Yale Daily News blasts SL: "Second Life is a nerdy, Jolt-fueled pastime for social cripples and perverts"
In a blistering assessment of his first visit to Second Life, Micheal Seringhaus of the Yale Daily News cuts through the Reuters fluff and offers that the reality is rather different than the "sober assesments" given by mainstream media.
I was mostly ignored, occasionally propositioned for text-based sex and wholly unable to conduct business. I am sad to report that peddling homegrown pixel-bling to ultra-Goth Furries requires a skill set I do not have. Those who make money here are better sellers than I.I spent another hour in-world, succeeding only in getting lost, cursed at and stuck in a vacant house. On my Yale-hardened weird-o-meter, literally everyone I encountered buried the needle.
Judging by my brief visit, Second Life has more in common with an AOL chat room than a digital economy. For all its promise of immersive neo-capitalist escapism, it seems a little too trivial, better in concept than in execution.
A brutal critique, but much more on target than the breathless hype we are getting from the so-called media professionals, who, one begins to suspect, are being "looked after" by Linden helpers.
Shorter Michael Seringhaus: "Nobody I wanted to cyber with wanted to cyber with me, nobody even wanted to talk to me, this game sucks."
Posted by: Ordinal Malaprop | October 19, 2006 at 05:14 PM
Well, that was mean! That college boy just needs to get laid. Geez. I'm glad we're seeing some rejection of Internet culture from our nation's finest educational institutions though, that's inspiring.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | October 19, 2006 at 09:28 PM
I've never encountered anything like what was described. I guess its because I'm logging in from the UK and am out of time-sych with the mainly US population.
It just always seems pretty quiet.
Posted by: Lucius Nesterov | October 20, 2006 at 07:27 AM
"Second Life is a nerdy, Jolt-fueled pastime for social cripples and perverts"
Then shouldn't a Yalie fit right in?
Posted by: | October 20, 2006 at 09:42 AM
Yet another clueless article, without this smarty pants ever utilizing search. My guess is, popular picks and tp. Oh I'd love to rip into him, but the article doesn't allow comments... awww. :(
This is the problem with these stupid articles. They come in, go one place and base their entire piece and opinion off someplace they tped, without even spending time on orientation island. Offering the skirt for sale to the room? Common sense must elude Yalies... if they get it for free... chances are the rest of us have it. But NO! We can't tell anyone in the article that!
Keep the yuppie, pretentious, mommy and daddy kids out of SL (see I can stereotype too!). More sex for me!
Posted by: Random Writer | October 20, 2006 at 11:00 AM
i am very sorry for this guy that he did not get cybered or collared in the way that he was looking for. the mass media is very clear that SL is becoming a corporate marketeers oasis.
people should, well, try to RESPECT that kind of corruption.
Posted by: humdog | October 20, 2006 at 02:24 PM
The recent postings from editor Emeritus Urizenus basically seem boil down to "all the cool kids like SL: I'm going to dis them and show them how uncool it is!"
This isn't "righting an imbalance": it's childish schoolyard crap.
Posted by: Tomas Hausdorff | October 20, 2006 at 02:58 PM
No one's righting any imbalances around here, Tomas; the Herald *is* an imbalance! Or at least, Always Fairly Unbalanced.
Posted by: Walker Spaight | October 20, 2006 at 10:11 PM
To summarize, just like in real life, most people should be able to start a successful business in Second Life by spending and hour or two hanging out on a city street?
Posted by: Jeremiah North | October 23, 2006 at 01:32 PM