An Avatar By Any Other Name, Is Not The Same.

Not so long ago, A Real Life and Second Life friend of ours successfully converted his lady friend over to the grid.  It was fun, all of us sitting around my living room, watching as she went under the same initiation process that we all go through, chosing both a first, *and* second name that she would have to live with for the rest of her second life. With much wailing and gnashing of teeth she was eventually successful.  Little did we know that we were on the cusp of the end of an era.  The Era of surnames in Second Life.

Now, if you look about the sims,  interesting last names on people with recent rez dates have been replaced with "Resident"  This is all part of the new display name system that allows users new to Second life to create a user name, while enabling them to use a different display name.  Don't get me wrong,  I was in favour of the ability to change one's display name, even with my reservations that it would be a way for people to try and grief by appearing to be someone else, a time and tested trolling technique used all over the internet since the general public was allowed access to it.

But I also understand people who greif, are not detured or encouraged by anything other than their own intentions to cause grief. And even in the group of people who do create alts, those who do so to start shit are in a minority.  People who want to cause trouble will do so no matter what measures or features are in place... but I digress.

I know that being able to change a display name, could have made my life a little more... singular. Rather than having a few alts I need in order to be different people in Second Life, I could use just one, change my clothes, my skin, and a display name, and presto! A new character all in one avatar. This would have reduced my need to try and shuffle transferable items from inventory to inventory, and would save me a ton of money in the process.

However, this feature, (in my personal opinion,) was not worth the loss of a very special and distinct feature of Second Life. The Surname.  Sure, the selection sort of sucked at times, but with determination, one could scour SL Name watch, and then hit the "Change name" button until a desirable name came up for them.  Hell, it was this ability that took one of my alts out of an unused table top Dungeons and Dragons game, to the grid, allowing me to define what they looked like, and how they behaved, without a sheet of paper or a table full of other players.

Thanks to surnames in Second Life, the members of my Second Life Family were all able to obtain the same surname,  like a real family has.  That's a special sort of thing, because the surnames are eventually retired.  I'm now just thankful, everyone got the surname they needed for us to be a proper clan of Tauruses.

And so what if some random stranger also had your last name.  This is the way it is in the real world, isn't it? I have a very common last name in the real world.  It doesn't bind me to strangers with the same last name, but it does with my family.

Now, with the last name "Resident" the value of family or individuality in the username, is lost.  Gone are our delightfully pretentious last names, and our ability to use a first name to make a pun, a joke, or something poingiant.  In comes the generation of "Amanda resident" soon becoming "Amanda1975 Resident" because their desired first name is already taken, A thought I had not considered until a good friend pointed it out. When so much of Second Life is about being immersed in a virtual reality, we will now be constantly reminded by cold usernames, that this is just the internet, and now we are all reminded to go and check our email account, with the similarly formatted, dreadful username.

I really hope that the Lindens will reconsider this move (even though I won't hold my breath).  I really hope that there is outrage among new and old "residents" about this special little thing that has been taken from them. I really hope this new feature is the "New Coke" that spawns the revival of "Classic Coca-cola."

But as I said, I won't hold my breath.  For as much love as I have for Second Life and all it does for me, The Lindens do not have a great track record of listening to the masses.  We can't fool ourselves in believing the grid is a democracy. Those who have to worry about paying tier every month know that better than anyone.  If you have ever had to call Linden Lab in order to fix something gone wrong with your sim or account, you find out pretty quickly that they are interested in being paid for their free service.

Because, regardless of our first or last names, we are all still assigned a number.  Names aren't as important to the Lindens, as they are to the users. The users who have literally created this world with the tools that were given to us. Because we are numbers to the system, there is no reason why people should be denied their first or last names, or the ability to change their avatar names completely. Which is another little cause I support.

So not having faith that this will change, I am left mourning the loss of a special era, that new comers will not have the ability to share. Sure, we can all look at their profile and see how old their avatar is, but they will forever be a little bit left out, and will have a glaring reminder before all,  that they are late comers, the new kids, and I bet you, they will be marginalized and taken advantage of.

There is no point to this blog post, other than to express my feelings and thoughts on a major change.

I wish I had not told our recent convert, that she could start a new account with a better name later, if she grew to hate the one she chose.  Even if she was one of the very last, to sign up just in time for the last named avatar era.