Corporate SL
First off, I’m biased in the fact that I don’t like corporations. In RL or SL. It’s not because I’m some dirty hippie scared of capitalisim, it has to do with individuality and personal responsibility. Both of those huge parts of humanity seem to get lost when it comes to corporate america.
- The big 10 media companies decide the content in all your music, radio, tv, films, books, and newspapers.
- Enron’s involvement in California’s electricity crisis.
- Wal-Mart as low-wage no benifits employers - average employee makes less than $19,000 a year. They used to lobby against raising the minuim wage until they publically flipped. But still 42 out of the 49 people who voted against the last bill recieved contributions from Wal-Mart.
- Clothing companies such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Calvin Klein, The Gap, Inc. (Banana Republic, Old Navy), J. Crew Group, The Limited, Liz Claiborne, Nordstrom, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sears, Tommy Hilfiger use(d) sweatshops in Saipan and still able to have the “made in the USA tag.”
- Blockbuster (viacom) has the pull and power to demand from the studios “legal” tamed down versions of films.
I don’t think its the fault of capitalisim itself, the problem stems from these untouchable corps having no one to answer to. It starts out as simple greed then stems into doing whatever possible to keep profits high and costs low. The greed itself isn’t what’s wrong as it’s a natural human instict. The issue really is that there are hardly any checks and balances for the evil things they do. One definate thing that needs to change is the role they play in american politics.
So of course the idea of corporations within SL is slightly worring. Luckily for now the impact is rather low and mostly used for marketing.
Imminent Walmartization of SL?
I’ve had a number of conversations with Alle on this one. Oddly, she’s a lot more worried then I am about this possibility. Would a clothing company be able to easily make a dent into the SL fashion industy? Sure why not? They have the money to throw at marketing, professional graphic designers, and builders. But would that dent be so big that everyone else just stops? I doubt it. Look at the history of the SL industry. When I started Pixel Dolls was the top store. Did that stop everyone else from trying? Nope. Many others have grown up since then and some have become quite large. But for every designer that does obtain sucess, it doesn’t mean that the older ones will go out of business.
The fact of the matter is is that it costs very little to create and sell things within SL. So, I think (and hope) that there will always be people dinking around making stuff and then setting it up for sale hoping that other people will like it too.
Another point of that is those big companies would have the marketing power, but isn’t SL like that anyways? With the help of blogs, smaller names are becoming larger names (myself included) where once it was only in who you know. While it may be a touch easier now then it was just last year, it still revolves a lot on who the bloggers know and like. Yes, it does suck, but that’s just how it goes. How will that change? It could really go either way. The larger blogs could report on both corp and individuals or not. But I like to think of it in the ways of indie music. There will always be an idie music scene - people making it, people buying it, and people reporting it. I think that no matter what happens, the same will hold true in SL.
Market Research
One thing that does worry me about something like this is what happens when you add market research to the current designers. Back in Jan, Second Style posted a story about a market research firm selling a survey of 105 residents’ opinion on women’s fashion. Now you’d think everyone would laugh it off as being 1. paid and 2. only 105 people. But one thing it revealed was a lack of business suits (untrue) - a month later most of the new released items were business related.
I hate market research. Why? Because I hate averages. I don’t like “normal.” They try to find normal in a world that is anything but. I really hate when people try to sell something that is the average opinion of a group of “normal” people. The individual opinion is therefore lost.
I like individuality. I like creativity. I like creative expression.
During film school I partisipated in a number of film market tests. You get to see an unfinished film for free and they give you a piece of paper with questions. Things like: which parts made you laugh, which didn’t make any sense, what did you like best, ect. I’d then see the finished movie and not a single one was better after the reedit. Not one.
I really do believe that something is lost when anything you create is catored to the masses instead of being an organic creative object.
