Cool 🙂
[20:53] huxleybnw8: That’s all the questions.
[20:53] User: All right.
[20:53] huxleybnw8: Thank you so much for talking with me. 🙂
The user preferred to remain anonymous. Overall, it was an exciting experience to interact with one of the users for the first time.

huxleybnw8 at the women’s club