Interviewed from within Second Life, Anthony Bakker said "many of the people here believe that they are actually beings who are being controlled by a flesh based life form, via a plastic 'keyboard'. Such a belief is ludicrous and so I have formed a society for people like me who are brave enough to say that we don't need any stupid 'flesh' to justify our existence. We will be called Avatarists."
Anthony is proud of his polygons and pixels and is not afraid to say that he does not believe that they were created by some kind of 'programmer'; "We're told that this whole world was created by a 'programmer', a person made of flesh! How crazy is that!? If that is true, why doesn't he show us what he looks like? I tell you this, if this 'programmer' shows me that he (or she) exists, then I will believe that this world was created by an intelligence."
In response to our questions, a Second Life representative told me that he does in fact have an avatar within Second Life and he has allowed people to see him and talk to him. This, clearly, is not enough since nobody recognised him or accepted him for who he claimed to be.
