Hey you, get a first life, eh?
First off, I am not a Second Life hater. Let me say that again: I am not a Second Life hater. I’m on record as saying that there’s something important going on inside the game.
That said, I’ve been bemused by the amount of hype and attention the game…er…virtual world thingee has received over the past three months. The media has been on SL like white on rice. I’ve only written about SL a couple of times on this site, but I’ve probably received five enquiries from sundry Canadian news outlets asking if I played, or knew anybody who played, or knew anybody who was making a six figure income from playing, and so forth.
Clay Shirky has done some excellent (though much-debated) work evaluating the media’s reportage on Second Life, and trying to apply some normalcy to the hype.
Second Life, Same Brand
More pointedly, I’ve been dismayed by the number of companies opening offices in Second Life. It’s my impression that a lot of them aren’t wanted, and I can’t imagine how what they’re doing is actually cost effective. Okay, American Apparel made a big splash because they were first, or seemed to be first, but every company isn’t going to enjoy that media spotlight. Let me quote Tim Bray, who had a SL event as part of a big Sun announcement:
The Second Life thing, well, I don’t know. It was a lot of work to get going and it costs us real money, and then our pavilion can only hold 63 avatars, so the ROI seems questionable.
I think there’s a lot of corporate hubris at work here, with company’s companies wanting to appear hip or cutting edge.
Speaking of companies, I think the worst perpetrators are PR agencies and marketing companies (and, hey, I run one of those). If I’m building a Brave New World, I don’t want PR flaks in my utopia.
Here’s an idea: if you’re corporate, wait until somebody invites you into SL. Wait until somebody says (and this is hard to imagine), “hey, wouldn’t it be great if we had a few PR agencies around, just in case there was a crisis that needed managing?”
Culling the Crowd with Lag
And, let’s be honest, the game isn’t good enough yet. It’s too hard to play. I watched a veteran computer user and occasional console gamer try to attend an event in SL. It took her five minutes just to figure out how to sit down on a bench. And that was with my pathetic help. And then there’s the lag I’ve experienced when playing–it’s so severe that it actually works as a population control technique, redistributing avatars because a certain zone gets too dense.
After all that, I do think something important’s happening in the game. I forget who I’m quoting here, but whoever makes Second Life 2.0–where, say, the gameplay is as intuitive as World of Warcraft–is going to have a license to print money.
And, in the future, if it’s the right thing for a client (or if I can’t convince them against it), I’d consider running an event in SL. I just wish we could cool off on the hype machine a bit. Happily, Gartner thinks Second Life is on the edge of the trough of disillusionment.
Light-Hearted Fun
Hence the light-hearted fun that is GetaFirstLife.com. I think I first heard the phrase yelled by someone inside World of Warcraft, and it stuck with me. It’s in the vein of iCryptex, except this time there are t-shirts.
Thanks very much to Heather, Rob, James and Todd for their excellent work as consulting humourists, and to Kris Krug for the pirate children. I struggled with what should be the correct photo until I remembered this one, and it seemed like the perfect fit.
You can Digg this, if you’re so inclined, and here’s a gooofy Technorati tag: secondlife.
UPDATE: Prominent Second Lifer Wagner James Au points me to a couple of posts on Clay Shirky and the hype. An interesting axiom: “The more someone pronounces Second Life over-hyped, the less first-hand experience they tend to have in the world.” On that topic, I’ve tried the game at least twice–possibly three times–but I’ve probably only put in 5 to 7 hours. It just didn’t stick for me.
UPDATE #2: In case anyone is wondering, “de hecho, fornica usando tus genitales” is apparently an accurate translation of “fornicate using your actual genitals”. I know because the site was linked to by a Diggesque site from Spain.
UPDATE #3: Got dugg, but the site didn’t fall over. That’s credit to Laughing Squid, my new hosting company, and the fact that it got dugg in the middle of the night.
UPDATE #4: Speaking of foreign language Diggs, check out the German yigg.de. Mein lieben.
UPDATE #5: I just got what I can only describe as a proceed and permitted letter from Linden Labs in the comments.
UPDATE #6: A few people, on Digg and elsewhere, have wondered why a) it’s only one page and b) why the only clickable links go to stuff that me me money. This was my response on Digg:
It’s true that I could have made a couple more pages. But having done a few of these sites, you’re better to get in and get out quickly–always leave them wanting more, as the saying goes. It’s a one-trick humour pony, and I’m not sure that if I had five pages, that there’d be five pages worth of funny.
As for the links to purchasing stuff, that’s absolutely true. I made icryptex.com last year, and it got a good chunk of traffic, but all I got for that was a bandwidth bill. So, this time around I wanted to make a little money without having a ridiculously monetized (and therefore compromised) site.
UPDATE #7: I’ve never had this many updates on a post.
UPDATE #8: Thanks to everybody for all the linkage and nice things you’re saying. The best bit is getting mentioned on the BBC’s web site (screenshot for posterity). That rocks. Thanks to Adiana for letting me know about that.
