Going Global and Virtual: Greek Solidarity Protests in Second Life

slprotests

Second Life Left Unity organized two impressive protests and information centre in Second Life in solidarity with the Greek protests. The SL protests occurred on December 14 and 15, and were documented with some striking high quality photos.

SLLU created an interactive media centre, shown above, which also doubled as a protest site, combining information directly with action in this “virtual world.” Regarding their media centre, SSLU wrote:

An independent media info centre is set up with links to various web sites about the current situation to counter one-sided news from the established, corporate controlled venues. Greek independent free radio can be listened to live at this metaverse location.

In many instances, the mainstream international media has been seriously routed by these protests and the solidarity actions, including the networking that has taken place online. On more than one occasion, the established media were either seriously slow in bringing readers up to date, or simply did not report events at all. One could almost imagine editors cringing at the sight of unruly youths, desperate to shift popular attention back to bailouts for banks and Obama’s staccato speeches.

The imagination of many youths spread around the world has really been captured by the Greek uprising, and we see numerous solidarity actions that are also expressed in an outpouring of visual creativity and performance. Seeing that Greece is turning out to be the Chiapas of the new millennium, it is good that enough people are conscious about keeping a documentary record of the ongoing events, and I think that visuality will remain a striking feature of these protests, rivalled perhaps only by the protests in Tiananmen in 1989, with the memorable images far fewer but very prominently reproduced worldwide.

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