Next month CBS premiers a primetime reality television show called “Kid Nation“, blending references to the frontier with what amounts to a social experiment – letting 40 kids (or as CBS refers to them, pioneers..) fend for themselves for 40 days without adults. Today’s New York Times reported that that CBS producers possibly violated child safety and labor laws while filming the series. Controversy aside, it offers an interesting lens into history, and another example of how the frontier is evoked in marketing. CBS describes the show as follows:
These Kids, ages 8-15, will turn a ghost town into their new home. They will cook their own meals, clean their own outhouses, haul their own water and even run their own businesses including the old town saloon (root beer only). Through it all, they’ll cope with regular childhood emotions and situations: homesickness, peer pressure and the urge to break every rule they’ve ever known. Will they stick it out? In the end, will these Kids prove to everyone, including their parents, they have the vision to build a better world than the pioneers who came before them?
The most recent addition to the Sigil Archive introduces Native American roleplaying in Second Life, specifically the Sigil Tribe. There are several Native American roleplaying tribes in Second Life, including one that speaks entirely in French. I’ve uploaded a set of guidelines, as well as tribe rules that were used by the Sigil Tribe. Here’s an interesting snippet from one of the documents:
The Whites. We don’t like them. But we arn’t savages and out of control either. Whites are good for trade and weapons so we have to keep a balance to get guns and supplies. One thing though is we believe in a life for a life and this could be an issue is someone from the tribe gets themselves killed in town. Any Armed Whites coming into our lands is fair game and most likely won’t survive an encounter unless they choose to leave naked and humble. White woman often were playthings for single braves and found their womanhood a bit battered from the encounter but rarely were they killed. Children often were adopted if their parents were dead and made full members of the tribe so no mistreatment of our adopted children. All soldiors entering our lands are killed outright unless there is a treaty made. They travel in groups so once again for safty sakes don’t ever travil alone. Alone and armed is a fast way to die. Don’t expect the white men to talk first if you’re armed. Don’t go into town armed, an armed Indian is fair game in town. Going unarmed means you’re there to trade in peace.
Note: Any grammatical or spelling errors haven’t been changed from the original documents.