UPDATE #9: Tom from GiveMeaning sends along this article about Second Life and Ponzi schemes.
UPDATE #10: Comments are closed on this post because spammers are bastards.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
GetaFirstLife.com: well done, Darren!
But I do have to say, there are a lot of organizations quietly going about figuring out what 3D worlds mean to their business innovations, content categories, or services. These companies have people working in Second Life who are sincerely listening and learning.
The hype is the hype – and will always be “leveraged” by some. Others are just putting their heads down and working.
A beautiful parody 🙂
But seriously, SL does kind of suck doesn’t it? I mean it looks just like the lame-ass 90’s Virtual Reality (which nobody wanted) reborn. I especially hate that it just attempts to import all the boring crap from the real world into the virtual one, eg companies, money, real estate… arrgh!
Darren, I laughed my first life pants off. The parody site is brilliant! Nice job!
Dude, this is just hilarious.
Pretty funny. You might want to also check this article out
Get a First Life
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2742/
CompanIES not CompanY’S.
Please, for the love of God, see this:
As for Second Life, I’ll become interested when it doesn’t look like it was created by someone having an epileptic fit while writing VRML. In other words, I find it aesthetically offensive. In much the same way as Bob (the Angry Flower) finds your apostrophe mis-use offensive.
Your parody, however, made me smile.
Oh. So. Funny.
Excellent work!
Did you know that the French Front Nazional party opened an office in SL? I don’t know if it’s still there, but it inspired some great creativity.
(Sorry–I meant the “Front National”)
I don’t “play” Second Life either, but if I did, I’m sure it would drive me out of there just about instantly to see advertisements showing up everywhere. Your parody page is hilarious–I just voted for it over on mefi.
Brilliant.
And this new “breaking it up with subheads” thing is intriguing. Makes for a nice skim of your posts.
Very nice, very funny. I like it. I was also amused by your Google Ads… they all seem to be for second life and related products.
FWIW –
That’s a weak translation of “fornicate using your own genitals.”
It is more like “Fornicate using your genitals for real.” “De hecho” is usually used more like “actually,” as in:
“I don’t know which cow to slaughter. Do you know anything about beef?”
“Actually, I am a butcher.”
This notice is provided on behalf of Linden Research, Inc. (“Linden Labâ€), the owner of trademark, copyright and other intellectual property rights in and to the “Second Life†product and service offering, including the “eye-in-hand†logo for Second Life and the website maintained at http://secondlife.com/.
It has come to our attention that the website located at http://www.getafirstlife.com/ purports to appropriate certain trade dress and marks associated with Second Life and owned by Linden Lab. That website currently includes a link in the bottom right-hand corner for “Comments or cease and desist letters.â€
As you must be aware, the Copyright Act (Title 17, U.S. Code) contains provisions regarding the doctrine of “fair use†of copyrighted materials (Section 107 of the Act). Although lesser known and lesser recognized by trademark owners, the Lanham Act (Title 15, Chapter 22, U.S. Code) protecting trademarks is also limited by a judicial doctrine of fair use of trademarks. Determining whether or not a particular use constitutes fair use typically involves a multi-factor analysis that is often highly complex and frustratingly indeterminate; however a use constituting parody can be a somewhat simpler analysis, even where such parody involves a fairly extensive use of the original work.
We do not believe that reasonable people would argue as to whether the website located at http://www.getafirstlife.com/ constitutes parody – it clearly is. Linden Lab is well known among its customers and in the general business community as a company with enlightened and well-informed views regarding intellectual property rights, including the fair use doctrine, open source licensing, and other principles that support creativity and self-expression. We know parody when we see it.
Moreover, Linden Lab objects to any implication that it would employ lawyers incapable of distinguishing such obvious parody. Indeed, any competent attorney is well aware that the outcome of sending a cease-and-desist letter regarding a parody is only to draw more attention to such parody, and to invite public scorn and ridicule of the humor-impaired legal counsel. Linden Lab is well-known for having strict hiring standards, including a requirement for having a sense of humor, from which our lawyers receive no exception.
In conclusion, your invitation to submit a cease-and-desist letter is hereby rejected.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, it is possible that your use of the modified eye-in-hand logo for Second Life, even as parody, requires license from Linden Lab, especially with respect to your sale of goods with the parody mark at http://www.cafepress.com/getafirstlife/. Linden Lab hereby grants you a nonexclusive, nontransferable, nonsublicenseable, revocable, limited license to use the modified eye-in-hand logo (as displayed on http://www.getafirstlife.com/ as of January 21, 2007) to identify only your goods and/or services that are sold at http://www.cafepress.com/getafirstlife/. This license may be modified, addended, or revoked at any time by Linden Lab in its sole discretion.
