A Glossary of Virtual Terms

afk – a moment or more when the master mind is ‘away from the keyboard’

avatar – an animated digital “object” representing the embodiment of the user in a virtual environment, controlled by the user

code warrior – a slang term for programmers (a derivative of the term ‘road warrior’ from the Mad Max movie series)

IM – instant message (can be a noun or a verb)

in-world: the state of being logged in and active in Second Life

LM – a landmark; a beacon marking a specific location in Second Life, and the teleport shortcut that takes you there

metaverse – a virtual environment where humans, as avatars, interact with each other in a 3D space (a term coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash)

newbie – a slang term for a newcomer to virtual worlds, or to the internet itself

phased plasma gun – a fictional weapon from the television series Babylon 5

prim – a virtual solid object of any shape, used as a building block in Second Life (an abbreviation of the word ‘primitive’, which is part of the lexicon used in geometry)

rez – to bring an object into 3D space within Second Life (commonly attributed to the movie Tron)

sim – a region in Second Life (an abbreviation of the word ’simulator’)

virtual world – a computer-based simulated environment based on the real world