What is the split of SL users between RL Nations?

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

Well, here we sit reading about how stupid we each are for liking what we like and how wrong it is to enjoy it.  

It's not possible to let others have preferences different from our own without telling them they're disgusting.  What you like is stupid! Talk about Stepford tendencies.  In order for one person to be right another has to be wrong.  There is currently an entire forum topic devoted solely to dividing SL residents.

We are all from different areas of the world here in the forums and in SL.  I don't think it is our individual geographic locations that cause us to speak to each other like we're enemies or treat others like dirt on our shoes over virtual neighborhoods and housing styles. (or any topic brought up in the forums)

Original topic:  I would love to see a breakdown of where residents come from and even gender breakdown.  I understand that may not be possible to do with the anonymous nature of the platform, but I'm still curious. It wouldn't change how I use SL or anything because I don't care where you're from and you are whoever you present as inworld. 

Like Ceka just said, my world view has grown because I've met people from all over and listened to the stories they wanted to share and why they see the world the way they do.  Listening to people talk about what they like with enthusiasm and passion is the best!  Constantly, loudly dissing everything someone else likes because I don't like it or agree would be pretty awful.

So someone doesn't like the US housing styles, but what about its individual citizens?  Are they okay or are they ALL the same?

Apparently we've now moved on to shoe styles where we'll argue about what they should be called.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

Apparently we've now moved on to shoe styles where we'll argue about what they should be called.

Americans wear stupid shoes!!

[Love Zhaoying]

21 hours ago, Extrude Ragu said:

One of the issues that leads to the 'Americana' of SL is that parcels are made up of rigid squares.

 

My own mainland parcel is an oddball shape (with "stair-stepping" on one side.). Are you referring mostly to "curated" lands and parcels (Belli, etc.)?

[Love Zhaoying]

24 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

My part of the country we call'em Shiat Kickers.. Shiat stompers  here, are above the calf and made of rubber.. LOL

 

"Corner roach stompers" if boots are pointy.

Edited January 28 by Love Zhaoying

[Ceka Cianci]

12 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Those look like ropers* to me. These are sheetkickers:

 

The pointy toe and the slant are so it rolls off the boot.

Yes, I prefer Justins. Square toes are swampstompers. 😁

 

 

*ropers are lace ups the rest are not

Ya we use the ropers a lot for riding.. The pointy ones I always called corner kickers or roach killers.. lol

They are good for kicking someone in the butt though, for sure!! \o/ Hook right in there and git ya some .. lol

[Rat Luv]

Has the number of users from Brazil gone down? Because I remember LOADS of Brazilians on SL in the early 2010s...most of the big reggae clubs were owned and staffed by Brazilians. They had a really good time zone slot for events, right between UK and Europe and the USA 

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

Nearly every Portugese speaking person I've ever met in SL seems to be from Brazil, not Portugal.

[Ceka Cianci]

Just now, Rat Luv said:

Has the number of users from Brazil gone down? Because I remember LOADS of Brazilians on SL in the early 2010s...most of the big reggae clubs were owned and staffed by Brazilians. They had a really good time zone slot for events, right between UK and Europe and the USA 

I run into a lot of people from Brazil all the time.. Also a lot from Portugal too.. I'm at the beaches a lot, so that might be where many are hiding.. hehehe

[Rat Luv]

2 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I run into a lot of people from Brazil all the time.. Also a lot from Portugal too.. I'm at the beaches a lot, so that might be where many are hiding.. hehehe

Ah OK! I would have thought their number was a bit higher than 4% (from the site chart Sarah posted).

[Ceka Cianci]

1 minute ago, Rat Luv said:

Ah OK! I would have thought their number was a bit higher than 4% (from the site chart Sarah posted).

I probably shouldn't say  all the time.. I'm at the beaches  for a few hours a day when I'm on.. I'm not really meeting people a lot when I'm doing other things..

I might have sometimes 5 conversations one day  or sometimes 10 conversations another day and 3 out of 5 are from somewhere other than the U.S. mostly Brazil.. Some are from India, some from Russia, just all over..

