![]() ![]() It felt as though I’d stepped into a television set that was running a show about camping, only the episode hadn’t begun yet. Though the fire didn’t throw off heat, the crackle and light and smoke projected warmth. The circle of light from the fire extended just beyond the ring of sleeping bags and tents. I clicked on a green sleeping bag to lie down on it my avatar stretched back, and I watched the miasma of blues, greens, and purples wash across the black sky. Though it was morning, I had been instructed to set my sky to midnight so that I could watch the glowing auroras that had been tucked into the firmament. A circle of about 10 sleeping bags and a handful of small open tents were set up around a giant bonfire that crackled and threw off sparks and skeins of smoke. Second Life time, which runs on Pacific Time. One Wednesday in December, I decided to check it out. The island’s art gallery features works of art by the deaf and disabled.Ī popular VAI event is the twice-weekly campfire. Another island called Cape Able, for the deaf and hard of hearing, has a “deaf chat” coffee house, a carryover concept from offline-only here, visitors text rather than sign. The main island, Virtual Ability Island, includes a welcome center with mentors who teach newcomers how to operate and customize an avatar. Today VAI has a thousand members, and hosts a dozen or so events per week, including games, live piano concerts, dance parties and self-help workshops. Her friends had stopped coming to see her. She’d lost her job, had to drop her volunteer work, and couldn’t even attend her children’s school events. In 2007, Krueger joined Second Life with a few disabled friends she knew from online chat groups.Īt the time, she was becoming more isolated as her multiple sclerosis progressed. It’s the creation of a woman named Alice Krueger. ![]() Second Life’s largest community of disabled residents is clustered on Virtual Ability Island, which is actually an archipelago of five islands - two public and three “residential,” where people can rent or buy homes. For them, the fevered fantasies of a decade ago have become reality: Second Life is where they live. They can marry a Second Life lover, take a rocket to the moon, or simply tuck themselves into bed at night.įor many disabled residents, who may spend 12 hours a day or more in Second Life, the most important moments and relationships of their lives happen inside the virtual world. They can build bespoke homes and islands almost from scratch, and buy and sell wares in virtual stores - from biker gear to bird song to the ability to swim like a mermaid. They can fly and teleport as easily as they can walk, run, and jump. Residents can customize their avatars in an infinite number of ways. ![]() Unlike traditional gaming, Second Life is governed by few rules. Some active members estimate the number higher - at as much as 50 percent. There are no official tallies of their numbers, but Wagner James Au, who has written extensively about Second Life, estimates they may account for roughly 20 percent of users. One of these is the disability community, a sundry group whose members include people who are blind or deaf, people with emotional handicaps such as autism and PTSD, and people with conditions that limit their mobility, such as Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy, and multiple sclerosis. Yet some communities have quietly continued to thrive in the virtual world. ![]()
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