Episode 21 of The Drax Files : World Makers features an interview with Editorial Clarity, the founder and CEO of Love To Decorate (AKA LTD), a publication about home and garden products in Second Life. This episode is, at its heart a love story. Wait wait wait, wasn’t that a theme from my previous blog post? *Checks Notes* … ah it applies to this one too! Love is in the air. everywhere I look around, Love is in the air, every sight and every sound.
The episode opens with Edi opening a real physical 200 page edition of LTD magazine. The items in this magazine are products made for Second Life. The magazine is funded by advertising and the way it works is that they decorate a home from scratch to show people what can be done.
Edi, who seems to have a rather slight West Midland and London tinge to his accent, explains how he’s not a creator but he does create spaces. I feel that creation in Second Life isn’t just the domain of those who create products, I see land and spaces as being part of the creation process too, so I disagree with Edi about him not being a creator.
Edi talks about how Second Life helped not only his confidence but his love life too. Love is in the air, in the whisper of the trees, Love is in the air, in the thunder of the seas. He met his partner Rico in Second Life back in 2010, at a time when he had not yet, in his own words, come out of the closet to his family. They met in real life a year later and have been going strong ever since.
The episode features some wonderful footage of their inworld marriage, a spectacular looking Alice In Wonderland themed affair that also doubled as a fashion show for Second Life designers.
The episode yet again features the tried and tested formula of mixing Second Life and real life footage. This shows the reality of the people behind the avatars, it shows that they have a life outside of the virtual world and it yet again shows the power of the virtual world being able to bring people together from all around the world, how the virtual world makes the physical world smaller.
This episode features footage from Login2Life, a documentary about people who inhabit the virtual spaces of places such as Second Life and World Of Warcraft.
This is another job well done by Draxtor Despres and we see that it is possible for products to bridge the divide between the virtual and real worlds, as well as people. Love is in the air, in the rising of the sun, Love is in the air, when the day is nearly done.