Ahern: My First Rez Spot

Written 29 September

My First Rez Spot

I was first-rezzed at the Ahern welcome area. It’s located on the mainland at the intersection of the Ahern, Morris, Bonifacio, and Dore sims.

For the first three days of my life, until real life friends found me and took me home with them, I lived at Ahern. I ventured into the world during those three days, certainly, but I rezzed at Ahern and it was to Ahern I returned.

It was then and remains a busy area, full of newly-arrived avatars and a few who have been around for some years. It’s a no-build, no-script, no-object-entry, no-damage, no-push area, but it’s still by far the most bizarre place I’ve been in Second Life. It’s full of sound spammers, people who abuse voice, bizarre avatars, naked people, people who act stupid and profane in Chat, and new people running around asking questions in a dozen languages.

Sometimes, when my creativity has run low and I’m not building something, I’ll go to Ahern early in the morning or late at night and sit on a wall, watching the circus. Occasionally I’ll spot an avatar or two who seem intent on learning about SL, and I’ll help them by giving them landmarks and a flight feather. A few of these folks have become my friends.

Ahern (I’ll call it Ahern even though people wander freely across the sim borders) never fails to disappoint. This morning, for instance, I heard a newbie chatting up an older but still newbie-looking female, telling her he would teleport her to a private spot and he hoped to hell she was really a female so he wouldn’t get a lifelong neurosis. I was interviewed by a South Korean reporter in a cell-shaded Snoopy avatar. A naked woman from Brazil was running around asking for clothes (as if she didn’t have any!). Someone was continually playing a song called Banana Telephone (I muted him). Two avatars were arguing drunkenly in voice and chat because one had called the other’s silks Gorean whore clothes. Other avatars, clearly in their early twenties, were talking in voice about the tribulations of apartment living. When one complained about nine illegals sharing the apartment next door to her, someone asked in Chat why she discriminated against Mexicans. Someone else talked about listening to a man beat his wife all night long.

This morning I made friends with a man from England who was online at work and a three-week old woman from Indiana and we sat on a wall watching the circus and chatting. We helped orient a new woman from Germany.

When I left to go to work, my new friends were helping the new citizen from Brazil. She was sill pretending she didn’t have any clothes.
“Don’t bother,” I IMed them. “By this time next week her tits and ass will be out to there and anything you give her won’t fit. Extreme sexual stereotypes seems to be a Brazilian national characteristic.”

“I know,” said my friend from England. “I can’t wait.”

Ahern. Where the weird turn pro.