So Pixeleen is a bit of a geek

So the truth is out there, Prok was right, Pixeleen is Mark McCahill of Gopher fame and hey I can now play the awestruck commoner who got to dance with a bit of a legend in geeksville.



The news, which was relayed by The Alphaville Herald and can be read here. Pixeleen's identity is also now part of internet folklore as it has been entered onto Mark McCahill's wikipedia page. This wasn't added by me I should add.

The story at The Herald is actually a very serious one and shouldn't be overshadowed by the revelation of who Pixeleen really is, there are important issues at stake but you can read about thay over at The Herald.

However this does bring up something about the attraction of Second Life to people from all walks of life, it's one of Second Life's greatest success stories that it transcends boundaries to mix people from so many different backgrounds. I remember being rather gobsmacked when I found out that Robin Linden had formally been VP of marketing at Maxis, the penny started to drop here that I wasn't dealing with enthusiastic amateurs and that the platform had real potential if people like this were behind it, I have no idea why I thought Second Life was an ran by enthusiastic amateurs, it didn't take me long to look at the backgrounds of Philip and Zero to see that this was a serious venture and then of course finding out Mitch Kapor was involved at some level was just the icing on the cake. This was something worthwhile and through all the frustrations I still strongly believe it's something worthwhile.

However when you hang around a bit longer you find that the users are also from many different backgrounds, it should really not be that surprising that Pixeleen is Mark McCahill, you pick things up talking to others, they're too busy to go to office hours because they're running their RL company that day, or they worked on email protocols back in the day, things get thrown into the mix if you look closely enough, not that people seem to throw their real life credentials into the fray when talking Second Life, people don't tend to talk down to others as much as one may expect.

I'm sure those who study human behaviour could find something interesting about how people behave within a virtual world, how it can be so different from how they act outside, I'm not talking so much about some of the more adult side, that's not surprising, but their general demeanour, some live the role, some just extend their first life and some go completely off the rails!

I do think there are advantages in not using real names, for example Pixeleen would probably have been bombarded with questions about Mark McCahill's work had Pixeleen entered Second Life as Mark McCahill and this would have stifled the development of Pixeleen herself as a virtual world character. If people aren't allowed that space to develop their Second Life, then it will never develop and the whole concept of Second Life as a second life falls down, is this really what people want? I'm certainly not happy with the rush to intergrate activities with Facebook for this very reason, leave Facebook for the facebookers.

All in all Second Life has a healthy mix of people from different backgrounds, healthy enough to make it a compelling experience for many, this is something Linden Lab shouldn't lose sight of.