To Fur, or not to Fur: Second Life Bronies

 Recently, the television series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP:FiM) has gained considerable popularity in the United States. A Brony (or its female counterpart: a pegasister) is a viewer or fan of this television series. Since the show’s release, there has been an increase in the population of Bronies in Second Life. Multiple sims like BronyTown, EverFree Forest and Trotsdale have been a hot spot for thousands of these SL Bronies.

Many Bronies choose to use pony avatars while in these sims. These players typically are avid MLP:FiM role-players. You can even see some players that have “mane” pony cast avatars running around the sim. It is largely in part due to this, that so many Bronies have been receiving hate from supporters of the anti-furry community.

Because many people are not big fans of the Furry community and because of this, rumors often spread throughout the grid like wildfire. Recently, many anti-furry advocates have been accusing the Furries of using the Brony community as a ploy to gain support. Upon hearing this, I was led to question the accuracy of this insinuation and began to wonder how much the Furry and Brony communities overlap in SL.

Firstly, I consider myself to be a Brony and would personally disagree with the anti-furry accusations. However, I am relatively new to the SL community, so I am not yet familiar with the popular opinions of many SL users.

Deciding to investigate this issue, I traveled to Bronytown and the EverFree Forest in my Pegasus pony avatar. BronyTown is one of the largest role-playing Brony communities in SL, while the EverFree Forest is one of the biggest pony sims. Once there, I was sure that I could find a few Bronies who would be more knowledgeable than me on SL Brony politics. Thus, I began to interview several random Bronies to obtain some insight.

SydVicious11: Do you think that there is an overlap between the furry and brony communities?

Pegasus Colt: I do not speak for all of either comunity, but my personal experiences there seems to be

Pegasus Colt: at least on S:

Pegasus Colt: SL*

EverFree Forest Pegasister: Somewhat. I mean, I'm sort of a furry. And I've seen other furries running around here aswell

SydVicious11: Do you think there is much of an overlap between the furry and brony communities?

BronyTown Rarity: There is a HUGE overlap. Almost every pony I meet here is a fur.

Brony Role-Player: personally to me there isn't really much over lap brony is brony and furry is furry

Shukie Galicia: the brony and furry fandoms do overlap abit. i myself am a furry for the past 8 years, and a brony for the past year or so.

It appears that to the knowledge of most SL Bronies, there is a relatively large overlap between the Brony and Furry community, yet that does not seem to bother many of them.

SydVicious11: Do you think this is a source of conflict within the brony community?

BronyTown Rarity: Not that I've seen. People, whether furs or not, tend to leave their other interests out in the Pony sims. Especially as the sim is PG.

One Brony who I interviewed explains the situation the best.

Earth Filly: There's overlap, but only among certain people. It depends on the individual, not the whole community.

Furthermore, when I interviewed a role-player from BronyTown about the Brony/Furry overlap she simply replied.

Brony Role-Player: does it matter if it does?

Thus there is a clear overlap between the two communities. Yet, when I asked if they thought that if the Brony community was a ploy by the Furries to gain supporters, many scoffed at the anti-furry accusation.

SydVicious11: many people who are anti-furry think that bronies are just a fur ploy in order to get more support

SydVicious11: do you think that is true?

EverFree Forest Pegasister: No. Some people who are bronies are also furries, but they are two completely different fandoms

One girl made a logical comparison between the relationship of Bronies and Furry fans to that of anime fans and Furry fans.

Shukie Galicia: the same way the anime fans overlap with furry fans and so on. like furrys go to anime cons

I even had a discussion with the owner of the EverFree Forest sim, zedmastermind, who agreed that there are some Furries that are Bronies in SL. He also thought the accusation by anti-furs was ridiculous.

While I do not have exact numbers and statistics, the general consensus is that there is a definite overlap between the Furry and Brony communities in SL. However, that does not imply that Bronies are Furries are mutually exclusive.

Shukie Galicia: many non-furs picked up on MLP. i personally am female so i'm just kinda into ponys because its adorable and makes me laugh :33 and the toys look cute on my desk xD

It seems that many SL Bronies enjoy My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic for the show and community rather than for the alignment with the Furry community. Furry or not, the SL Bronies are brought together by their love for the show, and most don’t care where your interests lie outside of that.

Maybe the anti-furry community needs to get past the Brony stereotype and take a lesson from the show. To quote Twilight Sparkle in her letter to Princess Celestia in the end of the episode Bridle Gossip:

“Dear Princess Celestia,

My friends and I all learned an important lesson this week: Never judge a book by its cover. Someone may look unusual, or funny, or scary. But you have to look past that and learn who they are inside. Real friends don't care what your "cover" is; It's the contents of a pony that count. And a good friend, like a good book, is something that will last forever.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle. “

Extra Blog: My Second Life Experience

            One of the MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing game) that we spent a lot of time in during our Intro to Virtual Worlds class was Second Life. Second Life is an online virtual world that was created by Linden Lab in 2003. In Second Life, players can interact with other users by using custom avatars. Not only can they be social, but they can also explore the world (also known as the “grid”) and have the ability to build almost anything. You also have the option to make real world money by trading in Linen Dollars you gain in game. I actually had played Second Life one time before this class back in 2007.

