Are Second Life Users Different?

So, is SL a right leaning game? I don’t think so. I think it is one of the more left leaning ‘games’ around.

How do we get past opinion and personal experience to decide? Looking at groups:

  • 34 Results for “socialist” in Groups
  • 31 Results for “communist” in Groups
  • 77 Results for “liberal” in Groups
  • 4 Results for “left wing” in Groups
  • 417 Results for “progressive” in Groups
  • 17 Results for “free market” in Groups
  • 14 Results for “capitalist” in Groups
  • 42 Results for “conservative” in Groups
  • Search for “right wing” did not return any matches
  • 302 Results for “politics” in Groups

My search for groups was not that informative. Looking at the search results shows the same group in multiple searches, so I can’t just add group numbers. There are numerous non-political uses of the search terms. The garbage would need to be weeded out to find any meaning in the numbers.

Then there is the matter of group membership, number of members. It was too much work to total up groups and membership counts. Also, I’m not sure what it would actually tell us. Is the Furry Communist Party having 28 members saying something about communist ideology? And does one or the other political class tend to join more groups? I think we would have to compare names in each group to eliminate members in multiple groups.

I haven’t thought of any EASY way to determine the political orientation of the majority of Second Life users.

Then there is the problem of who is exhibiting the bad behavior. Which group do they belong to?

So, while I can have an opinion, whether it is an actual factor in SL users exhibiting more vitriolic responses or not, I can’t know. I do think much bad behavior is rooted in people thinking they know something that has yet to be determined.

The only thing we do know is there are a number of people that have an experience of SL being the most vitriolic ‘game’ going.

But, can we get the ‘vitriol’ thing in perspective? I don’t experience hate in SL that often. Nor do I have a flood of hateful comments coming into my blog or in the SL forum. Even in the SL group chats I seldom see hateful responses. Still I’ve experienced more bad behavior in SL than in other places.

So, if I see one bad act in another game and two in SL in the same time frame, is SL twice as bad? Mathematically, yes. But really? Is either enough to be a concern? No. If one is experiencing daily bad encounters, why? What are they doing that exposes them to that behavior? Blogging? That could do it. But, I don’t experience that.

In general I ban those exhibiting bad behavior and intellectual dishonesty from my comments and mute for similar reasons in SL. So, I have little to deal with now. In seven plus years that is less than a dozen people.

I find it odd that many of the most hateful, rude responses come when I am attempting to help someone. I presume there is a frustration factor at work in the rude person’s response. Those people I just walk away from. I assume they will get over it. Plus, I am often the one that knows how to solve their problem, which is why I joined the conversation. My leaving means they will often be left to stew in their problem, which is kinda satisfying.

Summary

So, are Second Life users any different than the players of other games? Do more of a certain type of player gravitate to SL?

When we narrow those questions to consider just the more likely to respond with vitriol, the most accurate thing we can say is: based on personal experience, I think so. Yes.

But, we can’t know based on the information we have.

2 thoughts on “Are Second Life Users Different?

  1. One thing I’ve learned after all these years in world… Second Life is the insane asylum of the internet.

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