 

[Rowan Amore]

13 minutes ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Nearly every Portugese speaking person I've ever met in SL seems to be from Brazil, not Portugal.

Kind of makes sense because Portugal only has 10+M people while Brazil has 200+M and Portuguese is the official language in Brazil.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Rowan Amore said:

Kind of makes sense because Portugal only has 10+M people while Brazil has 200+M and Portuguese is the official language in Brazil.

 

That's like, a brazillion!

[Rowan Amore]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

That's like, a brazillion!

Most of the people I've met who speak Spanish aren't from Spain either!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

6 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

What you call "arid and boring" is simply the base structure LL has provided so that WE can add our own touch and give the homes 'character'.  Once Belli is explored in depth one can see how some people do this better than others, or have the inclination to do so.

There's an interesting premise in your language, Luna, which is embedded in the term "base structure," but even more so in your suggestion that one can achieve more diversity and character through add-ons and extensions.

You're really implying that this "base structure" is "neutral" and without associated value assumptions, and that every other kind of diverse expression of what represents "home" to an international community can be achieved by building over top of what is, by implication, "foundational" -- rather than thinking of it as a very particularized articulation of a very specific culture as it exists or existed at one historical moment, in one geographical context.

And I think that for many non-North Americans, the assumptions underlying that articulation are very evident. North American is "base-level" and foundational: everything else is decorative and foreign (perhaps appealingly so!).

Would you similarly call an Italian villa or farmhouse, or a Japanese house a "base structure"? I don't think so -- although I'm open to correction on this -- because I suspect that those seem "different" and even "exotic." Could you reproduce a modern American middle class house by "adding on" or decorating this?

Not very satisfactorily -- anymore than you can decorate a suburban bungalow so that it looks like a stilt house or a trailer. A North American suburban house is no less "ethnic" and with its own character than anything else. Calling it a "base structure" is misleading and a little parochial.

I remain perplexed by the controversy stirred up by what I took to be a very simple and pretty unproblematic suggestion: that LL can diverse its LH offerings by creating some themes that reflect the residential styles of other places around the world. It would acknowledge the international character of SL, and offer something very different looking to everyone.

Right now, however, elves are better represented in Bellisseria than Asians.

Edited January 28 by Scylla Rhiadra
Clarification

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

For the record, I wasn't reacting to anything you may have said..I was mostly having fun in the thread.

Actually, Ceka, most of what you've said has tended to support or just being along the same lines of what I've said on this. You're very aware of the degree to which Belli often represents a kind of sanitized version of a particular North American middle class fantasy, and you've noted how diverse and very different the reality, even in North America, is. So I wasn't in any way implicitly arguing with you.

[Gabriele Graves]

3 hours ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

Well, here we sit reading about how stupid we each are for liking what we like and how wrong it is to enjoy it.  

...<snip>...

Apparently we've now moved on to shoe styles where we'll argue about what they should be called.

It's just your ornery, everyday topic on the forums!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

It's just your ornery, everyday topic on the forums!

If you really wanted to stir up some excitement here, you'd put together a scripted security orb that bounces non-North Americans off ban lines.

[Gabriele Graves]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

If you really wanted to stir up some excitement here, you'd put together a scripted security orb that bounces non-North Americans off ban lines.

Come on, you know that all you have to do here is declare a contentious statement such as "the sky is definitely blue" and woosh!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

6 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

Come on, you know that all you have to do here is declare a contentious statement such as "the sky is definitely blue" and woosh!

Not in PBR viewers!!!!!

FIGHT ME!

[Zalificent Corvinus]

7 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Again irony, since Celebration is near DisneyWorld..it SHOULD be the "happiest place on earth"; people will only live there if they chose to (not counting people who somehow were "forced" to work at DisneyWorld and find the area too expensive).

I'm sure it was a good idea at the time (the Florida Celebration project), but getting any "good idea" to "catch on" is hard.

"Properly Planned Communities" are NEVER a "good idea", as the "proper planning" always stifles the life out of them, goose stepping commissars, telling you your curtains must not be closed in daytime, your front door is the wrong colour, how dare you have flowers in your front yard of an un-approved type.