            The only issue with playing back in 2007 is that I had not played since. So I basically had to learn how to do most basic tasks over again. I was skeptical when our class first played during class because my last experience had not been something to write home about. After playing in world for about an hour in class, I still was not quite convinced that Second Life was all that great. It didn’t help that all the other times I attempted to play on my laptop the game glitched and would not load objects or avatars correctly. At that point, I was nowhere near excited to do really anything related to Second Life.

             A few weeks after our first Second Life introduction, our class was assigned our final blogging assignment. Our task was to write an article based on a given topic that we were to investigate in Second Life using in game participants as informants. Once again, I was slightly skeptical about how much I would learn from this experience but I still tried to be positive about working in Second Life. Our class was going to be writing for a real online newspaper called Alphaville Herald. One of the editors, Pixeleen Mistral, would be giving us our article assignments after we sent her an email. Our professor listed off some possible article topics and one stuck out to me, Bronies. A Brony is a name given to (a usually male) fan/viewer of the new television show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I myself am a Brony and knew that this was the topic for me. As soon as class was out, I sent Pix an email asking for an article about the Second Life Bronies. Pix granted my request and gave me a Brony themed article topic. She also gave me a few different ideas of what I could focus my article on, for example Brony politics, Brony businesses or the overlap between Bronies and Furries. I decided it would be the most interesting to go with the third article option.

            Now that I had my article assignment I had to go in world and interview some of the Second Life Bronies. My only issue at this point was making time to log onto Second Life to actually conduct the interviews was slightly difficult. My laptop still did not like the Second Life viewer that I installed. Not only that, but I had to work around the time that the campus computer lab was available for use. Once I finally was able to get into the lab, my Second Life journalist adventure really started to bloom. 

            My first stop was BronyTown. As I found during my travels of the Second Life world, BronyTown is one of the larger and more popular Brony communities. I entered the world in my started German shepherd avatar and began to wander around the sim. I found some ponies and I asked them if they would allow me to ask them a few questions for an article that I was writing. One pony (who was wearing a Rarity avatar) was very nice and answered all of my questions. Another pony was more wary of my intentions, but he stubbornly gave me some answers. For the most part, the ponies I ran into just were role-playing and didn’t take the time to talk. After a slightly disappointing Second Life adventure I had to leave the computer lab at closing time.

            I was back in the computer lab as soon it opened again. This time, instead of going right back to finding ponies to interview, I decided to check out the rest of the sim. While flying above the trees of the EverFree Forest, I had the idea to change my dog avatar into a pony one. I figured people would be more likely to talk to me if I looked like them. I ended up running into a random Brony, who was able to help me create my very own pony avatar (that was dark gray with a blue mane and tail). Donning my new avatar, I went back on the prowl for new Bronies to interview. Yet this time I was very unsuccessful this time around. I got a few words from a couple Bronies but no one would stay to chat. For the most part they kept role-playing or just didn’t respond. Slightly irritated with the lack of willing Bronies, I decided that I needed to take a break and do something else until more Bronies showed up in the sim. I explored almost all of what I think was the entirety of the Brony sim, I had the idea to visit Nope.

Nope is a sim in Second Life that our class was told about by our professor when we were learning about griefers. Griefers are people that can be found in almost any MMO, and who enjoy irritating and harassing other players for fun. In Second Life there is always a place where people who affiliate themselves with or are griefers’ home base. Our class had been granted access to Nope by one of the well-known “griefers” in Second Life, yet no one had bothered to venture there. I didn’t have any thing better to do at the time so I decided to check it out for myself.

I arrived in Nope and the first thing I noticed was how random and slightly chaotic it was. There were random meme references scattered about the land, which I found quite amusing. I wandered about in my pony avatar when suddenly I was surrounded by a very random assortment of people. I was a newcomer in an invite only sim so they were all slightly confused. Many of them began to ask me questions like how did I know about Nope? Was I apart of the JLU? Who invited me? Was I lost? I put on my headset and attempted to explain myself as they bombarded me with questions. I tried to answer their questions as best as I could. I told them about the class I was taking. How I knew about them. I explained that I was not a JLU member. I then told them about the article I was writing and my lack of Bronies willing to participate in my interview. Instead of messing with me like I had expected them to, they actually were interested in what I was telling them. Some thought it was funny that my professor was writing a book about griefers and some wanted to know what it was called so they could check it out when it was finished. After I told the group about my article, a few of them decided to help me. A couple Bronies happened to be in the group, so they told me what they thought about the relationship between the Second Life Bronies and Furries. One went as far as to get in contact with the owner of the EverFree Forest, which is one if not the biggest pony sims in Second Life. That griefer accompanied me in going to meet up with zedmastermind (the owner of the sim). I learned a lot about the Second Life Bronies and about some of their different groups and even some stuff about Second Life itself from talking to Zed and the griefer. The three of us talked about many random things like Woodbury and what we thought of the JLU. They even gave me helpful advice about where to download a better viewer for Second Life so it will actually work on my computer. Our chat was cut short when security was closing up the computer lab. I thanked Zed and the griefer for all of their help and logged off.

