IF YOU thought a virtual world like was a smorgasbord of experimental gender swaps, nerdy types engaging in kinky sex or entrepreneurs cashing in on real-world moneymaking possibilities, think again. It’s more humdrum than you’d imagine, according to anthropologist Tom Boellstorff. As on terra firma, people’s virtual selves go to bars, build homes, get married – and have affairs. Could Boellstorff be right that we’re all virtual humans anyway, viewing the world as we do through the prism of culture?
Coming of Age in Second Life
Princeton Univ. Press