Objects of the dead

[MargieG]

Hi everyone, my name is Dr Margaret Gibson and I am writing a book with Clarissa Carden titled Living and Dying in a Virtual World: digital kinships, commemoration and nostalgia to be published by Palgrave Macmillan. See link: https://sociologicalexplorations.com/second-life-living-and-dying-in-a-virtual-world/  We are writing a chapter on sentimental objects in sl and we would love to hear any of your stories. These could be things in your inventory that matter to you because someone died or they remind you of an important part of your sl or rl.   If you are interested in participating in the book more fully and being interviewed via chat in sl we would love to hear from you. As you can see from book title we are interested in death, grief, family relationships in sl, nostalgia...

Any responses will be anonymous and if you do not wish for your response on this forum to be included in the book please say so. Here is a link to my professional page: See link to my professional page: https://www.griffith.edu.au/humanities-languages/school-humanities-languages-social-science/staff/margaret-gibson 

Thanks!

[Phil Deakins]

Hi Margie. I don't have anything to offer for your research but I can tell you that the video at the top of your "professional page" doesn't play. Instead, it produces a little box stating "Error #2036".

Edited October 5, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[bigmoe Whitfield]

for 100 usd In lindens I'll answer it for you.

 

edit: This is not a serious reply.   Do not take it as such.  I'm trying to be silly with another person wanting to have people do another survey.  nothing more.

Edited October 5, 2017 by bigmoe Whitfield

[Callum Meriman]

As a fellow Aussie, I wish you and Ms Carden well in your endevour, Doctor.

After a decade in this world, I've lost two people very close to me, one friend, and on my first sim back in 2007 I had the honour to see a couple fall in love, one terminally ill in hospital, SL his only escape. I have a memorial for all these people on my land, as is quite a common practice, even regions being named in honour of a lost one.

I'm not going to participate as I don't wish to reopen those wounds, but I will say that death touches us all in this virtual world in the same way it touches us in the real world when a loved one or family member passes. The grief is very real, and very profound, and most unfortunately often dealt with without the abilty to fall back on one's support network.

Griffith is a world class, well known and respected institution, so I know you will approach this subject with the care it deserves.

[Callum Meriman]

43 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

for 100 usd In lindens I'll answer it for you.

The forums swear filter stops me writing my thoughts on that.

Incredibly ungracious and insensative of you.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

2 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

The forums swear filter stops me writing my thoughts on that.

Incredibly ungracious and insensative of you.

Interesting, but OKAY, I'll let you look at it the way you want, not going to get into a tiff of drama over a silly forum post.

[Phil Deakins]

3 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

edit: This is not a serious reply.   Do not take it as such.  I'm trying to be silly with another person wanting to have people do another survey.  nothing more.

I think we all knew that.

When I read the op, I did wonder if it would be treated as just another of those survey-type, studenty things, because I don't see it as one. So it didn't surprise me that it got a response as though it is.

[Love Zhaoying]

My avatar.

[Rhonda Huntress]

I read the description and am very interested in the project.  I would love to read it when you are done.

I don't believe my stories would fit your project though so I'm afraid I cannot contribute.

[Phil Deakins]

4 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

I'm not going to participate as I don't wish to reopen those wounds

That's very understandable, Callum. It's a pity though, because your experiences sound exactly like what the OP is looking for.

 

1 hour ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

I read the description and am very interested in the project.  I would love to read it when you are done.

I don't believe my stories would fit your project though so I'm afraid I cannot contribute.

I'm with you on that, Rhonda. It does sound like it would be a very interesting read for those of us who have been immersed in, or well into, SL. Unfortunately though, although I've been immersed in SL for coming up to 11 years, I've never been into the sort of relationships, communities, or even groups of friends, where one or more have 'gone missing', that the OP wants to know about, so I am unable to be of any help to her.

[sirhc DeSantis]

Yes I have a few. Only one solely mine. Very early I made friends with a dying man, around early 2007. Bear his name was. Last weeks before he was taken and via SL is all I have.  I keep him on my 'friends list' til this day. Does that count? As an object? As apart from a few fragments of conversation that is all there was and is between us.

There are others. But they are shared.

