Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human

  • Tom Boellstorff
Princeton University Press: 2008. 328 pp. $29.95, £17.95 9780691135281 | ISBN: 978-0-6911-3528-1

In his book Secondary Worlds, W. H. Auden wrote that “present in every human being are two desires, a desire to know the truth about the primary world ... and the desire to make new secondary worlds of our own or, if we cannot make them ourselves, to share in the secondary worlds of those who can”. Auden, in 1968, was writing about literature, not cyberspace, but his thoughts help explain why virtual worlds are popular today.

The conflicts that arise from this desire to live in both a primary world and a secondary world removed from physical reality are examined in Coming of Age in Second Life. Anthropologist Tom Boellstorff paints an ethnographic portrait of the online virtual world, Second Life, that is fully immersed in its subject. To prove that virtual worlds are cultures in their own right, Boellstorff conducted all his research from within Second Life, using the ethnographer's toolkit of interviews, focus groups and participant observation. Unlike other studies that take an outside perspective, he made no attempt to make real-life contact with his fellow residents.

Some may argue that it is not possible to understand a person's virtual life without knowing their actual-life history. Online, residents can mask their identity, including their race, gender and age. Some adopt multiple virtual bodies — avatars — and some avatars are controlled by more than one person. Does Boellstorff's approach have any value? The author argues that residents have created a culture in which it is not necessary to know a person's true identity to engage in meaningful interactions. To understand how these relationships work, an anthropologist should not need any additional information, and behaviours can be better examined from the same viewpoint as the subjects of the study.

Tom Boellstorff's anthropologist avatar carries out his research within the virtual world. Credit: T. BOELLSTORFF

The gap between the virtual and the physical, and its effect on the ideas of personhood and relationships, is the most interesting aspect of Boellstorff's analysis. For many residents, having a separate embodiment in cyberspace is liberating. There, they are free to be the people they imagine themselves to be, no longer held back by real attributes or attitudes. This liberation was evident in transgender people experimenting with a new lifestyle in Second Life before making decisions in the actual world.

Freedom is the primary attraction for many residents. When Linden Lab, the software company behind Second Life, pondered whether to introduce voice communication to the platform, in addition to the existing textual chat, it provoked widespread riots within the virtual world. The sound of a real voice would have closed the gap between the real person and the virtual avatar to an unacceptable degree.

The real–virtual disparity can bring a painful distance between virtual friends or lovers. Boellstorff writes of Susan and George, who enjoyed a close relationship conducted solely in the virtual world for a year and a half. When George failed to log in for a whole month, Susan's devastation was real. He may have died in the real world, or might have simply tired of the relationship, but without knowing his true identity, Susan was powerless to find out. Many commentators question the existence of meaningful relationships within virtual worlds, but Boellstorff demonstrates that the emotional commitment invested makes them just as real and worthy of study.

Focus groups revealed that virtual relationships were just as important as physical ones. Credit: T. BOELLSTORFF

A portrait of Second Life would not be complete without documenting the more colourful members of its society, such as the 'furries' who are embodied in animal avatars or the virtual sex workers. Given the popular media coverage of Second Life, it would have been easy to focus on these sensational residents, but the closer study of more mundane characters such as Susan and George provides valuable insights. Boellstorff shows that although Second Life culture has its own unique nuances, for the majority of residents it is no more surprising than societies based in the physical world.

During the period of Boellstorff's study, June 2004 to January 2007, the population of Second Life grew from a few thousand to several million, with important software upgrades along the way. Technology moves quickly, and the society portrayed in Coming of Age in Second Life may change in the future. Boellstorff's portrayal of a virtual culture at the advent of its acceptance into mainstream life gives it lasting importance, and his methods will be a touchstone for research in the emerging field of virtual anthropology.