Episode 26 of The Drax Files : World Makers takes a dip into the world of Second Life fashion, more notably the world of a Second Life fashion model, in this case, one who goes by the name of Absinthe.
Now regular readers of this blog may well be aware that fashion in Second Life is not my comfort zone, but this is part of the beauty of Draxtor Despres’ excellent series, it breaks down barriers in a simple fashion by letting the person being interviewed do most of the talking.
In this case we also see someone who plays a role in Second Life that is not a direct representation of their RL self. Absinthe in Second Life is a white female. The person behind the avatar is an African American female. An interesting point to note here is that the person behind the avatar admits that she doesn’t really see colour when it comes to people and she puts this down to growing up with a father who was in the armed forces. This meant that she grew up with different cultures and different races.
This even extends to the point whereby the RL person behind Absinthe doesn’t really view her as white, more of an extension of her inner self.
We also get an insight into what being a Second Life fashion model entails. The Second Life fashion scene is huge and plays a major role in the economy and therefore plays a large part with regards to the content users create. However being a model entails a bit more than some may think, you need to know about animation overrides, poses and Absinthe even admits that she gets performance anxiety when performing at a show, even though she’s only pushing arrow keys.