Merged realities – events and issues for virtual worlds

1. Fashion-centric world Frenzoo continues its evolution, announcing the ability to create furniture.

2. The veteran OLIVE platform continues development, this time announcing it will demonstrate the use of its platform to deliver clinical behavioral therapies, including “engaging clients and maintaining their active participation, efficiently overcoming individual emotional barriers to therapy and accelerating the therapeutic progress” to name three.

3. The rumours have started flying that Linden Lab CEO may be in for the chop, with former CEO Philip Rosedale to return to a more hands-on role. It seems a little strange that a CEO would oversee a significant reduction of staff and then be removed / replaced a matter of days later. Unless they weren’t calling the shots on the restructure in the first place…..

4. Want to win a premium Second Life avatar for yourself? Then contact ABC Island admin, Wolfie Rankin.

5. Paisley Beebe’s 3rd anniversary show is happening this weekend. That’s a lot of virtual worlds TV hours!

Interview – Wolfie Rankin on Furries

Recently I was chatting to well known aussie SL resident Wolfie Rankin and we discussed the idea of covering what it means to be a furry. I posed a bunch of questions to Wolfie, and his responses are below:

Lowell Cremorne: What’s the history of furries?

Wolfie Rankin: It’s difficult to say when the genre began, some have said that it reaches back to the 1960s. Some say movies like Watership Down, Disney’s Robin Hood, Jungle Book, and Fritz the cat got the ball rolling.

Human beings have had affinities with animals for thousands of years, and have dreamt of having the strength and speed of animals. Look at our cars – Viper, Jaguar, Bronco, Mustang etc.

Women call their hubbies “Tiger” and men wish they were horses (at least in part). Then there’s the US Bald Eagle emblem.

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Lowell Cremorne: How does one become a furry?

Wolfie Rankin: Being furry is not something you do one morning for the sake of fashion…although it has occured in the fandom now and then. I have seen times when skunks were “in” this week and foxes were “in” the next.

Disney was probably a furry, and I’m sure that Mel Blanc, the voice behind Bugs Bunny, was a furry. as he once said in an interview that Bugs was his alter-ego, that he didn’t just play Bugs, but he was Bugs on the inside.

Lowell Cremorne:What made you decide to be a furry?

Wolfie Rankin: In my case it was automatic, The thoughts were already in my head. When a friend introduced me to the internet in the late 90s, I found there were werewolf and furry newsgroups. I joined alt.horror.werewolves, where incidentally, I met Jakkal, who made the Avatar I use on SL.

To discover there were people who felt a lot like me well, that was great.

Lowell Cremorne: Is there any significance in the type of animal persona a person takes
on?

Wolfie Rankin: There can be, it could be a spiritual thing, or even an expression of sexuality. I’m really just wearing my insides on my outsides, I suppose that’s how it works.

I’ve had some deep talks about reincarnation with some people and wondered if souls of animals could come back as people, why not?

Listening to Dr. Karl on the radio years back, he said that “if reincarnation is real and there’s more people every year, then where are all the new souls
coming from?” A good question… I noted that there’s less animals every year too, so where are their souls going?

Lowell Cremorne: What are the downsides of being a furry in SL?

Wolfie Rankin: Not many really. Furries often worried what would happen when the broader populace discovered furries and especially after certain TV programs (MTV and ER) focused on the “shock horror” aspects of the genre.

But I think most people I’ve met are very comfortable having furry friends. If anyone has been worried about it but wants to talk about it and find out what it’s
all about, they discover that there’s nothing to fear.

Lowell Cremorne: What are the upsides?

Wolfie Rankin: Ahh well we did “sorta” have a Second Life in ye olde internet which were MUDS, purely text based, but had to remember who and what each other was, for me that wasn’t always easy. It’s partly why there’s so much furry art, as people would hand draw their avatars or pay someone else to do it… and say “this is me, this is what I look like”. It was fine for the day, but to actually see each other in Second Life is a lot nicer. There’s still art though, and it’s bloody good too.

Lowell Cremorne: There’s a perception I’ve come across that furries are gay. Thoughts?

Wolfie Rankin: There’s no real difference between furries and anyone else as far as sex goes, all tastes are covered and catered for, which includes straight furs too.

Lowell Cremorne: If I like the look of a furry avatar but I don’t “feel” furry, can I still wear one?

Wolfie Rankin: Of course, by all means have fun… it should make no difference to anyone what you choose to wear as an avitar in SL, as long as it’s not deliberately offensive, of course!

Lowell Cremorne: Any furry links you’d like to share?

Wolfie Rankin:

Youtube:

Furry comics: [try these out, they’re loads of fun]

Buster Wilde [Gay Werewolf]

Kevin and Kell

A doemain of our own

Carpe Diem

Rockit a success

Veteran Aussie SL resident Wolfie Rankin held his first instalment of ‘Rockit’ this evening on Eragon island. A cross between and RocKwiz, close to thirty people turned up to watch. The two teams of four were selected from the audience after an initial round of questions. Then, a number of rounds followed including audio and video questions.

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Team 1 consisted of Profit Enoch, Good2 Go, Angsty Rossini and some nerd from an Aussie SL news blog. Team 2 contained Roget Qinan, Diag Anzac, Noah Millgrove and Kalliee Tomsen. After 90 minutes of battling it out, Team 1 took out the night on 195 points to Team 2’s 170 points.

All-in-all it was one of those community events that everyone enjoyed. Hopefully there’ll be a follow-up as the general consensus was it was an enjoyable, interactive event. You can never have enough of them in SL.

(Disclosure: Yours truly was said nerd who ended up on winning team)

Wolfie’s Rez-Day

Kookaburra Pub on Eragon was the scene for widely known Aussie SL resident Wolfie Rankin’s ‘rez-day’. Well over forty people turned out for the surprise party:

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I asked Woflie what has meant the most to him in his first year of SL residency:

“I think getting Eragon and finding so many lovely friends and supporters, everyone in their own way helped me in so many ways and I’m extremely grateful”.

More photos of the party at: http://flickr.com/photos/quadrapop/

ABC island hits a snag

ABC island today experienced a significant degradation overnight due to unknown causes. Veteran aussie resident Wolfie Rankin, who is one of the ABC island admins, was offered the whole ABC Sandbox as inventory, which obviously rang some alarm bells. The island looks a little different at present:

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We’ll keep in touch with the ABC’s Abi Goldflake to determine further details as they become available.

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