Artificial Boy

I am not real. I am only an avatar. I am an artificial boy, an approximation of some limited aspects of a human boy, in a virtual world. A real life human controls every aspect of my limited life. That relationship is (hopefully) not public. At any time, he can remake me as an adult, a dinosaur, or a Transformer. Or, he can log on to the Second Life website and delete me permanently. Linden Lab could close its doors, or delete me as well. This makes it especially interesting to see “Adz Childs” develop as a unique identity, with a presence on the web.
Searching for “Adz Childs” in google returns 147 results (this result is sure to be outdated very soon). I’m pretty sure all of them are me.

• 40 results - SLExchange - my profile, individual products, and forum post at SLExchange. I have many products: compass, cartoon underooz, tooth shedding kit, coloring pad, discarded clothing… It is nice to see this linked with my identity. It would be nicer to see my marketplace page in the results, instead. However, some items on SL Exchange come up individually in the results.
• 29 results - major blogs and journals where I’ve left comments in my name, including Massively and the official Linden Blog.
• 25 results - this blog, adz.secondlifekid.com. This is pleasing to see. This blog is my official home on the web. Thank you for visiting!
• 25 results - various aspects of my profile at Second Life Network - I had fun setting up this page about a year ago, and am glad to see it in the results. There are many links to my friends’ profiles.
• 16 results - SL JIRA bug reports and discussion activity.
• 6 results - chat transcripts from office hours and events in SL where I said something. Invariably, I was not aware I was being recorded. Luckily I didn’t say anything I regret, but, how incredibly boring! It was just chatter.
• 2 results - SL profiles of friends who have chosen to put my names in their profiles. Namely, Zell and Kris
• 1 result - A very nice Snapzilla of me that Marianne McCann took for an article in Metaverse Messenger.
• 1 result - slnamewatch.com - A handy website I created. Rather, my player created it and chose to associate it with me. Same thing. I’ll write about it in a future post.
• 1 result - associations with an SL-based company I used to work for.
• 1 result - SL event posting for my birthday party at The Vortex

There are several other webpages associated with my identity. They did not make it into the Google results.
Resident: Adz Childs - My Second Life resident profile.
SL Forums - You can only view it if you are authenticated with secondlife.com, and have payment-info-used.
SL Wiki Page - This is blank for now, but I may add to it later.