A rchive Date
[ 28-04-2006 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mass Media ]
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[http://blog.eweek.com/blogs/intermedia/archive/2006/04/25/9298.aspx
Second Life: Or, How To Live A Mediated Existence
Linden Labs' virtual world/game/timesuck Second Life is on the cover of Business Week this week. The four articles in the package include My Virtual Life, which introduces the game Second Life; It's Not All Fun and Games, which explores the Second Life economy; Virtual Land, Real Money, a profile of Anshe Chung, the most successful business executive in the game, and who also adorns the cover of the magazine; and Virtual Worlds, Real Economies, an essay by economist Edward Castronova.
I've never played Second Life, but I did attend the first conference on the "game" here in New York last fall, and I've read widely about it. (Back in grad school, I also interviewed the CEO of there.com, a rival virtual service that hasn't had the same success. Here's part 1 and part 2. It's shockingly bad writing, sorry.)
The game has been dissected numerous times and reported on by smarter people than me, so I'll just drop my small two cents and move on: Second Life is the logical extension of our current mediated world in which almost every visible surface is designed to impart a meaning and message to you.
That message is usually advertising, but the mediated existence goes beyond that. Every sculpted chair, varnished surface, German-engineered car, every knickknack and gewgaw is designed for us. Almost everything we encounter is fabricated, and is intended to communicate, either overtly or implicitly.
The godfather of media studies, Marshall McLuhan, refered to this mediated existence, in which we are constantly bombarded by advertising and culture, as an "implicit magical world of the resonant oral word.”
Another of my favorite cultural critics, Thomas de Zengotita, readdressed McLuhan's arguments in an essay for Harper's magazine a few years ago (and again in his book, Mediated).
He argues that the world constantly "flatters" us with its attention. At one point in his book, Zengotita asks the reader to imagine being stranded on the side of the road in the Arizona desert. Imagine you have to wait there for hours. And nothing in the desert is meant for you. The cacti and sand and wind are not there to entertain you. They're just there.
Second Life is the logical extension of our mediated world. Everything in Second Life is created for us. Second Life is amazing. It's also the video game equivalent of mental masturbation.
posted on Tuesday, April 25, 2006 9:49 AM by Steve Bryant ]
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