2nd Life: A CyBeautiful Waste of Time
For some reason I decided to try out 2nd Life today. I started an account years ago, but the piece of crap PC I had at the time couldn’t support the program. I happened to be going through an old hotmail account and found the login and password to my 2nd Life. My avatar’s name is Cybrina Citron. Cybrina is a pretty accurate nickname since if it were at all possible to have my Mac embedded into my forearm, I would definitely have figured it out (we’re still testing hypotheses).
At any rate, my experience with 2nd life was definitely interesting. The simplest things took me a very long time to figure out, while seemingly complex tasks were no problem. For instance, I was immediately able to fly while I couldn’t figure out how to put on new clothes. Then when I did, I didn’t realize you have to take clothes off first so I ended up with two complete outfits on at first.
Trying on clothes was a complete debacle; you do this by choosing the image. I attempted to change clothes and the next thing I knew, the image had sliced through my avatar. Basically, it looked like someone had smashed a billboard over my head and was stuck around my waist. Someone came over that “worked” there and explained that bad programs were to blame. She told me how to remove the item and try other on others. I successfully removed a hideous dress that had been plaguing me since my arrival.
Then I transported myself to different exotic and beautiful islands that were practically deserted (pun intended). People on those islands didn’t really want to seem to talk much. However, one was very helpful and let me know how to look at myself since I still wasn’t sure how my avatar looked: in changing my clothes, I inadvertently removed my eyes and eyebrows and I didn’t know if I had been successful in replacing them.
I found everyone there was extremely helpful and polite. The only problem was, I didn’t know what I was doing there. I had no real purpose. One can find places to “dance”, “play pool”, even “have sex”. But what’s the point of all of this? Why is it more fun to play pool virtually and not in real life? It’s not; especially since I couldn’t figure out how to do it! And what could the benefit be of having sex virtually (unless you can’t get any realistically)? People clearly spend tons of time and REAL money on their avatars, accessories, furnishings, etc. I even browsed bedroom sets. I said to someone else who had just gotten there, why would you want to buy a bedroom set on 2nd life? His response: “to sleep”.
$@bs
PS. Click here to read guest blog posts about some of $@bs’ $ordid $excapades!