Best regards,
Linden Lab
Very amusing, this one’ll be flying around my office for a bit 🙂
Thanks Darren
The GaFL says “No Server Lag”. Ever try to get your boss to approve the purchase of some great new software to help you do your job better? Ever see a good idea bogged down in committee?
I was definitely persuaded NOT to start a SL hobby after reading your site. It was hilarious.
While “Get a first life” is a fine slogan, surely the killer t-shirt will be the one reading “fornicate using your actual genitals.”
Not that I would, er, actually buy one for myself. But the number of kids willing to put FCUK on their clothes does suggest it might be popular.
I probably would get a First Life t-shirt that used the “work. reproduce. perish.” slogan.
This is all brilliant. Nice work, Darren.
Excellent stuff. Similar frustrations aired on my recent blog post on losing my Second Life virginity (not very successfully, and without a penis) at http://thoughtcat.blogspot.com/2006/10/lifes-too-short-for-second-life.html
I thought this was hysterical and I am absolutely sure Linden will find that funny as hell too.
It’s slow, it’s clunky, it’s over-hyped and it ain’t like the real thing. But it is also something quite exceptional.
Personally I think that ‘Second Life’ isn’t a good name for it. But it shouldn’t be thought about as a replacement of our first life. It’s simply a different medium for doing and experiencing things that we already do online, including creating new identities, social networking, buying/selling and gaming.
I just tried Second Life for the first time this week and my impression of it is that it is a grandiose and 3D version of the Million dollar homepage – http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/, and a one-hit wonder.
I did not “get it” the first time in the Second Life world, partly because I expected it to be like a game. However, my experience (5 hours) with Second Life is that it’s a virtual compendium of real life consumerism.
Freakin’ hilarious! And here I was, on my way to a THIRD Life. Goodness gracious.
I like the “Proceed and Permitted” letter too; of course, I’m positively biased because I work for Linden Lab.
Bless you… MAD Magazine and The Simpsons — or even a Futurama comeback — can’t be far away! 😀
“However, my experience (5 hours) with Second Life is that it’s a virtual compendium of real life consumerism.”
If that’s the inclination in a metaverse then… maybe it’s in our nature to be such.
Have tried looking for groups within SL who may share the same concern?
Personally speaking, I love the decadence, consumerism and general lack of discipline.
Very nice. Love the parody, and I think Linden Lab’s note is great. Good on them for not getting all pissy and putting their metaphorical foot in their mouth. BUT…
Reread the note from Linden. On the one hand, they say your site is clearly parody… but then they purport to give you “permission” to knock off their trademarks on your Cafe Press stuff. Which means they think that if they wanted to, if they were pissy about it, they could STOP you from putting your parody logo on things and selling them.
Maybe not as “enlightened” as they want you to think….
Made me laugh my @ss off, well done Darren! Step away from the computer Second Lifers, and go out and enjoy nature and the company of interesting people…
If you haven’t already been shown, the bottom paragraph that starts “Penguins…” has a repeated “the”.
Great bit of parody. Well done.
Such a sweet idea. I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats.
brilliant – wonder could I get a second life account and dress my avatar (or whatever) in a get a first life t-shirt?
how about a getafirstlife button link we could put on our websites like the creative commons logo below?
Heh, awesome dude. I quickly skimmed this site and didn’t realize I knew the man behind the humor.
PS I’m in an upcoming CBS Sunday Morning piece on SL and also, about to announce an indie music initiative I’m starting to build on Pontiac’s sim. More later. 🙂
It was worth getting out of bed this morning and turning on the computer just to see the word “perish” looking back at me.
Thanx
Your “Get a First Life Parody has been Linked in the SL Resident answers Forum, and All the respondants (Including Myself) there are Loving it.
It’s brilliant.
If you can’t laugh at yourself, Everyone else is willing to do it For you. 😉
Angel.
good
“Notwithstanding the foregoing, it is possible that your use of the modified eye-in-hand logo for Second Life, even as parody, requires license from Linden Lab”
Is it just me, or is Linden holding out for a cut of your proceeds despite the professed “proceed and permitted” approach?
Hey, Linden, get a “life” and take a fucking joke. Satire and parody happen to be protected forms of free speech in “this life, this country.”
Michael: You might want to re-read their comment closely 😉
Darren,
In answer to the question you’ve posed on your getafirstlife web-page, “are five senses enough,” I must submit this answer, “no, five senses are not enough.” IMHO, you’ve forgotten two senses: the electromagnetic, or “sixth” sense, as well as that most important of senses, the sense of humor. (Though the site, admittedly, shows yours to be well developed.)
HTH,
-beefhaze
I haven’t seen this many riffed takes of “get a life” since the infamous William Shatner-Trekkies skit on SNL. Fantastic!
BTW, the front page should rotate on reloads, so we get pirates AND ninjae. Arrre.
Man, I so wish I worked for Linden Labs. Their answer is priceless!
@Dan Someone:
> Which means they think that if they
> wanted to, if they were pissy about it,
> they could STOP you from putting your
> parody logo on things and selling them.