 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

38 minutes ago, sirhc DeSantis said:

I keep him on my 'friends list' til this day. Does that count? As an object?

Get his UUID!

[LittleMe Jewell]

8 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

  I'm trying to be silly with another person wanting to have people do another survey.  nothing more.

My initial thoughts as well, but this one seems very different.  In reading the linked page, it is very well thought out and truly appears to be searching for stories to help everyone get a better understanding of what the relationships here mean to us, and especially when those relationships suddenly are gone.

For once, I am quite impressed with the forethought and approach put into a study of SL.

[LittleMe Jewell]

8 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

The forums swear filter stops me writing my thoughts on that.

Incredibly ungracious and insensative of you.

In actually, given how often we get poorly thought out survey requests around here, I totally understand the initial flippant type attitude.  However, most of us will at least go check out associated links before making a comment on something.

[Madelaine McMasters]

There's nothing in my SL inventory to memorialize anyone or anything that happened here. I do wear a broken SL pocket watch like the RL one passed down from my great grandfather to my father to me, and I did have a Monster Door in my skybox reminiscent of the one at the bottom of a wall in my RL childhood bedroom. Those are more expressions of a way of seeing the world that was passed down to me than a memorial to those who passed it. If I have a sentimental object in SL, it's Maddy. If I have a sentimental object in RL, it's me. The way I am is, I hope, reflective of all those who've affected me over the years. It's a lot more fun to channel old friends than just be reminded of them.

Snugs is the last vestige of an online friendship I had with a fella long before coming to SL. I thought he might like it here, and so I created an avatar for him. He was a softy with a gruff exterior. I named his avatar "Snugs Eisenhart" as a tease. Rather than follow me into SL, he got married. He passed away a few years later, followed by his wife. When I returned to SL after a brief hiatus, I resurrected Maddy and Snugs, both as McMasters. The banter you see between them is much like that between that old friend and me, my late Father and me, Mom and me... between anyone I hold dear and me.

There's a memorial to Ever Dreamscape in Bay City which is an example of the sort of well deserved memorialization that happens when lovable characters exit the stage in SL.

This topic has come up before and it's an interesting thing to contemplate. Long ago, there was a website called "usernotfound" at which people could grieve over the loss of online friends. Unlike the RL death of a loved one, the disappearance of an online friend can leave lots of room to wonder what happened. Like RL, the loss is real.

[Snugs McMasters]

3 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

The banter you see between them is much like that between that old friend and me, my late Father and me, Mom and me... between anyone I hold dear and me.

Jesus, you do know how to bloviate.

[Clover Jinx]

With the Huntress-Jinx family, we are all online and involved with different virtual communities. I have often thought about being able to reach out to those communities, even knowing how to, when one of us is gone. I used to think no one would care, but I know differently now. It is almost to the point where we need virtual wills and testaments.

I think most of us would like a big party in SL. I would like to be AFK-decorated as is the custom at the Forum Cartel Hangout. =~.~=

I don't have any sentimental objects in SL. I did however keep some things in World of Warcraft that were made by close friends and guild mates after we drifted apart. My character had long since outleveled them and they just took up precious inventory space but I kept them nonetheless.

[Madelaine McMasters]

4 minutes ago, Clover Jinx said:

I would like to be AFK-decorated as is the custom at the Forum Cartel Hangout. =~.~=

Ooooh. I can hardly wait to decorate you!!!

[Madelaine McMasters]

From nearly 15 years ago...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/30/technology/online-diary.html

[Rhonda Huntress]

I have a tree in my back yard planted for and named after a friend we lost quite a few years ago.  He was a patriarchal figure for my group of friends.

In SL, the whole digital world's lack of permanency seems counter to what a memorial should represent.  At least to me.  I understand how most people feel, tho.  It is the act, not the thing, that signifies our loss.  The tree will out live me and anyone who knew my friend.  In SL, one bad day for the asset servers and any memorial is lost in electronic noise.

 

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

35 minutes ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

I have a tree in my back yard planted for and named after a friend we lost quite a few years ago.  He was a patriarchal figure for my group of friends.

