Get a Second Life

Have you ever seen the Chappelle's Show skit, "If real life were like the internet?". Enter Second Life...

Have you heard about this Second Life business? I kept hearing it said here and there, and I always thought it was a general term for anyone who was a hardcore gamer or just did a lot online.

Not quite, it's actually the name of a virtual world, a huge one. A world where people have real jobs, houses, and anything else you can think of. They make virtual dollars that they can convert to US Dollars depending on the current exchange rate.

I had to see what this was all about.

I jumped in, bypassing all the "premium memberships" that would allow me to get an allowance or some nonsense. You have to download the program, and you're in. As soon as you're "born" you first go through and learn the basics of how to move, fly, interact with objects, and all that good stuff. You can walk up to people and start talking (typing) and that kind of thing.

Pretty quickly I got lost and was all alone, with not a sole as far as the eye could see. Then I learned I could teleport to anywhere on the giant map I found, and went to where I saw the most people to try and see what people actually did. I came to find that there's plenty of she-males, virtual sex, and all kinds of other weird stuff going on.

It's a trip for sure, and I can see how it could become addictive. I was on there for a little while just trying to figure the thing out. I did have a couple good conversations, I met one woman (i think?) who showed me the ski mountain her friend created, then took me back to her house she had built filled with the animals I think she created.

Apparently companies like Toyota, Nike, and many more have a presence in Second Life where they sell products, and I hear IBM has a virtual boardroom where they have meetings of First Life importance. I think it would be great to have some music, sort of like online radio but with a killer chat app. Crazy stuff.