Minor personal epiphany
Working with 3D on the web, the question of Second Life comes up from time-to-time. It has become something of a whipping boy around our office. When I first encountered "real journalism" stories on Second Life, my reaction was almost immediate irritation, but I never really understood why I should react this way. It should be good news for me that the media has bothered to notice something interesting that nerds are doing in the social gaming sector, right?
"Game" is the problem. If the media treated Second Life like a social interaction game, I wouldn't be so bothered. But they treat it as some kind of Second Coming of the Online Town Square. The reason I find media coverage and overblown discussion concerning things like Second Life so infuriating is that they are treated like novelty, but the questions and problems they raise aren't new. Adding 3D graphics to a social interaction site doesn't actually change the problems that are as old as forums, chat rooms, MUDs, and BBSes. It has simply re-phrased the problems in a visual medium that makes the social interactions comprehensible to "laymen" who think there is a difference between two 3D models gesticulating at each other while text scrolls across the bottom of a screen and IRC with emoticons. Laymen who think there is a difference between people "stealing" copies 3D cars off of 3D front lawns and people "stealing" copies of pictures off of websites. Laymen who think there is a difference between someone making money off of virtual real-estate and someone making money off of web site design.
Between the two media, I'm more interested in getting my real business done on the World Wide Web that we already have than on one built by random people inside Linden Labs' little grid. I'm more excited about URLS than I am about SLURLS. I'm more excited about Sketchup and the 3D Warehouse than I am about manifesting primitivies in a sandbox. I'm more excited about Amazon than I am about the Second Life marketplace. Hell, I'm more excited about Literotica than I am about buying a virtual dick and running the "fuck" animation. With just a pinch more imagination than Second Life demands of me---their 3D engine isn't actually very good---I can already do everything on the real Web that I can do in Second Life, and I don't have to pay Linden Labs or any of their customers a single real-world dime. In fact, me and much of my generation has been doing it for years. The media just didn't notice.
Dear everyone else: Welcome to the World Wide Web. Kindly get off my lawn.
Take care,
"Waif Outlander"
(looking forward to responses from people who remember the Internet before the World Wide Web and would like to ask me to kindly get off their lawn)
"Game" is the problem. If the media treated Second Life like a social interaction game, I wouldn't be so bothered. But they treat it as some kind of Second Coming of the Online Town Square. The reason I find media coverage and overblown discussion concerning things like Second Life so infuriating is that they are treated like novelty, but the questions and problems they raise aren't new. Adding 3D graphics to a social interaction site doesn't actually change the problems that are as old as forums, chat rooms, MUDs, and BBSes. It has simply re-phrased the problems in a visual medium that makes the social interactions comprehensible to "laymen" who think there is a difference between two 3D models gesticulating at each other while text scrolls across the bottom of a screen and IRC with emoticons. Laymen who think there is a difference between people "stealing" copies 3D cars off of 3D front lawns and people "stealing" copies of pictures off of websites. Laymen who think there is a difference between someone making money off of virtual real-estate and someone making money off of web site design.
Between the two media, I'm more interested in getting my real business done on the World Wide Web that we already have than on one built by random people inside Linden Labs' little grid. I'm more excited about URLS than I am about SLURLS. I'm more excited about Sketchup and the 3D Warehouse than I am about manifesting primitivies in a sandbox. I'm more excited about Amazon than I am about the Second Life marketplace. Hell, I'm more excited about Literotica than I am about buying a virtual dick and running the "fuck" animation. With just a pinch more imagination than Second Life demands of me---their 3D engine isn't actually very good---I can already do everything on the real Web that I can do in Second Life, and I don't have to pay Linden Labs or any of their customers a single real-world dime. In fact, me and much of my generation has been doing it for years. The media just didn't notice.
Dear everyone else: Welcome to the World Wide Web. Kindly get off my lawn.
Take care,
"Waif Outlander"
(looking forward to responses from people who remember the Internet before the World Wide Web and would like to ask me to kindly get off their lawn)