 

7 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

People from different countries who see Second Life as being a GOOD representation of either their "ideal", of their "home country", or of "what they wish it was like at home" will probably like Second Life "buildings" and "communities"

Well that rules out almost everyone from the EU. the UK, Scandinavia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and a lot of other places.

 

Your comment reeks of "Murica good, foreign bad", frankly.

 

There are "Victorians" that look NOTHING like any Victorian home I've ever seen, "Traditionals" that certainly are not a tradition here. Log cabins? We don't really have those at all.

 

5 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

RL polls show that most people want to live in the country, with the suburbs a close second, and a minority prefer cites.

That depends on where you conduct your poll, and what the definition of "In the country" is.

Here, few people would actually want to move TO some isolated house in the country, when they say "live in the country", they are talking about living in a village, nothing like the Murican Suburban Wastelands.

 

When they say "suburbss" they are talking about places like Sutton or Cheam, with semi detached and detached houses LESS than 10m apart, with shops under a 1/2 mile away.

 

I was talking to a well known forumite a couple of days ago, and they said they were making an 8 mile round trip to a store to grab a few groceries for dinner.

Nobody here travels 8 miles to grab tonights dinner if they can help it, you go to a store under a mile away.

 

Most people like the idea of being able to go to bars, clubs, resturants, big brand stores, having easy access to transportation to get to work, etc. That's why millions of people live in CITIES.

I can tell you from experience that having to spend 90 mins travelling to go to a decent night spot, and having to book a hotel room to stay in overnight because there's NO 24/7 public transport to a "small rural suburb community" really really sucks.

 

6 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

LL is on the right track with Bellisseria.

You might think so, many disagree, for many it's a sterile sinkhole of mind numbing soul destroying tedium, wrapped in a totally ALIEN concept.

 

I remember seeing a video on youtube where somebody was driving around one of those "Murica-Burbs, and evantualy found they way out, then confessed they had found the way out by stopping near some semi-comatose kids on a street corner and asking "How do I escape from this place?".

[Ceka Cianci]

52 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Actually, Ceka, most of what you've said has tended to support or just being along the same lines of what I've said on this. You're very aware of the degree to which Belli often represents a kind of sanitized version of a particular North American middle class fantasy, and you've noted how diverse and very different the reality, even in North America, is. So I wasn't in any way implicitly arguing with you.

When I got my little boathouse in Beli, I was like, omg all my choices look a lot different than what everyone else around me has..

Then i started right clicking them and seeing what was going on..

Sid and others were making addons for them, which I went out right away and went addon shopping to see what I could find..

I think what is kind of neat about us humans is.. You can plop a bunch of us down in one chunk of land and in the same exact houses and come back 10 years later and see the diverse changes that was constructed by the ones that lived there over time, making it their own..

The other house we bought in town is a brick home with a lot of other brick homes in the area that are  constructed the same..

It's really interesting  going inside them to see what people have taken down inside and  added or opened up.. how they did this or that with their kitchens..

Then also seeing how people are inspired from each other and see someones idea that gives them ideas..

With ours we took walls down and opened up the dinning room and the kitchen and living room to make a really  opened up and relaxing great room.. It opens up to where the family can still be together while doing other things at the same time..

I wish we could do things like that with belie homes and the inside walls.. I get too cramped in most SL houses and like openness in a home.

Anyways, no matter what the outside settings are, We'll get creative and make things our own and  when we pan back and look at the whole area, it will have changed  over time from the worker ants below.. hehehe

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Sid and others were making addons for them, which I went out right away and went addon shopping to see what I could find..

I'm holding off on getting a Linden Home until @Sid Nagy has finished the modest add-ons I need.

[Ceka Cianci]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I'm holding off on getting a Linden Home until @Sid Nagy has finished the modest add-ons I need.

Is that the Crowley place ?

[Luna Bliss]

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

7 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

What you call "arid and boring" is simply the base structure LL has provided so that WE can add our own touch and give the homes 'character'.  Once Belli is explored in depth one can see how some people do this better than others, or have the inclination to do so.

There's an interesting premise in your language, Luna, which is embedded in the term "base structure," but even more so in your suggestion that one can achieve more diversity and character through add-ons and extensions.