In SL, the whole digital world's lack of permanency seems counter to what a memorial should represent.  At least to me.  I understand how most people feel, tho.  It is the act, not the thing, that signifies our loss.  The tree will out live me and anyone who knew my friend.  In SL, one bad day for the asset servers and any memorial is lost in electronic noise.

I don't have circles of friends who'd appreciate the planting of a tree in memory of someone we lost. Yet I do plant trees to mark important events in my life (like my ritual fall tree planting), as a way to make me feel better about the inexorable march of time. Although my boarder grew up in the house across the street from me, he likes my back yard better. At the edge of it stands a handsome blue spruce, over 40 feet tall. In his apartment rests a small framed photograph of his chubby cheeked six week old self, sitting in a hole in the ground with only his head showing above the grass. Mom saved him from being buried alive by Dad that day, offering a sapling as a replacement.

You're so right, it's not the thing, it's the act. Only three people know of the tree in RL. You'll never see it. You'll never meet my boarder. But you get the idea.

And, just to mess up the beauty of the metaphor, the 60 foot poplar that was planted when I was born blew over in the wind last May. I'll be burning it in my fireplace for years to come.

;-).

 

[Rhonda Huntress]

3 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I'll be burning it in my fireplace for years to come.

Which is so you.

[Amanda Crisp]

It provides a constant reminder to have people still listed on my Friends list who have gone "off grid" in Real Life.

I came to SL with a group from an MMO that was in the process of shutting down, people I had been chatting with before SL ever existed. Three of them are gone now, but seeing them on my Original Avatar' friends-list never makes me sad. It reminds me that I was lucky to have wonderful people to talk with when I was going through a rough-patch and was otherwise withdrawing from the world. They helped me get interested in People again (I was suspecting that most People were no-darn-good at that point), so seeing them on my Friends List only evokes happy memories.

So I keep them there. They are still my friends.

Edited October 6, 2017 by AmandaKeen

[MargieG]

19 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

As a fellow Aussie, I wish you and Ms Carden well in your endevour, Doctor.

After a decade in this world, I've lost two people very close to me, one friend, and on my first sim back in 2007 I had the honour to see a couple fall in love, one terminally ill in hospital, SL his only escape. I have a memorial for all these people on my land, as is quite a common practice, even regions being named in honour of a lost one.

I'm not going to participate as I don't wish to reopen those wounds, but I will say that death touches us all in this virtual world in the same way it touches us in the real world when a loved one or family member passes. The grief is very real, and very profound, and most unfortunately often dealt with without the abilty to fall back on one's support network.

Griffith is a world class, well known and respected institution, so I know you will approach this subject with the care it deserves.

Thanks Callum for your support. I really appreciate the story that you told of your loss and I do understand it can be painful. Just the comments/observations you are made confirm experiences and ways of thinking that we have found in our research. People don't necessarily take losses through avatar based worlds every seriously and this book is about taking second life lives and relationships seriously and acknowledging mourning in virtual world contexts of dwelling and connecting with others. I wrote a book number of years again titled Objects of the Dead: mourning and memory in everyday life and this current book and more recent research is about digital objects and subjects. Indeed, the subjectivity of things as memory associations and forms of attachment is something I am interested in particularly as death and grief can really change the value and meaning of physical and digital objects - they can seem bereft, abandoned, hostage to the control and will others, but also charged with a sense of fragility and preciousness as both remains and reminders of the deceased. Anyway, enough for now. Good wishes. Margaret

[MargieG]

2 hours ago, AmandaKeen said:

It provides a constant reminder to have people still listed on my Friends list who have gone "off grid" in Real Life.

I came to SL with a group from an MMO that was in the process of shutting down, people I had been chatting with before SL ever existed. Three of them are gone now, but seeing them on my Original Avatar' friends-list never makes me sad. It reminds me that I was lucky to have wonderful people to talk with when I was going through a rough-patch and was otherwise withdrawing from the world. They helped me get interested in People again (I was suspecting that most People were no-darn-good at that point), so seeing them on my Friends List only evokes happy memories.

So I keep them there. They are still my friends.

This is a really great story and speaks to some much that we are interested in documenting and talking about. Thanks so much sharing this story and we would like to include it in our book.   Regards, Margaret and Clarissa