A look into a few groups of Second Life

Group 1:

The first group I looked at I will call the Ravers, because they did just that, rave. The Rave was their hang out. The building is like one might imagine, it’s a large warehouse type building where you may find an underground rave going on. The building is a square with a square dance floor in the center, directly ahead of the entrance is a platform with turntables and a DJ. The music sounded mostly like house techno to me, I could recognize some of the songs as remixes. There were about a dozen people, most of whom were rave dancing. The environment seemed really friendly and I was greeted as soon as I came in by the hostess. After some exploration and a few people tipping me off I soon found the areas “black market” where one could purchase SL party drugs (ecstasy) and multi-colored light toys. This is a group I more pursue further as it seems to be a somewhat common one.

Group 2:

The second group was a bit less common than the raving group. I will label this group the “Cow-pokes” for my own personal amusement. This group was in a rodeo like dance area with about 20 to maybe 30 people square dancing, it was pretty neat to see that many people organized in such a way online. I joined in but quickly stood out, my attire was no where close to anyone else’s’ other than the shape of my hat. I was ridiculed a bit, but not too harshly. I had a harder time here striking conversation with people, which is probably a result of my nonconformity. I didn’t stay long here, and I’m not too sure if I will be back unless I can find some free or cheap cowboy apparel.

Group 3:

The third group I encountered were Cosplayers. Cosplayers from my understanding are people dressing up as a character from a tv series, anime or movie, and this is a group that also exists outside of SL. This was the oddest group I’ve came across so far. I walked into the main room where I saw 4 strip poles with people dressed up like chracters from the anime Sailor Moon were dancing. There were a few others, mostly males, seated in front of the stage, one was dressed as batman it looked like. This was the most closed off group so far, I guess I didn’t look enough like an anime character. No one really made any attempts to talk with me, and the ones I confronted were not very talkative at all. There was little to no open air chat going on. Odd group, indeed.

Group 4:

The place: A really extravignt dance club, the group: Hmm, I’ll call them hip-hop enthusiasts. It didn’t take long before I got an invite into their group and became a “Lounge Lizard.” These were definitely very social and friendly people. The dance floor was amazing, and almost over whelming with colors and lights. There were 12 dances to choose from on the dance floor and Zero soon found himself crypt-walking. Not more than 5 minutes on the dance floor and the DJ called out my name to get in the “money pit” so I did after a look around. I got into this green star-trekish teleportation beam (minus the teleportation) and found an additional $50L in my pocket. This was the most packed place of all, and the music was really decent, a mix of hip hop, club and techno music. I stuck around here for a half hour or so before giving a quick thanks to the club and going off to explore more options.

Group 5:

This one may or may not be a practicing group, but none-the-less I really did like this one, as it was much different from the previous 4, which have all been in party like settings. The woman who owned the placed had traveled around Europe and taken pictures of her travel. The pictures were very professional and interesting to look at. I even recognized places I had previously been to in England. The reason I can’t say for sure if this is an actual group of practice or not is because it seems to be the one lady simply showing her photos to the Second Life public. I will have to check back in the future and further explore into the possibility of a legitimate group, and I am hoping to find one.