Check up on your trademark law: it doesn’t matter what Linden Labs thinks. To keep a trademark, you have to defend it. Imagine if Linden Labs did nothing. Then, imagine someone comes along and really does infringe on the trademark, they would be able to argue that the trademark was undefended, using this as evidence. That would mean that Linden Labs would have to fight to prove that this isn’t an infringement. That would be painful.
By explicitly granting permission to this potential-infringment, they can more easily fight other infringments in the future by people who might be less friendly than Darren.
I love the parody, even as a total SL addict. First thing I did when I saw the website was to steal your logo, slap it on a t-shirt, and start handing it out to every resident in sight in the Welcome Area I usually hang out (with an instruction to pass it on as much as possible :)).
And kudos to LL for responding in the only appropriate manner. You can say what you want about Second Life, but not that the people behind it have their heart and their brains in the right spots.
I actualy DID build a derigible with my mind in my first year in SL 🙂
(ok, so i had some help from my mouse)
Great parody Darren. Loved it!
I actualy DID build a derigible with my mind when i first joined SL 🙂
(ok, so i had some help from my mouse)
Great parody, Darren! Loved it 🙂
I think folks should view SL as a prototype of the internet to come. Just imagine, one day a huge grid with no lag, shopping, conferences, photos and movies- everything integrated.
SL is much more fun and interactive than scrolling through websites on a search engine…
I agree with you Samantha.
I believe our browsers will be replaced by 3D enabled web clients that will allow us to shop for books in a 3D Amazon store, and chat with fellow shoppers 🙂
I absolutely love the parody, but I’d really prefer to have the “eye in hand” lifting the middle finger instead of the index, could you arrange that ? I’d buy a GetAFirstLife t-shirt with this modification in an instant.
Good… it made me laugh. But did not make me cancel my SL accounts, sorry 🙂
Ha! I heard about Second Life, and then I heard about your spoof.
Now I got caught in the world of a text-based RPG and it was fun, but it was incredibly complex and took up way too much of my time. I still have print out of lengthy game guides. I just can’t bring myself to throw them out. At this rate, it will be my kin’s duty to toss them when I die.
When I saw Get a First Life, I laughed because, well, I get it.
I don’t think I’ll join Second Life. It’s interesting but I’m having too much time just playing Civilization IV and living my own somewhat interesting life.
I might get one of the Get a First Life t-shirts though. I like t-shirts and have way too many of them.
Thanks for the laugh.
I second the request for a T-shirt with “Work. Reproduce. Perish.” I also want the bumper sticker.
Should sell like crazy… It resonates with just about everyone here in the First Life world.
Sweet parody page, btw.
A fabulous send-up! It made my day; I spent a few hours bumping around in Second Life, drinking water non-stop, and falling off the island. You don’t get that time back.
Thanks for the reminder that we need to turn off the computer from time to time and get out there!
That is very, very funny and spot-on – great parody, and I’m tickled that they posted a ‘proceed and permitted’ comment, in a somewhat unnecessary attempt to prove they have a sense of humour (I’m afraid many of us long-time SL residents think they could do with less of a sense of humour and more of a sense of good business practice).
I have to say SL really does rock – WHEN it’s working – and if it appeals from the outset, it doesn’t take too long to learn all the tricks, though admittedly more than a few hours are needed. What doesn’t work, unfortunately, is the attitude and professional ethic of the company itself. I could write you a whoooole long article on THAT score, if you wanted 😉 And believe me, I’m offering.
Still, as a 9-month old SL resident logging over 80 hours a week, I can’t deny that in many respects, SL beats FL into a cocked hat – certainly financially. Not that I have any major complaints about my real life! The big things it has going for it are touch, taste and smell, sunlight and weather and real living nature, and the ability to snuggle for real with my husband (not to mention the thing about the genitals). And of course it doesn’t lag or crash, plus if your possessions mysteriously disappear overnight, you can call the police for an investigation and may actually receive some recompense for the loss (assuming you have adequate insurance).
Real life also has well developed public and emergency services which you really come to appreciate when you notice the lack thereof in SL. Of course we’re paying for those services through our taxes, so we can’t really complain – SL could be better, but then it would also be more expensive.
Anyway, I’m rambling on, really just wanted to say well done from a SL addict and fanatic – I loved your post.
Very cute. Also very sad, since I have the feeling that you’re not going to listen to your own advice. You’ve made comment about your inability find purpose and direction in Second Life–and honestly, that rather makes me doubt your ability to find same in your *first* one.
Why do I say this? Because you, and virtually everyone else who keeps complaining that Second Life is a poor game, don’t merely ‘don’t get it’, you Don’t Get It. Saying SL is a poor game is like saying your telephone is a poor game, paper and pencil are a poor game, or IRC is a poor game (or, for that matter, that your ‘First Life’ is a poor game). Second Life is *not* a game, it’s a communication tool, which, among its other functions, can be used to play games, just like the aforementioned tools.