You're really implying that this "base structure" is "neutral" and without associated value assumptions, and that every other kind of diverse expression of what represents "home" to an international community can be achieved by building over top of what is, by implication, "foundational" -- rather than thinking of it as a very particularized articulation of a very specific culture as it exists or existed at one historical moment, in one geographical context.

And I think that for many non-North Americans, the assumptions underlying that articulation are very evident. North American is "base-level" and foundational: everything else is decorative and foreign (perhaps appealingly so!).

Would you similarly call an Italian villa or farmhouse, or a Japanese house a "base structure"? I don't think so -- although I'm open to correction on this -- because I suspect that those seem "different" and even "exotic." Could you reproduce a modern American middle class house by "adding on" or decorating this?

Not very satisfactorily -- anymore than you can decorate a suburban bungalow so that it looks like a stilt house or a trailer. A North American suburban house is no less "ethnic" and with its own character than anything else. Calling it a "base structure" is misleading and a little parochial.

I remain perplexed by the controversy stirred up by what I took to be a very simple and pretty unproblematic suggestion: that LL can diverse its LH offerings by creating some themes that reflect the residential styles of other places around the world. It would acknowledge the international character of SL, and offer something very different looking to everyone.

Right now, however, elves are better represented in Bellisseria than Asians.

Dear Goddess I would think your legs would be fatigued from back peddling so much. First it was whining about how LL didn't take you into account via having 'cram everyone together in an apartment' regions for you personally and likely 20 other people -- never mind few would want to live so close to others and so would be a dreadful waste of time & money.

Your recent critique is a little more understandable to me, but still wrong.
Take a look at southern California Mediterranean homes:
http://tinyurl.com/2fz9w5fp

Southern California Mediterranean areas don't look like the SL rendition at all -- so where are you getting the notion that the SL version is a sanitized version like American suburbs?

Instead, what we see in the Southern California renditions are various TYPES of the Mediterranean STYLE -- types that we can actually make our base home into if we desire:
Spanish Mediterranean style
Italian Mediterranean style
Greece Mediterranean
Traditional Mediterranean
Santa Fe Mediterranean
Mexican Mediterranean.

Again, by providing a more base/neutral style we are free to decorate the homes to create most of the styles mentioned above -- we can add our own touches or give it character.  If instead they were excessively Spanish, Mexican, or Italian it would be much more difficult to modify it to what we might like best.

It's just a truth -- the more narrow you define something there will be less people who will want it. A big umbrella works better to attract more customers, especially with people who have the insight to see they can modify it into various styles of their choosing. Of course there are limitations -- your example to prove you can't modify everything is absurd.

Case in point about modifying to make our own styles - take for example Leora's Mediterranean home she so graciously lets me squat at, though when I left out all that trash she threatened to toss my little tent I sleep in right into the nearby creek!  laaafs
Watch out, Leora, or your home will likely become awfully bright if you give me too much leeway!  I would make it into a Frida Kahlo house with the bright blue color I love so much, along with the deep orange/nutmeg.
(photo below)   ohhh...look at the blue on that table...I'm having a blissful seizure...

Anyway, same idea with Asian -- what they offered is very basic but there are so many styles -- and we are free to go in all kind of directions with it. I'd go Zen most likely.

Chalets -- they could be made quite rustic if preferred. One could even have typical European mold provided by brick add-ons from some enterprising merchant. Or is it moss?  Whatever, it does look cute and I'm not allergic to it in SL.

BTW, have you actually studied styles of homes in America?  There's a lot of variety. I think you've been taken over by a meme with your Pleasantville & Stepford Wive's talk. Movies and books perpetuate the myth, but in reality you don't see too many suburbs like that. As such, I don't believe LL were trying to replicate it in any way.

Edited January 28 by Luna Bliss

[Sid Nagy]

11 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I'm holding off on getting a Linden Home until @Sid Nagy has finished the modest add-ons I need.

I'll start somewhere in 2087 or so.
If you want it sooner go to Disney land. Neu Schwarnstein (on the photo) stood model for that one.