Flickr

I wasn't sure what type of pictures were going to come up when I typed 'Second Life' into Flickr. After sorting through pages of pictures I did not find anything specificially special to Second Life. The majority of the pictures I found fell into three categories, all of which people take pictures for in real life:

1) Pictures of your avatar or friends

2) Pictures of neat locations

3) Pictures of events

The photos tell stories similar to real life, what does this mean? The theory of the culture industry is applied to real life, these photos are just another example which shows that Second Life mimicks real life and Adorno's theories can be applied to it. Yes, you can see consumption in these photos, but only if you really read into them, their point is not to display material goods. People take photos to document landmark events in order to remember them, is purchasing a t-shirt a photo worthy event? I think not, therefore it is hard to compare Marxism ideas to photos.

But if we do read into these photos it is easy to notice how much time and linden dollars people spend on their avatar. Consumption has made them happy, at least happy enough to take a picture of their avatar and to document it. It is also easy to determine class distinctions from these photos. As I have mentioned in a previous blog post, you can be whoever you want in Second Life. But the photos on Flickr display images that attempt to be as realistic to real life as possible. The avatars look like real world people in order to not be alienated. Alienation is masked by the clothing, objects, and goods you see in the photos, gained through consumption. Notice in the first picture, the female avatar is wearing a braclet, necklace, earings, with very detailed and realistic clothing and hair.

Second Life itself should be looked at as another tool for consumption. Linden Labs has the ability to give everyone the same income and advantages in their world. Products could still be created for entertainment purposes, but given away for free. But this type of economy will not exist, Linden Labs makes money by having people purchase Linden, a virtual currency from them. Linden Labs, as the ruling class, are only interested in profit, rather than the well being of the society.