That being said…Second Life is quite admittedly not a very *good* tool for various reasons, including how storage space is used, and how communication between systems is handled. Then again, that’s to be expected–Second Life is *very* first-generation, on a par with Alexander Bell’s first experimental phone. Future versions of virtual environments will be better.
And for those who try to compare the graphics and construction quality to MMORPGs and MMOFPSes like WoW–keep in mind that all of those are using pre-created, pre-packaged models and enviroments, with variances limited to mixing pre-defined components from different models, and a limited menu of alternate texture-maps on those models. Communication of changes to those environments consists of a simple ‘Generate PlayerObj 256 using body model 27, head model 42, hair color FFFFFF, skin tone 0000FF, and texture set 69’. SL, by comparison allows changes down to the *model structure* level on the fly–and this is far, far harder to keep synchronized across multiple systems running at multiple speeds and bandwidths in any sort of real-time fashion.
To those who lament the appearance of pornography–or worse, the horror of *advertising* and product sales in Second Life…all I can do is marvel at just how *sheltered* you are, in both lives. I know I certainly can’t go much of anywhere or look at any material, printed, transmitted, or otherwise, without seeing a multitude of advertisements. Pornography is there as well, albeit not pushed in your face as much, and not as directly. Even a regular novel will usually have at least one advertisement for either books by the same publisher, or books by the same author.
To sum up, the message I’m trying to get across is simple–before you go pointing fingers at someone else’s first and ‘second’ lives, you might want to take a good, hard look at your own first..
Chris: Thanks for that. As you’re being prescriptive, what criteria should we use to evaluate my first life?
*laugh* You’re on your own, there–I have my hands full dealing with my own, such as it is. Part of the reason I have an alternate one, really–then again, I’m also quite aware of what I’m doing and *why*, which some people I encounter online seem to have lost.
Cool post and slants on what is life – first/second/? – versus what works in PR. Thanks for starting the conversation, Darren and congrats on all the well-deserved attention.
Hey, the ALT of the image of your project site says “Join Second Life for FREE”. It was a mistake, right?
Ana: It’s just an artifact from the actual site–I’ll change that to something else.
Life 2.0: Who could not have foreseen the branding fiasco to come? Congrats to you on being wicked, wicked, wicked — and winning.
“Fornicate with your own genitals”!!!
FINALLY I’ve escaped web puberty!!!
THANK U DUDE!!!
LMAO !!! This is the most amusing stuff I ever seen since The Daily WTF and Dilbert 😀 !!! Thank you very much !
Darren, this is brilliant. I linked to it a few days ago and had no idea you were behind it.
Standing ovation.
Couldn’t agree more.
This is really cool. But…
“Linden Lab hereby grants you a nonexclusive, nontransferable, nonsublicenseable, revocable, limited license to use the modified eye-in-hand logo (as displayed on http://www.getafirstlife.com/ as of January 21, 2007) to identify only your goods and/or services that are sold at http://www.cafepress.com/getafirstlife/. This license may be modified, addended, or revoked at any time by Linden Lab in its sole discretion.”
You have been granted a revocable, nontransferable license. So, please, don’t piss them off. This proceed and continue letter is “revocable.” Lawyers just can’t resist being lawyers. I am not a lawyer so my read of REVOCABLE might not be a proper reading of REVOCABLE. Thanks for playing…
Since I’m making good money in second life from people paying more on clothing textures than on actual real life clothing, I’m saying; Second life is soooooo much fun, you should really try spending some money in it 😉
As somebody who spends a lot of time in SL, I’m not one of those people that forms an opinion based on 10 hours of play tops. And STILL I agree with this post.
I DO think that real-life companies can have a succesful presence in SL, as long as they actually provide services people want. I.e. a RL database provider providing in-game access to online databases, a RL consulting firm offering SL scripters-for-hire. Offer services, similar to those you provide in real life, that actually have in-game benefits.
Reuters bringing in-game news? I can get the same news a lot quicker from a website.
Weather reports/predictions in-game? SL doesn’t really have a weather system apart from random wind.
Car manufacturers selling in-game cars? To drive where? Teleporting is much faster.
Some software company providing middleware to do better communication between in-game objects? Now THAT would be useful!
Darren, you’ve been invited (sort-of) to open your “First life” T-shirts store on Second Life, where it’s pretty obvious they will sell quite well.
If I were someone with the L33T Skillz to make decent looking SL t-shirts, I’d offer to help. But I’m not, so I suggest you go find someone who has them, and put your virtual wares up for sale in SL. It’s likely a better market than even the internet.
P.S. Surprise — you’ve been Slashdotted. Good luck to your servers.
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/31/0216258
Now if only these companies that setup shop in SL would follow Lindens Law policies ^^
Thank you Darren – best laugh of the morning. Thank you SecondLife.com for one of the best responses to a parody that I have seen in a long time;-)
Anyone who thinks first life is lag free hasn’t ever (1) driven on a Los Angeles freeway, (2) had a layover in Denver in the middle of winter, (3) been pregnant.
