Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist explores the virtually human
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=jlLpCAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&ots=wI11qIAv8f&sig=VCcmeEpZMf8BNjJhXTI2qk6nwmU#v=onepage&q&f=false
An ethnography that may have been the first of its kind, Coming of Age in Second Life follows an anthropologist’s investigation of the culture that has developed in the massively multiplayer online simulation. As the title implies, just as in the real world, players dress their avatar, own property, buy and sell goods and services, attend events, socialize, and even fall in love.
What separates this virtual world from the “real world” is exactly what Tom Boellstorff aimed to decipher during his 2 year investigation in the game. After observing and befriending some of the many thousands of active users, he concluded that in some cases the virtual world experience was more real than some of those in the physical world.
The title then has a double meaning: the virtual world is informed by and modeled after human experience, but also that much of what is “real” about being a human has really been virtual all along.