In the end, I actually really enjoyed my experience in Second Life. After I fix my game viewer (so I will hopefully be able to play it on my computer) I will probably continue to play it every now and then. I loved how helpful many of the players were and they would take time to explain things to me even though I was new to the game. Even the griefers that I met were both funny and enjoyable people. I was able to learn a lot about Second Life from people who actually witnessed many of the events that we had previously discussed in class. I am glad that I kept an open mind about Second Life because the experience that I had was not only enjoyable but I was able to learn more about Second Life and the people who play it more than I thought I ever would.

Virtual Worlds: Blog Three REWRITE

            During class this week, our main topic of discussion was the laws and jurisdiction of the Internet and how it is difficult to actually govern and have set laws. One reading in particular stuck out more to me. Written by David Johnson and David Post, Laws and Borders: the Rise of Law in Cyberspace touched on many subjects that are quite relevant to today. They mainly touch on subject of the “new rules [that] will emerge, in a variety of online spaces, to govern a wide range of new phenomena that have no clear parallel in the non-virtual world.” Basically, cyberspace is an entirely new place that cannot abide by all of the rules of every country or nation that uses the Internet. Post and Johnson claim that these new rules “will play the role of law by defining legal personhood and property, resolving disputes, and crystallizing a collective conversation about core values.” They claim that cyberspace should be considered to be it’s own place and therefore should have it’s own rules.

            I cannot really think of many examples that I ran into/experienced while playing LOTRO that would be considered relevant to our readings. I have not run into players breaking rules, exploiting or attempting to use cheats. I didn’t even run into any trolls while playing the game. This may be because I have not reached a highly populated part of the game quite yet. But there is an issue that is relevant both to our readings and to some current events. These “current events” would be the attempt made by the House of Representatives and the Senate to pass both the SOPA and PIPA bills. They were created in an attempt to “eliminate” copyright infringement on the Internet. In short, SOPA (aka Stop Online Piracy Act) allows companies to remove websites if they contain anything that is copyrighted or hyperlinked to copyrighted material. PIPA (aka Protect Intellectual Property Act) is very similar to SOPA, but it deals with foreign websites and attempts to stop them from hosting things like television shows, movies or anything else that would be considered copyrighted material. If these bills were to pass and eventually become laws, many websites would be shut down. Not only would websites be affected, but also many companies would most likely be destroyed in the process.

            The House of Representatives and the Senate honestly has no business meddling in laws and matters that deal with the Internet. There are multiple, logical reasons why they have no business in dealing with anything Internet related. Some of these reasons include but are not limited to the basic fact that the House of Representatives and the Senate are in no way experts on the Internet and do not know how or why it works the way it does. Both Johnson and Post would agree with me on this topic. Because the United States government attempted to treat the Internet as a something under its jurisdiction rather than a new place, their actions went the exact opposite direction of what Johnson and Post were trying to promote. Johnson and Post explain that “Internet has created jurisdictional problems” due to its lack of boundaries. This supports the idea that the Internet should be considered it’s own place. Too many problems arise when multiple different governments (including both state and country) have different ideas about how the Internet should be run. No two governments would have the same ideas and standards. Like Johnson and Post said, it would be much easier to consider cyberspaces its own, separate jurisdiction. Because PIPA and SOPA are an attempt to regulate the Internet, Johnson and Post would never support either bill.

             Many things could (and more than likely would) go wrong if the government was allowed to interfere with creating and enforcing Internet law. Recently, a “blackout” was held Wednesday, January 18^th, in protest of both SOPA and PIPA. Sites such as Reddit and Wikipedia (along with multiple other websites) went dark for 24 hours. For one day, many Americans struggled to complete many simple tasks that only took seconds to complete the day before. The blackout attempted to mimic what the Internet would be like if SOPA and PIPA were passed. This is why the House of Representatives and the Senate needs to become more educated on both the Internet and how cyberspace should be considered a new place. And because it would be a new place, laws created in cyberspace should be treated as valid and the United States government should respect cyberspaces jurisdictional authority.  

