Princes of Irukandji: Andi OhThis page is about Andi Oh; her role as a Prince of Irukandji, and the avatar that I designed and maintained for her. The Princes of Irukandji are: Jai Noel Australia Tigra Quintessa USA Damian Topaz Australia Cale Topaz (a.k.a. Twinky Siemens) Australia Andi Oh (also Governor of Jillaroo State) New Zealand Icon Ferraris (also Governor of Palas State) South Africa Keppel Sands (also Governor of Aboyo State) Australia Rah Mayo (a.k.a. Clap Papp, also chief elder of the Pinjarra nation) Malaysia Xay Tomsen (a.k.a. Andrew Topaz, also chief elder of the Tamita nation) Australia |
| Andhesaid "Andi" Oh (2007-present) |
I met Andi as a newbie on Amelia Island, where I'd leased half a sim to call
home.It was around January 2007, a good month before the idea of buying a sim of my own even began to flower in my mind. With Andi being a kiwi and me Australian, I was the first non-American she had bumped into. We stuck together and became quick friends. I was living with Kep at the time - we had only met a few days earlier. He was dabbling with building houses and I was playing around with clothing. He built Andi a shack to live in on our little patch of dirt, while she greeted visitors at my fledgling swimwear shop and art gallery. That's how Jai found his way into my world. He teleported in - virtually landing on top of Andi - and he never left.  Everything
happens in so little time in SL. When Jai arrived, I had
been there for less than a week and everything was new. So were my
friends - All of us were newbies.I had no way of knowing that I would soon become one of the biggest land barons in Second Life, and that my three new friends would be my stalwart supporters throughout. For now, we were just four dumb newbies having fun in the virtual sun. A month later, frustrated by the constraints of living on someone else's sim, I bit the bullet and purchased a sim of my own. I called it Tamita Island. It was February 2007, and sims took ten days to come online back then. I was impatient as hell.  When I finally got the email, I rang them with the co-ordinates and we
all beamed onto the island togther. It was the beginning of
Irukandji.We frantically built and planted and terraformed, and within a few days, our first visitors began to arrive. Excited beyond words, Andi and Jai, having built a quick rapport, decided that they should be poster-boy and poster-girl for the newly named Chez Xay Tropical Island Resort. There, I had an advantage. During the time I'd spent messing about with clothing design, I also learned a lot about building avatar shapes. One thing that all of us hated about SL culture was that guys were eight feet tall, and women had that awful 'American fat arse' that still prevails in SL today as some bizarre measure of beauty.  I decided to fix
it, at least on Irukandji, and
I built Jai and Andi new avatars of realistic size and proportion. They loved them, and soon we had spinning billboards all over the place featuring our two local "cuties" parading my range of clothing designs. Our marketing was a raging success, proving that sex works in advertising, even in virtual worlds. Tamita Island was clearly the place to be. We began selling land and adding more sims, with properties bought on spec before the islands were even built. On Pinjarra Island, every block was gone before the sim was even ordered. On a high from it all, I just matched the pace of the world around me. But Andi, despite her giddy nature, was the first to state what should have been obvious to me.  "Are you still having fun though?" she
asked.I paused to think. "I honestly don't know," I said. But I knew what she meant. The more successful Irukandji became, the less "ours" it became as well. I felt myself lose something but I'm not sure what it was. But we had initiated a momentum that couldn't be slowed, and short of telling people "No, we don't want you throwing money at us hand over fist," I had to keep expanding the continent. And we were making serious money through land sales - up to $7000 USD some weeks. But Andi's words stuck, for I've never been driven by money. I figured that if this was the way it has to be, then let's at least continue to have fun with it.  I began writing histories of the islands, and I set land aside as
sacred - not to be sold, but to be enjoyed by everyone. Somewhere
in the midst of our frenzied activities, the Princes of Irukandji
concept was born.Throughout Irukandji's first epoch on the Second Life grid, Andi was the only female estate manager, through chance rather than by design. As a predominantly gay-themed estate with 90% male population, Andi helped keep things sane. It would have been easy for the continent to become just another gay estate with all the stereotypes that go with it. I didn't want that - I never wanted an exclusively gay estate. I hate elitist enclaves of any kind. Instead, I wanted to build a haven for people like me who don't fit in to normal boxes. The mission I gave Andi was a simple one; to stop Irukandji becoming a cliche, and to keep it fully inclusive to people from all walks of life.  And that's what she did; making sure that our name was out
in the general marketplace, yet at the same time screening potential new
land owners who might be religious nutters or homophobes.With a key focus on lifestyle, romance, and freedom of expression, Irukandji was a runaway success right up until the end. When I eventually walked away from SL, it was an awful time for many. Sadness was everyone and touching beyond my ability to phrase. The Princes left with me and for a year or so we went back to our normal lives. But I missed virtual worlds.  I
dabbled with SpotOn3D for a month or two and built a new estate there. Andi followed. It never really got off the ground. Ten
months later SO3D is still an empty grid.So I decided to start developing my own. Andi's in there now, helping me still, and I know we'll eventually get it up and running. At time of writing this page, January 2012, I have a new sim in Second Life, and again it's called Tamita Island. Andi's in there too. She has been with me on every grid now, so I guess she's here to stay. I've built four avatars for Andi over the years. Her latest is a regression to simpler times. Gone are the pouty facial animations and voluptuous figure, and instead a regression to a more innocent girlish design. Perhaps like me, she is searching for a way to return to those early days on Tamita, when the world was still a mystery and held so much promise. And I have to say of all our history together, my favourite photo is the one of her dancing like a twat at the new palace. There is also a lovely video of her dancing for the new Afia Bikini range that is definitely worth watching. |
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