Memorial

In the Physical World (PW) there are many cemeteries and memorials. Similarly, in our VW of Second Life there are also cemeteries and memorials.

I find the occasional memorials scattered around the SL grid to be such a bittersweet experience. I might be off doing some project. Following an SL train route, or maybe shopping. It’s often playful and light. And then, just like life itself, suddenly something much more serious pops into consciousness.

Second  Life is Real Life

I don’t know if Cyberpunk 2077, The Sims, Fortnite, VRchat, Minecraft, EVE Online, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, WOW, Sansar, HiFidelity, Blue Mars, Horizon Worlds, or any other virtual world has memorials and cemeteries. SL may not be the only place, but I doubt that most of those worlds have such features. They might be decorated with a game provided cemetery scene, but not user generated memorials for specific avatars they have known, loved, and lost.

These memorials are not the biggest, or most important aspects of SL. And yet, perhaps they are? They’re part of what makes SL so different from all the video games and MMORPGs out there. It’s why here at Kate Nova.uk we say Physical World (PW) instead of “Real Life” (RL). SL is real! SL may be silly, superficial, and “Second”. But it is also real. Real people, real lives, real feelings, and just like in the PW, sometimes the real pain of having to say goodbye to loved ones.

Being Human

Anthropologists find the spiritual practice of burials and memorials to be a defining characteristic of what it means to be human. To think symbolically, to transcend the present, to remember the past, to visualize the future. To imagine, to create, and to alter our environment. That so many other virtual worlds might lack this characteristic, and that it is found in SL, is part of who we avatars are, and what this world is about.

SL‘s memorials are places of absence and loss. But also of presence. They are places of pixels made flesh.

I’d love the opportunity to visit other SL memorials. If you know of one, I hope you’ll leave it in the comments of any of these posts.

~ Jazzminh