Nevertheless, this is all pretty funny.
Please consider adding a mug to the cafepress store.
How about:
On one side, the hand logo with “Get a First Life” underneath.
On the other side “Work. Reproduce. Perish” in big letters…. with “www.getafirstlife.com” written in small letters underneath.
Personally, I’d prefer a black one 🙂 …
Very entertaining…very funny! After my RL day my second life used to be chatting with a few of my far away friends on Yahoo IM. We could spend a couple of hours talking about RL goods and bads and just enjoy each other’s company. In RL we are too far apart to meet and visit. After we found SL we are not only enjoying our conversations but also running in all directions, climbing mountains, dancing…playing and laughing and meeting others doing the same thing…Way more fun than Yahoo IM …But I have to say your one page parody is just as fun…Woo Hoo lets all keep communicating…Ahhh even here on this blog I see a number of people just hanging out saying what they think sitting at their computers typing and staring at a monitor…(ahh don’t for get to get up and kiss the kids once in a while..OK)…I love it we are all using a computer to communicate and this life in the REAL WORLD will only be more interesting and become virtually smaller because of Computers!!!! TYPE ON, I say…TYPE ON!!!!
“Get a first life” What a ironic statement from people who don’t have their OWN lives, but instead spend their time flaming other people over their lives!
Somebody needs to make this site for all of you… http://www.getyourOWNlife.com
I want in on First Life!
I have an avatar I’ve been working on for 30 years….
Totally fun site and unfortunatley very true… I should turn off my laptop right now and go the park, nah there should be spiders there (I live in Australia), maybe my laptop-based world is more secure.
hmmmm… nice
nice work
09.02.07 20:56:21
Thank you for a great laugh!
I remember when we actually had to
**!! Pretend **!! that our stuffed animals could talk (not to mention actually raise hell if we tried to turn them off or leave our blokes house where they had “conected” with another stuffed animal!
Keep those creative juices flowing!
I like to have a look at your site from time to time! See you soon ,Jason
haggerty-collector-auto-insurance
Hi
Im Mary
As luck would have it, Mort, Mort’s Mom and myself all use Tomsastrblog for our blogs. This was handy because it meant I could use the exact same code for all of them – the only downside is that they perhaps aren’t as representative of all blogs everywhere as they could be, though the techniques I used would work for any blogging system, and I imagine the results would be much the same. But I suppose you’re all screaming to hear just what these cunning things I did are. You are, right? Yes, I thought you were.
Thank s
I needed to see that. Thank you. I’ve been wrapped up in this hoo-ha at work and I’m getting sick of all of the promises that are being made on behalf of this thing. Frankly, it is fun to walk around or fly a bit now and then, but it gets stiffling quickly. You should market those First Life T-shirts. I’ll buy a couple.
Yes!!!! What a wild idea!!!! play outside instead of inside. I love computers and they are important, but, unless you are locked up underground 24 hours a day, the First Life is the way to go.
I’m going outside now to walk my real dog.
Very cool! Only that other languages and more navigation point should be added.
The homogeneity of the Google ads on your page puzzled me:
Second Life Linden
Secondlife Dollars
Secondlife Board
Secondlife Bot
Secondlife Buy
So I set my browser on disable images and show alt descriptions, and the resulting view was interesting:
Top left: What is Second Life?
Second row: Join Second Life for FREE! (twice)
Left column:
Second Life is a 3D digital world imagined, created, and owned by its residents.
Buy and Sell Linden Dollars
Own Virtual Land
Refer Your Friends
View interactive map
Teen Second Life
Your page is great, but I don’t think I’ll post about it in our work group’s blog. At least not in the “Second Life” category. Maybe I’ll make an “Adsense bombing” one for it, though.
Very good post thank you.
If I were someone with the L33T Skillz to make decent looking SL t-shirts, I’d offer to help. But I’m not, so I suggest you go find someone who has them, and put your virtual wares up for sale in SL. It’s likely a better market than even the internet.
I am reminded of a brilliant SCTV piece from the 1980s featuring Rick Moranis that parodied the emerging obsession with new video and sound technologies such as wide screen tvs, etc. (what then counted as the virtual world). Moranis’ character is overwhelmed when he encounters the real world, amazed by the picture clarity, sound quality, and 360 screen. A trip in his car through an automated car wash was touted as the ultimate audio-video experience.
Postscript: A little searching yields that the SCTV character Moranis played was Gerry Todd, and the car wash scene was episode 95, Feb 12, 1982 (“PSA: Video — Don’t Abuse It; sponsored by concerned parents of Melonville”.)
