The one those Luddites called in the ancient tongue, "Outside"

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I'm not the only one who doesn't get the appeal of Second Life: My Life Is A Crappy Star Trek Episode.

Now, frankly, I don't understand the appeal. At all. I mean not a single bit. Except for those who are chat-room addicts desperately starved for human contact, or people who want to live out their Furry Fetishes, the attraction of Second Life is completely lost upon me. I find myself regularly thinking to myself that all the jokes at this site ring true.

You want to play Star Wars Galaxies and pretend briefly to be in a sci-fi universe? I get that. You want to play World of Warcraft and pretend briefly to be in a swords and sorcery, good and evil, universe? I get that, too. You want to play Second Life and pretend to be... a normal person who has to buy clothes, and pay rent on land, and all that jazz? What the fuck dude, don't you get enough of that shit in the real world?

From Jeremy Zawodny, who adds:

Thankfully, I've not fallen victim to this plague myself. I've avoided trying out Second Life for two reasons: (1) what I've seen of it so far hasn't been compelling enough for me to plunge in, and (2) knowing me, I could easily get addicted and find hours of my days vanishing in a hurry.

I also love this funny description of what it's like inside SL:

Yesterday I downloaded something called Second Life. It is like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, except you can't shoot anyone, and you can't hit people. You just walk around. There are no prostitutes, and everything costs real money, and you can't rob anyone to get money. You have to use your credit card, with real money, to buy fake money to use in the game. It's not actually like Grand Theft Auto at all.

And the winner of the best laughingly comment of the day is this one:

This argument seems to go on and on. Why does participating in Second Life make any sense at all? I won't go into the mutitude of reasons one could state, but I can tell you how I justify my use of Second Life.

1) IT'S AN INTERESTING EDUCATIONAL MEDIUM - HIGLY IMMERSIVE AND INTERACTIVE (...if you know how to use it; )

2) PURPOSE - WHEN YOU HAVE PURPOSE IN SL, e.g. EDUCATION, THE MEDIUM TAKES ON COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DYNAMICS BECAUSE A GOAL IS BEING PURSUED - ONE IS NOT REDUCED TO A MERE "CHAT ADDICT".

PS - IF ONE ONLY SEES SL AS A CHAT MEDIUM, THEY ARE SORELY UNAWARE OF WHAT'S POSSIBLE IN SL. TEXT-BASED COMMUNICATION IS NOT THE ONLY FORM OF COMMUNICATION POSSIBLE.

3) NETWORKING - HIGLY INTERESTING AND CREATIVE PEOPLE CAN BE FOUND "WASTING THEIR TIME" IN SECOND LIFE.

4) CREATIVITY - SL ACTS AS A WONDERFUL STIMULUS FOR CREATIVITY ( NOT JUST IN-WORLD BUT ALSO IN REAL LIFE)

Well, for crying out loud, get a first life and you'll see it's infinitely better at ALL those points than your virtual second life. If you know how to use it ;-).

All I really get is that, in this phony econnomics, there must be some real money made by selling virtual “stuff” to SL addicts. Which is cool.