Reading

Coming of Age in Second Life (2008) by Tom Boellstorf

"In this book I take Second Life's emergence as given and work to analyze the cultural practices and beliefs taking form within it.....Although some insightful research has claimed that online culture her-alds the arrival of the “posthuman,” I show that Second Life culture is pro-foundly human. It is not only that virtual worlds borrow assumptions from real life; virtual worlds show us how, under our very noses, our “real” lives have been “virtual” all along. It is in being virtual that we are human: since it is hu-man “nature” to experience life through the prism of culture, human being has always been virtual being. Cutlure is our “killer app”: we are virtually human....Virtual worlds do have signifi-cant consequences for social life....In virtual worlds we are not quite human—our humanity is thrown off balance, considered anew, and reconfigured through" (5)

I've only just started, but I'm loving it already.