I share3 your views, since I had them also. I joined to see what was all the fuzz about SL, and downloaded the program. So far I’ve been about 5 or 6 times logged in, but so far I haven’t passed the help island. Even I returned to the introduction island and stuck there. I also found a way to acquire the different forms and avatars you have to choose when signing up the first time,and got the male forms to play around, but all in all, It haven’t sticked to me. I’ll just let it pass while there is something more interesting down there than in real life.
i love SL! You can get out of the help island by using your search button to teleport to any destination. And SL has everything, snowboard, skydiving, windsurfing…kinda like google!
what it is and what it has to offer is entirely up to you…
i used to think only losers would play SL (as i play it when i’m bored or broke), but i met all sorts of fun characters in SL. from plain psychotic people, to really intelligent interesting folks.
i don’t think it is a senseless game. coz you do learn new things (previews, confidence in interacting, etc.)
SL is an excellent interactive medium. if you’re not having fun, then either you’re still clueless or i hate to say it- plain boring. you have to have wit. and you need to be friendly.
with SL, only your imagination limits you.
lag does suck, but hey we keep coming back.
as for my FL… it’s true, my SL life is so much cooler and less complicated… lol!
give it another chance. it’s awesome. but don’t make it your life.
Hi,
Most obviouly your quite wrong.
LEEEEEROYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY JENKINNNNNSS!!!
Peace people
We love you
Very nice parody, I liked it!
Never want to get first live, because simply First live SUCKS!
but i admit the parody was good…
I haven’t gotten much done these days. My life’s been basically dull these days. I’ve just been hanging out not getting anything done.
I haven’t gotten anything done , but it’s not important. I can’t be bothered with anything these days, but such is life. Maybe tomorrow. I’ve just been hanging out not getting anything done.
You are my hero.
this site is wonderful.Thanks for this post.
The t-shirts look cool; I’d like one. The fornication one is funny, but not everyone wants to wear a t-shirt around all the time that says “I fornicate”… I realize that you have the reproduce and perish one as well. But perhaps you could make a few more, like “Find out where you actually live”. “A 3D analog world with no server lag” would also be cool.
Thanx and congrats.
Unbelievable is all I have to say. I came across the posting and hadn’t heard much about second life. I just can’t fathom how people get so hooked into these virtual universes spending their real money on nothing. I think I just might go outside 🙂
Nice! I’ll definately check back here!
I don’t know about you but I love parodies. (I am actually going to see Epic Movie.) A few days ago, the blogosphere was buzzin’ ’bout Get a First Life; a parody of the very popular Second Life. (FYI, I first noticed it her
Write good, we support you
This one makes sence “One’s first step in wisdom is to kuesstion everything – and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.”
Thank you Darren – best laugh of the morning. Thank you SecondLife.com for one of the best responses to a parody that I have seen in a long time;-)
Very amusing, this one’ll be flying around my office for a bit 🙂
Thanks
Very amusing, wite exellent 😉
nice work
thanks
The irony, of course, is that you clearly think that anyone who uses Second Life “has no real life”. Then you spend, presumably, quite a significant amount of time sitting in front of a PC developing “GetAFirstLife.com”. So presumably you have no “real life” either.
It is also an irony that you, in one breath, accuse Second Life as being merely the result of a lot of rather pointless hype, and then in the next breath spend significant amounts of your own time creating this project in response to it. Surely if you perceive something as pointless hype you simply ignore it, don’t you?
What you have done is clearly perceived (by you) as some bitingly clever satire on some “silly new technology” played by “geeky people” who need to “get a life”. It is, unfortunately, likely to be perceived by anyone with a modicum of intelligence, as the work of some “clever dick” who finds it easier to make smart arsed comments about something he clearly doesn’t fully understand than to actually make the effort to see what it can achieve and what it signifies for technology going forward.
Shouldn’t you be “Going outside to play”? I’m sure thats the “normal” thing to do.
Stan: If you’d read this page, you would have seen that I begin it by saying “that there’s something important going on inside the game.” Lower down, I refer to the project as “light-hearted fun”.
Why have you taken it so seriously?
Some pertinent facts:
* The site took me about four hours to make. I ripped off the structure of SL’s page, and replaced it with new content. Not rocket science, obviously, but not time consuming either.
* I don’t know if it’s a “bitingly clever satire”. However, most of the other 200-odd commenters on this page seem to like it, as did the sundry mainstream media who talked to me about the project. I don’t know what the site’s 500,000 visitors
think about it, but I must assume that some of them like the satire, too.
* But, heck, let’s be totally objective about this. If you want to understand how the page has generally been perceived, I encourage you to check out some sites in this Google search:
http://tinyurl.com/26s9bz.
They linked to GetaFirstLife.com, and will provide you with a big sample group.
* You described me as somebody who “clearly doesn’t fully understand than to actually make the effort to see what it can achieve and what it signifies for technology going forward.” Check out these Google searches:
http://tinyurl.com/25mwzr
http://tinyurl.com/28q3le
http://tinyurl.com/2azfdg
They refer to 100+ posts on this site where I discuss MMPORG and virtual worlds like Second Life. Do you still think I’m not making the effort? Do you still want to accuse me of not understanding this technology?
