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The Archives
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02.21.11The Future of Thinking Virtually: Tom Boellstorff on Overlays, Cyborgs and Second Life CultureI could chat with Tom Boellstorff all day - but I'll take an hour when I can get it, as I recently did on Metanomics (full video at the end of the post). During my recent interview with Rod Humble, the new CEO of Linden Lab, I had one major piece of advice: reach out to Tom and spend some time with him (and while you're at it, hire an ethnographer to work at the Lab!). Excerpts from my interview with Tom might help explain why: On Virtual Worlds, Techne, and the Concept of the Overlay DUSAN: So one of the ...
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01.30.11Metanomics Monday: Masterclass on Culture, Anthropology and the Meaning of LifeOK, so not much ground to cover on tomorrow's Metanomics when I host Tom Boellstorff, noted anthropologist and author of the seminal work Coming of Age in Second Life. The discussion lifts off of my previous post on the future of Second Life to which Tom graciously responded in the comments. In follow-up chats with Tom, we toyed with a show focused on the merger of the Teen and Main Grids. We thought we might discuss how our journey as avatars in a virtual world isn't unlike our journey as humans - from "noob" to "teen" to wiser and more mature (um, ...
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03.18.10Tom Boellstorff on Anthropology, Virtual Worlds, Culture and ChangeFollowing the jump is my interview with Tom Boellstorff, author of Coming of Age in Second Life at the recent Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference. As always, he was amazing although I'm the first to admit I'm a gushing fanboi when it comes to Tom. His comments in particular on techne versus episteme and the role of ideas in a virtual world really struck home. While it may seem like 45 minutes is a lengthy chunk of your day, I can pretty much guarantee that the following is well worth watching. Continue Reading...
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06.03.09Inside Linden Lab: The Abridged VersionThomas Malaby has written a thoughtful, intellectual and engaging book that takes us inside Linden Lab and examines how their work culture influenced development decisions, and the community of Second Life Residents. And while I fully intend to attempt a thoughtful, intellectual response, for today I'm going to forget all that and give you juicy, gossipy and entirely out-of-context quotes from the book that are unfair to a book that has far more weight than tidbits. But hey - Malaby is appearing on Metanomics this afternoon at 1:00 pm PST, so consider this advance back chat. (P.S. Highlights in the text below ...
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03.31.09Neo-Positively Immersed: Virtual Worlds Give Us Back the HumanitiesI'm wading in well over my head when people start talking about neo-positivists and non-neo-positivist traditions and "the academy" (which should probably be capitalized, and seems to be what people who are professors call, um, that place where they work and all the reams of deep thought that comes out of it). I mean - too many isms, but there's an interesting story hidden in here somewhere, and it all started when Robert Bloomfield commented in his "Connecting the Dots" segment on Metanomics that anthropologists should join up with OpenSim developers and work hard to collect hard data, provable data, SCIENTIFIC ...
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02.28.09Narrow Walks in Wild Gardens: Explaining Virtual WorldsAt some point we try to explain ourselves. Maybe it's a room mate or a partner or someone at the office. And there are lots of reasons WHY we want to explain ourselves: maybe we want to share the passion, or feel like we have to justify the time we spend, or else, more and more, because we believe in it, we've seen it and felt it, and we know that there are things we can do that we can't do anywhere else, and we want other people in the world to understand that as well. So you end up trying ...
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06.24.08Quick Link: Podcast on SL, Religion, and ‘Coming of Age in Second Life’The Metaverse Journal has a podcast online that features a short review of Tom Boellstorff’s Coming of Age in Second Life as well as an interview with Dr. Helen Farley about religion and Second Life. I've written about Tom's book previously, and there were engaging discussions on Savage Minds that are worth checking out for both an "in SL" and an outsider's perspectives on anthroplogy in virtual worlds.
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06.16.08Augment/Immerse: Here We Go AgainKerim over on Savage Minds posted a review of Tom Boellstorff's book Coming of Age in Second Life and after an extended thread, I came to realize that the debate brought us full circle to concepts of culture versus platform, augmentation versus immersion, and that crazy magic circle thing. I even managed to pull Castranova into it again...he may fallen hero (book one great, book two fine for the first 100 pages and then a frightening hint of a future in which virtual world economists try to program our real lives so that getting your license renewed is more like ...
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06.15.08Anthropology and Second Life: It’s All About Real Estate, with Some Chat Thrown InI'm a big fan of Coming of Age in Second Life, the new book by Tom Boellstorff and touched on it recently. Now the anthropologists are chewing over the contribution Tom's book makes to their field. Of particular interest is the following claim by the blog's author (emphasis added): Indeed, Boellstoroff’s book confirms my conviction that Second Life is mostly about real estate, with a little relationship stuff thrown in for good measure. If Boellstoroff never really convinced me that I should care about Second Life, it is because he doesn’t even try. His argument is that whether we care about virtual worlds ...
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