Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

first life

For the past year or so, academics and media-types alike seem have fallen over themselves trying to praise / hype / study the virtual world that is Second Life.

I just don’t get it.

I understand in theory why observers find Second Life so interesting — virtual identities and representation, online communities, offline organizations trying to establish virtual storefronts, virtual commodities sold for real world money, etc. (None of this is new, though — folks have been studying MOOs / MUDs, avatars and offline sales of game objects (e.g., World of Warcraft characters) for years.)

As a user, though, I just don’t get it. I’m a huge fan of The Sims, and I think I was expecting the Second Life world (and its interface) to be a little bit like the game. But the interface is clunky, the lag time downright painful, and the learning curve horribly steep. And what little I have seen / heard about the virtual world doesn’t sound appealing enough for me to want to put in the time and energy to overcome (or tolerate) those obstacles.

That said, even if the interface design was fantastic and the server super-responsive, I still don’t think Second Life would really interest me. Online chat — in whatever medium / venue — has never really been my thing. That’s not to say that I’m not rapid-fire instant messaging friends and coworkers all day; I’ve just never been into randomly chatting with people I don’t already know in the offline world. And my occasional obsession with the virtual world of The Sims has always been about introversion and escape from the real world — and real people — or else somehow recreating elements of my real world in an experimental environment that I can control.

On a similar note, I came across a funny Second Life parody yesterday: Get a First Life.

(Link found via Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)