And please stop using quotes when you’re not actually quoting people. Nobody but you said “silly new technology”, “real life”, “geeky people”, “clever dick” and so forth. It suggests I or someone else said them, which is deceitful.
Ha, I heard about second life before and i thought, you need to get a first life. Your website is great!
thanks
This is great.Thanks
This is great.Thanks
I’m thinking of creating “Third Life”,”Forth Life”, “Fifth Life”, etc.
I mean, for all those who couldn’t make it in “First Life”, “Second Life”, etc.
Going back, in each life, let’s say 200 years a step. Till cave-man life. No companies, no social graces, nothing.
You want sex? Knock the first female you fancy on the head, dray her to the next cave and have a go at it.
You’ve got a juicy bears’ hind leg and the other has some tasty corn you like, TRADE!!
Don’t like the neighbors? Get some buddies together, make some spears and get it on!!
Humans….
thank you
@Pedro
You want sex? Knock the first female you fancy on the head, dray her to the next cave and have a go at it.
Right. 😉
Great blog, thank you preparing..
I have read the site the Proceed and Permit letter and teh comments with interest.
I have a First Life. That is for the most part made bearable by reading of and involvement with the Discworld books of Terry Pratchett. I disappear off to the country and meet like-minded people and we have fun. Far too few people over the age of about 10 seem to know how to have fun that does not harm other people. The boring bit of my life was on the rare occastions I had a night in. Now I know about reading and games to keep your brain active. I have 3 hours of that a day on the Tube system in London. So apart from chores, I would end up in front of the TV an ye Gods and Goddesses, how boring is that for the most part. So I retreated to the computer. There I interact with friends and strangers on message boards, forums, MSN etc. This was more interesting… Interacting with people from all over the world. There is a huge group that I talk to on-line that I meet also in the Real World.
Then I found out about Second Life and I looked and I saw. I have half a dozen Real Life friends who are also in Second Life. I have made new friends in Second Life, mainly through shared interests. And everything in First Life is reflected in Second Life and then you can go further…….
So, I have an incredibly busy First Life with a very active social element.
I have a very busy on-screen life communicating with friends from all over. Then I have also managed to develop a Second Life.
I love the creativity of the landscapes and beautiful places. The fun at the go-kart track, the Dr Who and Stargate and Elf Sims.
I love the extensive wardrobe I can have. The number of different places I can go and listen to music and dance, oh I love the virtual dancing….. and at the end of my ‘evening’ I can go home to my SL house by TP
No missed trains, no huge taxi fares, no danger. Go home to my SL house, furnished with all the things I cannot afford in RL, grandfather clock, hot tub, Juke Box, etc.
Second Life is magic and fun and it fits in fine with my first life.
I will be happy when it is worked out how to avoid lag and maybe to more carefully mark the ‘mature’ places so I don’t have to go there if I don’t want to.
But I enjoy both my lives very much, thank you. For the record I am a 55 year old female living just outside London, England and consider myself ‘normal’ and reasonably intelligent.
a parody of the very popular Second Life. (FYI, I first noticed it her
THANK U DUDE!!!
thanks good
Tao of Linden being followed in both spirit and action by Ginsu Yoon’s response on behalf of LL. Organizations can learn, It’s simply a different medium for doing and experiencing things that we already do online, and in the general business community as a company with enlightened and well-informed views regarding intellectual property rights, including the fair use doctrine
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Organizations can learn, It’s simply a different medium for doing and experiencing things that we already do online, and in the general business community as a company with enlightened and well-informed views regarding intellectual property rights, including the fair use doctrine
Nice work.
My colleagues & I were just discussing MMORPG’s and then SecondLife yesterday at lunch.
I was considering starting up “ThirdLife Inc.” to specialize in “human retrieval” from virtual worlds. I’m sure there are many loved ones out there requiring such services.
While not a hater, I’m def not a fan. Virtual worlds ‘could’ very well signal the beginning of the end of the world.
Every kid in SL or Everquest is a kid not at a playground, on a soccer field, or in a swimming pool. A kid getting fat and lethargic and a serious lack of vitamin D.
Well at least there’ll be shorter lines at the chairlift in a few years.
BTW, as a Vancouverite in Tokyo I’ve gotta say nice work on the Japanese translation. But any reason it’s not in Chinese as well (the #2 language population on the web)?
cheers!
d.
I will be happy when it is worked out how to avoid lag and maybe to more carefully mark the ‘mature’ places so I don’t have to go there if I don’t want to.
Tao of Linden being followed in both spirit and action by Ginsu Yoon’s response on behalf of LL. Organizations can learn, It’s simply a different medium for doing and experiencing things that we already do online, and in the general business community as a company with enlightened and well-informed views regarding intellectual property rights, including the fair use doctrine