The Global Geek Podcast recently announced they will be messing around with Second Life and I thought it would be a good time to recount my own experience within the virtual world.
It wasn’t too long ago when Juliaroy from Twitter posted a message asking for anyone interested to hop into Second Life to check our her estate. Since I wanted to give Second Life a try after hearing all sorts of stuff about it in the news, I decided to download the client and jump in. Once I logged in, I had to complete a series of tests, sort of like a walk through or beginner’s guide tutorial which taught me how to move around, how to fly, and just how to get around this new world.
After completing the tutorial, Julia transported me directly to her Second Life house. It was pretty fancy seeing images from the real world plastered on her walls and even on her computer monitor. After the tour, Julia logged off and I managed to spend an hour editing, then dressing my avatar. Once I thought I had a decent looking guy, I decided to give the rest of the Second Life world a tour.
The thing I noticed first was that, unless you know a ton of people, Second Life is boring. Also, based on what I could see, some of the only places to have a congregation of people were the dance clubs. The dance clubs were pretty cool at first. People were dancing, music was streaming live, and weird lights were flashing abroad. After doing the dance thing for awhile, I started to wonder why so many people would be wasting their time, sitting in front of their computer monitor watching themselves and others dance the night away.
So after dancing my own Second Life away for awhile, the entire Second Life thing started to get pretty boring. At this point, I decided to join the DARK SIDE. I undressed my avatar, made him fat, ugly, and PINK and kicked off the party. Apparently, people hate it when you run around and push other avatars off the dance floor. After doing this for a little while, the dance club security people would kick me out. I’d run right back in and push them around some more. Then, the security people would ban me from the territory. When your banned from a territory, there is a giant RED square that surrounds the place that prevents me from even getting close to the club. That’s ok. I went to a few more dance clubs I could find.
After being banned from 5 dance clubs for running around naked, pushing avatars off the floor, I found a particular club which allowed something I’ve never seen before. I noticed an avatar that was able to SMACK the ass of another avatar. It even played the sound of a SMACK. This was just too funny and I had to give it a try myself. So I took my ugly, pink, naked avatar and walked up next to a male avatar. I looked down at the posterior of this guy and double clicked the mouse button. Each time I did I heard “SMACK” and the text “BLABLA has smacked BLABLA’s ass”. This was hilarious. The male avatar kept telling me to stop, as he doesn’t swing that way. He kicked me out of the club but I ended up turning around and coming right back, smacking his ass hundreds of times before he kicked me out again. After a couple of times, he finally wised up and banned me. I tried to take screen shots but they never worked out to anything.
After that banning, I calmed down from my half hour of insane laughter and proceeded to uninstall Second Life. I understand some of the applications that Second Life may have such as, board meetings or some other cause. But I often times wonder what those people could be doing to benefit their first life. The graphics in second life suck no matter how high your graphic settings are. The entire world is based on 2D which is why it looks so bad yet, thats one of the reasons why Second Life is so mod-able. It’s just a world based on textures. In the end, Second Life is nothing more than a virtual social network. And like most of the other social networks, if your anti-social or don’t know the right people or have a ton of friends, Second Life becomes yet another waste of time.
Thoughts and Insanity From Jeff 
I agree and disagree at the same time. It’s like saying, I left Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and [enter other social networks] because they are not perfect and my user experience isn’t the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. I think people expect too much out of Second Life. Virtual worlds are a new thing. Play around, essentially do what you did, but why say fuck it? I joined a year ago and the graphic and experience is 100 times better today than what it was then. Give it time and in the meanwhile, explore just enough to see the developments and changes and be able to talk about it. Virtual worlds are here to stay.
@Julia Roy I’ve had a few people tell me that my experience sucked because I didn’t know anybody in the virtual world. Kind of funny because I don’t know anybody in the real world either. At any rate, when I work for a company that uses Second Life or if I ever manage to garner a group of people I know into using Second Life, then perhaps I’ll be able to get a little more out of it.
Maybe I should read up on some Second Life/Real Life success stories.
Will you maybe come to my SL holiday party at my pad? I have a few RSVP’s from some Twitter peeps. I’ll let you know the details soon.
Your a great blog/twitter friend, I’d love to have you there. :)
@Julia Roy You can talk a person into doing anything you want them too :P I’ll look into reinstalling the application and perhaps giving it a SECOND try.
Well Jeffro, let me tell you first hand from someone that had to ‘work for a company that uses Second Life’ as you put it. You get over it pretty quickly.
There is only so much of dressing your avatar up one can handle… unless you’re the type that can spend countless hours doing virtually meaningless things.
Nothing beats a real life get together with friends.
I’m actually still surprised at the human psyche and it’s ability to find entertainment and pleasure in drinking virtual beers or eating virtual popcorn.
Now in saying that, I acknowledge that it does have it’s place in society. Some even claim it will be the next internet. Yeah, perhaps once they fix the lag, constant crashing and all the other issues that SL currently has.
It’s an interesting social experiment. IBM invested millions of dollars in SL, as did other companies including banks, car manufacturers and clothing chains.
I don’t know. From what I’ve seen if you’re in Second Life you fall into 3 categories. You’re in there because your ‘real life’ sucks and you use it to escape reality. Or you’re in there to make money off the previously mentioned group. Or you’re in there once in a while to catch up with people or see what’s happening around there.
Personally I think it’s a complete waste of time, but then again I spend enough time on the Playstation/XBOX so feel free to call me a hypocrite. Yet I find it more ‘normal’ playing racing simulations for example, than pretending to be a toned, good looking avatar in a virtual world.
I’ll get flamed for saying this, but please feel free to correct me.
Also, I’ll probably get slapped with a virtual tuna for saying this, but Julia Roy is hot! :)
Hmmm. Just noticed Julia’s avatar name is Julia Spitz. The avatar I’ve been using for yonks is Jab Spitz. If I ask her for a friend invitation, I reckon she’ll sue me for stalking.
It’s a coincidence, I swear.
Not that she’ll accept my invitation after how much I bagged SL out.
@mike i have been writing you emails but no response back? Am I going in your spam filter? Lets Spitz together!
xo. :)
@Julia: Hey there! I must admit, I haven’t checked my gmail for the last couple of days so I apologize for not replying.
Since they’ve blocked ‘non authorized’ email access at work, I’ve been a bit slack.
Will reply though!
Cheers. M.
(Somehow we managed to turn Jeff’s website into a pseudo public email system).
@Mike Don’t worry. I approve of the Spitzing that seems to be taking place on this post :P