For One Second Lifer, Virtual Activism Transfers to the Real World

September 2, 2009

Social activism in virtual venues may indeed transfer to the real world.

New World Notes reports on such a transition by Second Lifer KallfuNahuel Matador, who in 2006 helped protect an SL African genocide awareness site from griefers.

Turn the clock ahead three years, however, and the flesh-and-blood man behind the Matador avatar is in the real Africa, doing backbreaking volunteer work (see pic). He told NWN's Wagner James Au:

The friends I made in the [SL] Virtual Camp Darfur are heavily involved in humanitarian activities in their first lives. Better World and Camp Darfur were extensions of their work and attempts to spread the word of the causes they stood for...

We discussed telling [their African hosts] we'd met in SL, but the idea of a virtual world where we interact but not in our own bodies? Difficult to convey...

 

[SL users should] really get to know the people you're working with in SL, research their [real-life] projects. Get to know them, talk to them, see if there's a 'fit' for you in their cause... Or, And if you aren't lucky enough to be able to travel far and wide, then find a way to help the cause locally.


Comments

Re: For One Second Lifer, Virtual Activism Transfers to the ...

Wouldn't it have been better for him to help IRL the whole time, instead of yelling at people via the internet?  I mean, yeah, it's great that he's actually helping out, but the need for the help has been there for a long time.  Wouldn't him helping IRL before actually been a greater boon to the cause than shouting at people online, in Second Life no less?

---

He was dead when I got here.

--- With the first link, the chain is forged.

Re: For One Second Lifer, Virtual Activism Transfers to the ...

Neat.

I am reminded of the whole 'Project Chanology" thing though.

"
 
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Andrew EisenOkay, fixed. For really reals this time!06/19/2013 - 12:42am
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