Tom Boellstorff's Coming To Age In Second Life

Introduction

Many people often think that there is only one real world that has many forms of culture, which is the one that we live in everyday. Tom Boellstorff, the author of Coming to Age in Second Life, is not one of those people. In this ethnography, Boellstorff challenges that there is more than one real world and that virtual worlds have culture just as places in the real world do. The topic of virtual worlds or virtual reality is becoming more and more prominent in this age of technology and this is a reason why Boellstorff chose it to research. The term virtual is defined as “something that is so in essence or effect, although not formally or actually.” (Pg. 19), for example, a person could create objects online that you can not physically touch, but you can …show more content…
Boellstorff conducted his research in a game called Second Life between 2004 and 2007, under the name of Tom Bukowski, and his research was focused on looking at Second Life as a whole. Second Life is a type of massively multiple online game created b Linden Labs, that is modeled after the real world. The virtual world that Linden Labs created only included landscape features, such as islands, water, trees, etc., the rest of Second Life was created by users in the game. Before users can enter Second Life they must first create account, after the account is created the user selects a ‘avatars’ or characters, that they will control in the online world. The world of Second Life is totally modifiable, including your avatar, which in turn means you can be or create anything you wish. This ethnography has three goals that is wishes to portray to the reader. They include; a ethnographic portrait of Second Life, to demonstrate the potential of virtual ethnography, and lastly to receive a theoretical understanding of virtual