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Coming of Age in Second Life depicts imports ethnographic methodology into the digital platform of Second Life. It uses performance, theorized by the author using the Greek concept of techne to describe how meaning is made through action/practice within the bounds of a virtual sphere. In essence, it's a classic ethnography applied to a community that exists in a virtual space. Using this virtual world and its occupants as a subject does present the problem of an extra layer of removal: it's like studying the world of a puppet that's controled from a meta-entity.

The text begins with its theoretical foundations, establishing the importance of techne as a lens to view the activities of Second Life. It then enters a phase of thematized chapters such as "sex and gender or digital economies." It seems like it transitions from justification to example in a deductive fashion. 

The cover depicts a digital character on a white background with the author's name in a a text bubble very like what one would see in a virtual chat medium. The title and subtitle are also depicted in a virtual "dialogue option" screen with buttons depicted to minimize, maximize, and flip forward and back. The commanding figure on cover is a darker skinned, feminine avatar. This is interesting in light of the original annotator's statement that, "many players of color found Linden’s options of diversity to be lacking and thus made their own skin colors.

I share an interest with the author and the sketcher on virtual reality, the rules therein, and what we can learn about about human behavior from how they behave in a virtual world so I found the entire sketch fascinating. Some key elements that resonated me:"this did not stop players from being offensive, racist, or discriminatory in anyways in fact some saw it as a challenge, creating multiple accounts to keep harassing residents in the world," would have extraordinarily informative information on bullying behavior and the persistence of predatory behavior. I'd also love psychol

The sketcher proposed the medium of "video series, using actors to recreate moments". I think this would be a decent way the present the material. I think it would be more meta to make the intended audience create characters and recieve the information contained from a combination of experiencing the game (participating in the commerce, relationships, etc.) but also receiving virtual lectures in a virtual classroom by the author/presenter's character. 

This ethnography is about the online video game, Second Life, and the people who play the game. The ethnography is concerned with how gender, class, capitalism, and geography (and to a lesser extent, race) are implicated in Second Life players' interactions.

The text is designed as a typical academic book, with an introduction, several chapters of content, and a conclusion. The book draws heavily on academic social theory and literature.

The cover of the book is described as a woman virtual figure smiling and looking away from the cover of the book. The woman is wearing a lot of makeup and is definitely somewhat sexualized - perhaps a marketing strategy?

The sketch that most drew my interest was the discussion of the text's empirical data. The nature of online virtual ethnography and video games is so novel and interesting to me, so that was very intriguing.

This sketch proposes to relay the ethnography as a video series or an online livestream. Akil does mention concerns about protecting the anonymity of the interlocutors in such a proposal. I do think that a carefully crafted video series or livestream on Twitch could be a great way to expand audiences for this kind of work! Maybe even in a Q&A kind of setting.