Tag: SaveMe Oh

A Second Update: Leaving My Second Life Avatars to Other People Via My Will

Angel Michaela 3 30 Mar 2018
Prayerful Vigil: one of my avatars who needs a good home after I am gone

This week, I have been scheduling in-world meetings with various people in Second Life who had expressed an interest in inheriting one of my SL avatars. (If you want more background on why I am doing this, you can read all about it here, here, here and here.)

One thing that I have discovered, is that most people are not really that interested in taking over someone else’s avatar after the original owner has passed away. The idea probably creeps some people out. It might also be that people are shying away from having to provide a real-life name and means of contact to me and my lawyer (when I select one to draw up my last will and testament).

I do want to make it clear that I will no longer be publishing who gets what avatar on this blog. SaveMe Oh, who evidently marches to the beat of her own drummer, has decided to publish my email to her on her own blog, telling her that she can inherit my drag queen/clown avatar, Velcro Zipper, even though I specifically asked her not to. So be it. She has a habit of posting transcripts of other people’s conversations with her to her blog, so I probably should not be surprised. But she still gets one of my avatars to add to her merry band of artistic warriors and shit disturbers. Maybe the operators of the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) sims might want to add “Velcro Zipper” to their ban lists as a precaution, even though she will not be getting Velcro for many, many years!

But from here on in, it’s nobody’s business who gets which of my avatars in my will. So, if that was a consideration that was originally holding you back from offering to take one, please be reassured. I am not SaveMe Oh, and I will not publish transcripts of our conversations, or our emails/IMs, without your explicit permission!

Here’s my list of avatars. Many are still looking for good homes. I’m actually somewhat surprised that nobody has asked about my celebrity look-alike avatars like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, or Cher:

If you are interested in inheriting one of these Second Life avatars, please contact me via email at ryanschultz [at] Gmail [dot] com (or via the Contact page on this blog). You can also approach me and talk to me in-world in Second Life, Sansar or another virtual world, or talk to me on one of the many community forums or Discord channels for the various virtual worlds of which I am a part (including my own Discord).

This has been a very interesting experience for me! I have already had some fascinating in-depth conversations with people this week, and I look forward to many more in the coming weeks and months! As I have said before, I do plan on living a long and healthy life, and playing Second Life well into my 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, but you never know what can happen, and it always pays to be prepared for any eventuality. And, as I have said before, It would give me great pleasure to know that the avatars I lovingly created and outfitted will live on after my death. It’s a kind of digital immortality, and I honestly don’t think that it’s creepy at all.

Have a plan in place so your friends in virtual worlds will know what happened to you if you suddenly disappear off the grid! And think about what you want done with your digital assets if you should die. How will you choose to have things wrapped up?

UPDATED: Give Me Your Opinion: Should I Leave an Avatar to SaveMe Oh in My Will, Or Is That a Bad Idea?

SaveMe Oh.jpg
SaveMe Oh

Among the 15 or so people who have contacted me so far about the possibility of inheriting one of my Second Life avatars via my will, the most intriguing request came from the SL celebrity, performance artist, and perennial provocateur SaveMe Oh (blog, Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo), who writes:

I would be glad to take over an avatar as we have all our Second Life to celebrate virtual life. Your avatar will become part of the SaveMe Oh army of freedom fighters… If you like the idea that SaveMe Oh takes over a part of you, please send me your most outspoken avi. I wish you a full life as long you are on this world.

Which raises a couple of interesting questions:

  1. Who is SaveMe Oh, and why does she have such a reputation as a troublemaker, or “freedom fighter” as she puts it?
  2. And just who is my most outspoken avatar?

So, I went and did a little background research on SaveMe Oh. The first thing I found was this video called The Parade (warning: not really safe for work):

The Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) issued the following statement after this video was published:

This notecard is to ensure that everyone is aware that the Committee has banned SaveMe Oh at the Estate level on all 29 LEA sims permanently and AIRs are not permitted to override this. This is effective January 1st, 2017 and onwards.

It would seem that SaveMe Oh has been banned from numerous sims for her activities. Furthermore, she documents her discussions with many of the people who have banned her from their sims on her blog. She’s a troublemaker, all right, but every society needs agitators to shake up the status quo.

As for my most outspoken avatar. well, that would probably be my drag queen/clown avatar, Velcro Zipper:

Velcro Zipper at Franks 3 APr 2018_001

Velcro Zipper 3 26 Sept 2018

Both clowns and drag queens tend to poke fun at society’s sacred cows, and they often get away with saying the most outrageous things. This might indeed be the perfect match up!

But, for this particular potential avatar-inheritor match up, I want you, my blog readers, to weigh in with your opinions. I need everybody to fill me in here and provide some historical context before I make this particular decision.

Why should I leave SaveM Oh my Velcro Zipper avatar in my will? Why not? Let’s hear your thoughts and opinions on the matter! I’m genuinely curious to hear what you think. Thanks in advance!

UPDATE 7:00 p.m.: Well, I certainly got a lot of feedback from various people, mostly negative. I had been willing to give SaveMe Oh the benefit of the doubt, but many of you consider her to be nothing more than a griefer, and they warn me to consider what I am doing more carefully. So I will.

One person even went so far as to criticize me for wanting to leave my SL avatars to other people in my will in the first place, accusing me of being “furiously in need for attention”. This made me angry, and I told her that I have already explained what I am doing and why I am doing it in my blog, and I don’t feel the need to explain myself further. Either you get it, or you don’t. If you don’t get it, and all you feel you can do is criticize, then so be it.

UPDATE Oct. 27th: SaveMe Oh has responded on her blog, saying:

Now I have a question for Ryan Schultz. Do you think this is the work of a griefer or an artist?

If it be your will from SaveMe Oh on Vimeo.