Sometimes 2 + 2 = 5

About two months ago I was talking to Mecca, a dear SL friend about the SLprofiles.com site where we met. It's a profiles site backed by a fairly active community that has been building up momentum over the last few months. Almost inevitably we ended up talking about Yo & Jaxi, the couple who actually started and run the place which must be a considerable amount of work. We decided that with SLP's first anniversary coming up it would be nice to do something to thank them for their efforts. After all, they have given us a fun and convenient way to stay in touch and share even outside SL.

We agreed right from the start it would have to be something carried by the SLP community so we sent out a whole slew of messages to those most active on the site. A committee was set up, plans were made and discussed. All that resulted in a big surprise party in SL with two live acts, a video presentation, fireworks, a present for Yo & Jaxi, donations made in their name to Relay For Life and SLP T-shirts for all. It was a blast.

Now back to the title. All of this would have been possible if only a handful of people had taken it upon themselves to organise all of it but what made this special was the joint effort, the clash of ideas and opinions. Granted the end result may have looked a bit eclectic in style but I don't think anyone there even noticed and it was so much more then just "a party".

These days companies set up shop in SL. Nice polished buildings with slick textures on fancy sims. Professional work. Looks great but where is the soul? I'll prefer the community effort anytime. It may not look as perfect, but it reflects the SL spirit that much more. Personally I think SL is losing that spirit little by little. As SL grows and draws the attention of commercial interest groups I fear it's inevitable.

Thankfully there will always be places on the grid where intelligent and creative people get together and come up with crazy, brilliant or right out wacky ideas and projects. Hopefully some of those will eventually spill over into the commercial venues and if that happens who knows what the future has in store for SL.