The Lifestyles of the Welcome Areas

Until recently, I really hadn't bothered with SL® voice nor visiting random areas of Secondlife®. But upon shopping for tattoos for my avi and being asked by some random guy (who is now a SL ® "friend")to get on voice....has led me to explore the powers of Voice on SL ® and the draw of the Welcome Area cultures.

So, if you are not familiar with how voice works, it's pretty much you put in your mic and talk! Voila! It's like skype on SL® and is nice for those lazy typers out there. Also, if you're someone like me who thinks listening to other accents is kinda cool (or hot: if they're Aussie or British), then it's definitely a perk of SL® Voice. Now, if you are afraid of sounding like a different gender then your avatar or that your voice generally "sucks"...then stick to typing. But I would like to think that people secure in themselves overcome those barriers and join the World of SL® voice. Because really, it's pretty cool.

Now, the Welcome Area culture. While wandering around with my friend KyleeRose and causing mischief, or mostly just being ourselves, we stumbled upon Waterhead. Now in Secondlife ® I would like to say that there are 2 types of avatars: douchebags and not douchebags. Saying that, there are two types of Welcome Areas: places you can expect more douchebags to frequent and troll and grief AND others that has chiller folk.

Waterhead is a douchebag frequenter. These douches "troll" in world--i.e. pick on someone and say douchebaggy things to get a rise out of the victim. Generally I would say majority of these trollers are underage Secondlife ® players OR early 20s white males (probably in college). They create griefing accounts and pull shit like this to make themselves feel better about their (probably) less awesome real lives. The trolling can consist of making fun of general things like "you're ugly" or "you're so smart eww" or "are all people on hear lonely and geeks." Other people get more specific like "you read the economist, you are retarded".... yes, they attempted to troll me because I know about Darfur genocide...and read the economist. It was pathetic. Anyway, so if you want to watch the trolling or participate, go to Waterhead.

Ahern also had douchebags, but the "cooler" people keep them away OR mute them. I mean there are always going to be some instigators trying to rustle feathers, but I've generally had a more pleasant experience at Ahern. It is usually chill folk who have little tolerance for fucking annoying people (see: douchebags, griefers, trollers).

However, these cultures overlap. People from one Welcome area sometimes frequent another, like this gentleman known as "JJ"...he is infamous or famous? I dunno which works but it seems that everyone knows him. And normally when I would go to Ahern I would stay if I saw the "nice" people...your friends. And if I go there and see the few names I associate with "douchebag"....I know quick to avoid and go do something else with my time.

Overall, SL® Voice and these areas have been a really fun experience and I think I'm going to stick with it. Plus, accents are awesome and I'm a typical American in my shininess <3 for them....even if I hear them all the time on BBC or other tv outlets.