From Draxtor Despres, a 2007 video of the CSI Promotion of Second Life, "The new mainstream media tie-in, a 'who dunnit' virtual game coming to Second Life is an interesting marriage of old and new.
The Electric Sheep Company releases a special SL browser for the occasion and merges the Metaverse with a successful TV show: is this a new era of growth for SL or the death of all (sub) culture? Are corporate brands taking over?
CSI NY detectives say that if you die in the METAVERSE you die in REAL LIFE as well .... oh boy, and I thought Second Life was just a game?"
Last month, the longtime running fantasy drama "Game of Thrones" concluded after eight seasons. To those not familiar with the show, it had a darker and grittier feel than traditional fantasy stories, one person calling it a cross of "The Sopranos" and Middle Earth, due to the political intrigue in the stories. While many longtime fans disliked the final season, Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 55% rating compared to the 97% to 91% of the previous seven, there's no denying it's mass appeal over the years as well as it's impact on popular culture.
As it turns out, the writer of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" books the series was based on, George R.R. Martin, made an appearance in Second Life in May 2007. This was before the first season of the show had aired. Martin, whom was in an avatar based on his character Tyrion, was there to talk about his upcoming book "Dreamsongs," which was a collection of earlier works of his. The visit inworld was part of his campaign to publicize the work. But he also read an excerpt of the still unpublished fifth book of his "Ice and Fire" series, "A Dance With Dragons." The audience was a mix of human and nonhuman avatars, which Martin called a "strange-looking crowd." On his blog, he would call Second Life, "... well, sort of like World of Warcraft without the axes, swords, and monsters. Our world, kinda sorta, virtually. ... I've never done a reading with monsters in the audience before, at least not the sort you could tell my looking at 'em"
Besides part of the hour-long event appearing in a Youtube (there was another, but it was lost), there's a transcript of it on "The Citadel," a fan website of the show and stories. It's notable that "Dance of Dragons" wouldn't be published until July 2011, almost four years after the event. Someone remarked in the comments of the video, "So he has time to ponce about in sh***y online games to a motley
assortment of furries and losers, but not write the damn book he was
supposed to finish years ago?"
Martin talked some about writing, saying J.R. Tolkien was an inspiration of his. He also compared writing a novel to a cross-country trip. You know where you started, you know where you'll probably end, but you don't know where you'll be stopping for the night, and you might be taking detours here and there, "a lot of the fine details I discovered in the course of the writing."
There was also some discussion of the upcoming show on HBO, Martin saying the producers would be faithful to the books. There were some things spoken that looking back look funny or otherwise ironic, "I know it's taking longer than I thought, but I'm working on it guys,
that's what I can say, I'm working on it. I'm going to have to stay
ahead of David and Dan, it would be awfully embarrassing if the
television series caught up with the book."
Martin still has yet to finish the final (planned) two novels of the series. As to what Martin thought of the ending of the TV series, you can read it here.
Today, Second Life residents have many resources on which to find noteworthy places online. About a decade ago, that wasn't the case. There was the "Search" function, but it listed only popular places, whose numbers could be skewed by bots. There were blogs, though some were more reliable then others. Better were newsletters such as the Second Life Newspaper. From late 2007 to early 2008, one man decided to take it upon himself to find interesting places and then show them to a tour group: Sean Voss. Among those in the group was then SL Newspaper writer Bixyl Shuftan. Eight years after Sean gave his goodbye, Bixyl looks back at the time the tour group made rounds across various places in Second Life.
So what was the first article yours truly wrote about Second Life? It was when I answered a call from Second Life Newspaper for reader submissions, so I sent them a couple tales of amusing incidents. One was about an unexpected reaction to my brand now furry red fox avatar. The other was about giving a creep trying to freak out women his just deserts.
Read Bixyl's first story, originally published in November 2007, in People.
In our looking back at Second Life Newspaper, we take a look at a sim whose purpose was political satire. Caricavatars was created by Christophe Hugo, who displayed examples of builds and avatars that were often caricatures of notable people in politics. However for all his satire, which was often particularly biting, he himself could be a little thin-skinned to anyone he saw as insulting or annoying, such as Second Life Newspaper reporters Brutha Voodoo and Bixyl Shuftan when they dropped by on two different occasions.
From a picture by Byran Dix in April 2007, "The owners of this villa had posted many signs saying 'No Parking or
Else,' still there is always an idiot who ignores the signs and parks
anyway!"
The early Second Life Newspaper was at first much different than the newsletter it would become, with short posts with one or two pictures. But throughout 2007, it would publish more and longer articles. In May 2007, SLN reporter Miralee Munro covered the opening of the Jewish Historical Museum and Synagogue in Ir Shalom.
As our five year anniversary comes up, we're looking back at the days of our predecessor paper, Second Life Newspaper. The old paper's archives have been inaccessible by normal means for over a year, but can still be partially accessed through the Internet Archive (http://archive.org/web/). So we're republishing old articles and cartoons, like the one above done in early 2007 as a new reporter gets welcomed by a peer (nope, I didn't do it, I wasn't around yet).
Tell us what you think, and if there's a certain article you'd like to see again, let me know and I'll try to find it. No guarantee as the Internet Archive doesn't scan everything.
This scene happened about six years ago in 2007, when some friends were messing around at a sandbox area, and one whom was a bit depressed at the time put this up in a bit of self-depreciating humor.
And who is this in a freebie old-style ringtail avatar? None other than the editor himself. It was five years ago today he took his first screenshot while exploring around the mainland.
