gullybogan

Flickr photo by Gary Hayes.

Dear Reader,

As you and i both know quite well, Second Life is pretty silly.

Grown men and women walking their unlikely-looking avatars around in a laggy simulacrum of a world that feels like a dodgy expansion pack for The Sims, when they could be writing incredibly useful cupcake blogs… well, it’s just silly.

Even sillier is the idea that real world (First Life?) businesses should be setting up shopfronts in Second Life.

Happily, these businesses are failing miserably.

Take that, capitalism!

According to PhD student Kim MacKenzie, the corporate showtowns are more “like ghost towns”, and most of the folk enjoying being naked cat-faced Lindenians walking around these pavilions are company employees.

Tragic.

So, like, whatever. Second Life is collapsing. Big deal.

Much more interesting is the fact that inside the Australian ABC’s Second Life real estate, there’s (or there was) a place called ‘Melbourne Laneways’.

Whackadoo!

Now you can be a naked cat-faced Lindenian hanging out in one of our Capital City’s many lovely laneways, but without any of the actual advantages of being there.

There’s technology making the world a better place for you! Yes, indeed!

Why go and enjoy a cappuccino in a laneway with friends when you can be sitting at home alone in your pyjamas and pretending to be enjoying a cappuccino in a laneway with ppl you don’t know from Adam, most of whom have animal faces?

NO REASON!

The screenshots of Melbourne Laneways are impressive, though. One is clearly Hosier Lane, and i’m sure that the wall on the left is sporting that catgirl graff i Flickrd a time back (or her cousin).

And i’m sure i’ve been in that café in the real world.

Sadly, the Melbourne Laneways are about to be demolished to make way for more empty spaces in Second Life.

And about time, too.

Yours,
Gullybogan