World Goth Fair in Second Life

As I was logging into the grid tonight, I saw a notification about the World Goth Fair was in full swing, and that it was a benefit for a charity. It intrigued me enough to go check it out, and see if it was worth blogging about. I am only vaguely familiar with Goth, and so I thought I would explore what Goth really was all about. I didn’t know if it was wanna-be vampires, or a passing fad like my son when he was 16, with his black fingernail polish and black hair, and black clothes. Was he really into an alternative lifestyle or simply part of teenage angst? (I assume it was the latter, because he’s 26 and in college now, thankfully all vestiges of black nail polish are gone.)

The link that I received when I logged in was a link to a website, so I clicked on it to check it out.

Apparently within the Goth subculture is a RL event called “World Goth Day.” World Goth Fair is an annual Second Life event, officially sanctioned by the folks at World Goth Day to benefit the Sophie Lancaster Foundation.

On August 24th 2007, Sophie Lancaster and her partner Rob, who were part of the Goth subculture, were victims of a horrific hate crime in Stubbeylee Park, Bacup, Lancashire, England, simply because of the way they were dressed. A group of people saw Sophie and Rob in the park, and attacked them, pushing them down and kicking them, hurling epithets at them. “Freak!” “Weirdo!” Sophie died saving Rob, who survived the attack. Sophie’s grief-stricken mother wanted to find a way to raise awareness, and she created The Sophie Foundation. Their motto is Stamp Out Prejudice Hatred & Intolerance Everywhere (or S.O.P.H.I.E).

THe Sophie Lancaster Foundation’s mission is:

• To create a lasting legacy to Sophie

• To provide educational group-works that will challenge the prejudice and intolerance towards people from alternative subcultures

• To campaign to have the UK Hate Crime legislation expanded to include people from “alternative subcultures” and “lifestyle and dress.”‘

This amazing video is from the Foundation’s website:

In Second Life, a group of individuals decided to put on a World Goth Fair (WGF) in order to raise awareness for the Goth subculture and to raise funds for this worthy cause. World Goth Fair is produced by Cursed Events. The team consists of Axi Kurmin, Lokii Violet, Sonya Marmurek, Nephilaine Protaganist, and CruelBritannia. WGF 2014 takes place on three sims- Cursed (adult), Sium (moderate) and Port Seraphine (general). Cursed and Sium are adjacent. Port Seraphine is not attached and requires a teleport to reach.

WGF CURSED (adult) – http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cursed/65/129/1020

WGF SIUM (moderate) – http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sium/127/200/1001

WGF PORT SERAPHINE (general) – http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Port%20Seraphine/99/132/25

I hopped around to all three sims, and they are hauntingly beautiful. Kind of creepy to me, but I am not into Goth. However, you can’t help but appreciate the amount of detail that went into these builds. I wandered around all three sims, even going into some of the stores. Naturally, most of the stores were of a goth theme, but there were also a fair number of non-goth stores. It was fun to wander around and see what everyone was offering. There was some really beautiful enchanted landscape around the sim, also. It is very well done.

I took several photos, which I will display here. Most of the sims were quite dark, and I didn’t want to ruin the ambience by changing my windlight settings. My apologies if you can’t see much in the photos. You’ll just have to go visit the sims themselves! And drop a few lindens in the donation jar. Whether you agree with someone’s lifestyle choices or not, it is not okay for people to express their dislike with violence.

Enjoy!