et, but how do they emulate the older residents with their cool clothes, beautiful hair, bodies and skins? Of course there are the ubiquitous freebies, hundreds of outlets and thousands of products, so many of them repeated in each yard sale or freebie mall and they soon find that everybody else has got the same hair, skirt or jeans. “You can spot a Newbie a mile off” with the plastic hair and unrealistic face.
Apparently there a three questions that new accounts ask: 1. How do I get money?
2. How do I get a job? 3. Where do I go for sex? There may be others but these are the favourites.
Well it would appear logical that if question 2 were answered, question 1 would be answered and there would be no need for begging. Problem solved! Ah, but how do you get a job? There’s the rub. So, I went looking for jobs.
Well camping seemed to be thought of as a job, so I had a go. There are different levels of activity in camping. Your avatar can do nothing, scrub the floor or clean the windows for, say, L$2 for 50 minutes. One camper I saw had achieved a level of over 1000 minutes. They must have left their computer on continuously for over 17 hours(I wonder how much that cost?). You can work in nightclubs as escorts, dancers or bouncers. These jobs apparently pay quite well. There are higher levels of pay but some I would rather not discuss how they are earned.
So, you can earn money by doing a “proper” job. So why beg, at all? I can only think it’s because it’s the first “real life” thing you learn in Second Life. Even before you register, you’re told about begging. It’s also naughty, therefore fun! Also it’s not REAL work.
But there are enough residents in Second Life who get upset about begging and believe that something ought to be done about it, for it to be taken seriously by “The Authorities”.
“Ban them “, I am told. “Kick them about a bit and THEN ban them” Phew; strong feelings! “How do they know that begging is wrong?” I ask “Common sense”, “It’s obvious”, “Of course, they should know, “everybody knows it’s wrong” come the replies.
There are two sides to this argument, The “Newbies” and their helpers. On the one side and those of us who are settled in and living and working in a real world, on the other. So, what can be done about it? I asked some residents... Without exception, they were strongly opposed to it and suggested strong action against it, from the residents and from Linden Lab, themselves. It is believed that beggars will go to dozens of groups with the same message and some residents respond by paying the L$1 required. Apparently this can mount up to enough money to buy a shape or a skin. A big prize; indeed.
There does seem to be a problem, but it is on one side, apparently. There is a great divide between “Newbies” and long-term settled residents, with homes and work or jobs and a history in Second Life. So where does the solution come from?
People will soon learn the etiquette of Second life and find work or dip into their RL pockets to fund their lives here, or leave. Very many have done that. There are job agencies in SL, there are valuable skills to be learned which will earn a good income, once mastered. For the individual who started off begging, then learned trade or started a business, found his or her funding, the problem is over. But a new wave join up and it starts all over again.
So, it is an SL-wide problem and will never go away unless tackled on that scale. Banning it, punishing the perpetrators as criminals, as some have suggested, is too totalitarian and leaving it to the offended resident to complain and ban or mute the offending party is too lax. Perhaps more emphasis should be put on teaching Second Life etiquette on the Help Island, making sure that the newcomers REALLY know not to beg and what to do so that they don’t need to beg. Also a more concerted effort in creating and finding jobs and opportunities for new residents and bringing it to their attention.
There ARE agencies out there but they are competing with each other and most offer very little. Several I have seen have huge walls covered with empty posters with a scattered few announcing camping or FREE MONEY. It is hardly enough to meet the reportedly huge demand from the daily influx of “Newbies”.
Perhaps there should be a Grid-wide network of Job Centres, financed and monitored by Linden Lab, sharing work and training information, to ensure that everyone, wherever they arrive or live in Second life has access to them. Or is that too much like Big Brother, too much like Real Life? Maybe begging is just something we can decide to accept or do something about, on an individual basis Second life is like that, isn’t ?
Kim Trefusis