Virtual Worlds: Blog One REWRITE

In his book Designing Virtual Worlds, Richard Bartel defines virtual worlds as a world “implemented by a computer (or network of computers) that simulates an environment.” These games are often referred to as “multi-user,” meaning all game users share and play together in the same “world.” Starting off as simple MUDs (multi-user dungeons), virtual worlds have grown and expanded immensely throughout the years. Games such as World of Warcraft, Habbo Hotel, Lord of the Rings Online, Club Penguin, and Eve Online are all examples of how virtual worlds have grown and expanded in today’s society.

The first project assigned to our Intro to Virtual Worlds class was to create a “toon” on Lord of the Rings Online. Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) is the first virtual world that we will be studying this term.  Together, our class will work together to gain a better understanding of how virtual worlds work. By actually playing the game, we will be able to better comprehend the materials learned in class and be able to apply what we have learned in-game to concepts or ideas our class goes over. Before you begin your LOTRO journey, you must create a toon or avatar for you to play as. You can create them to look a variety of different ways. Similar to many MMORPGs, in LOTRO, depending on what attributes you choose for your character will determine what their strengths, weaknesses and job in the virtual world will be.

The most important decisions you can make while creating your LOTRO avatar is made when choosing their race, class, and skills. I personally decided to play as a character from the man race. I liked the other races (and I knew I did not want to be a dwarf for sure) but I also knew that elves would probably be pretty popular. At first I wanted to make my character a Lore Master. A Lore Master is a class you can choose that has your character using magic to fight instead of weapons or other objects. According to the LOTRO Game Guide, "the Lore-master uses his knowledge of ancient wisdom to attack his foes or to ease the suffering of his companions” and “can even communicate with animals and request their aid, and also use his knowledge to daze, harm, and hinder his enemies." I knew it would be harder to do than be a hunter (which was my other option) but I thought it would be fun. Only the races of elves and men can be Lore Masters, which is why I ended up choosing to play as a man. I also changed my characters physical appearance to my liking, which was quite fun (due to the many options I had to choose from). This is what she first looked like.

 Yet when I first started playing, I realized that it was quite hard to play as a Lore Master. Lore Masters are under the "advanced" character. I decided to create a second character (who looks the same) and choose a "basic" level. After I figure out how to play the game a little better, I will go back and play as my Lore Master character. This time I chose to play as a Guardian. A Guardian is described as "the class of choice for players who enjoy hard- fought battles and heavy hand-to-hand combat” and “one of the few classes willing and able to draw blows onto himself, and can retaliate with devastating response.” A Guardian “uses taxing attacks and irksome taunts to draw and hold opponents’ attention, relying on his shield and weapon to turn aside incoming attacks with blocks and parries." I started playing, and so far I am on level 7, so it is going well. I still am not at the point where I know how to strategize my attacks or even know how to effectively fight as a tank. But that is a skill I hopefully will have learned (and maybe mastered) by the time we are done playing the game. This is what my guardian character “Saxith” looks like.

Now, according to Richard Bartel, there are four types of players in virtual worlds. He points out that by having a balance between all four types of characters, which will cause the game to run smoothly, “an account of the dynamics of player populations is given in terms of these dimensions, with particular attention to how to promote balance or equilibrium”. Bartel uses card suits to describe the four types of players found in virtual worlds. He describes hearts (the socialisers) as players who “are interested in people, and what they have to say.” So those who are socialisers participate in games like LOTRO to create friendships. Spades (the explorers) on the other hand are, “explorers [who] delight in having the game expose its internal machinations to them.” Often times, explorers will travel to the ends of the game, searching for bugs to tinker with and understand. Clubs (the killers), “get their kicks from imposing themselves on others.” Killers are often players who are also known as “griefers,” players who purposely irritate or harass fellow players for fun. Finally, diamonds (the achievers) are those who “regard points-gathering and rising in levels as their main goal, and all is ultimately subserviant to this.” This type of players’ main goal is to level up and gain or gather game points. It is the balance of these four types of characters that makes MMORPGs so successful because, when together, the types are balanced out. Bartel argues that if a game is heavy on one type of player, then the balance of the game could be lost. If a game lost a large amount of explorers it could, hypothetically, cause a gradual drop in achievers who are bored without anything new to try and the chain reaction would cause the rest of the types’ numbers to gradually decline. I personally think that I will mostly be in the diamond and spades group. This is because I enjoy the smaller tasks that lead up to my character leveling up and I like to explore the lands I have not yet visited.

Hopefully playing in the world of LOTRO will be a ton of fun. I have never actually played a real action MMORPG like LOTRO or World of Warcraft before, so I am excited and slightly nervous. I am also looking forward to learning more about the game itself (game play, character interactions, quests, etc) and virtual worlds that are similar to LOTRO as I learn how to successfully play the game.