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The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?

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Hiroine Protagonist
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
Anybody ehre read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson? This is the wave of the future, baby!
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Raspberry Swirly
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
I could not for the life of me figure Second Life out. But I don't think the people that do spend time on them are necessarily on a fast track to mayhem a la Reefer Madness. If you've already got an addictive personality, then yes, it can be a detriment. But if not, then I don't really get why people act as though having this as a pastime is something for social piranhas*.

*I know it's pariahs. But I've recently fallen in love with The IT Crowd.
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Miss Smith Drank Your Vodka
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
Also, on that site:

I don't want to have pretend sex but I'd love some of the proper stuff!

Stuart, Chichester, England

How come lil' English accents and -isms make everything seem so much better?
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Miss Smith Drank Your Vodka
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
I tried Second Life a couple years ago. I'm usually pretty good with computers, but I got frustrated trying to navigate.

Oh and I had a big bird head and didnt have the energy or time to figure out how to get "people skin"

I did love the little John/Jim avatar/person in The Office. Swoon.
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maggeimerc
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
Second Life is just a SUPER fancy chat room.

And give me WoW any day. Sure you spend your time doing junk like killing three story tall demons sent to crush the world but at least the people you talk to our themselves.
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RedHotz
11/21/08

@maggeimerc: My daughters boyfriend is a WoW fiend! When they got involved he drove us absolutely insane with talking about it until we threatened to disconnect the internet if he didn't get offline sometimes. I mean if he wasn't sleeping he was online playing WoW. We couldn't figure out how they had time to become a couple with the amount of time he was playing the dang game lol.
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disco2000
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
Second life reminds me of those sad episodes of Star Trek where a shy, awkward or dorky character uses the holideck to carry out a romance with an unattainable member of the crew. I think I remember this in TNG, probably with Barkley, and then in Voyager with 7 trying to learn how to interact with people in her second life. The doctor also experimented with a virtual family.

It makes sense for people that are holograms/ex borg or lonely in space. For real people, I just don't get it. This is coming from a total geek, obviously. I'm all for technology, and I met my husband on the internet, but second life just feels wrong.
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disco2000
11/21/08

@disco2000: And by wrong I don't mean to be judgmental, it just seems like the wrong way to interact between people to build a relationship, for me at least. You're interacting in an indirect way, as different people. It's not even like you're on myspace with deceiving pictures, because at least then you're yourself, just idealized.
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Crabby Cakes
11/21/08

@disco2000: I know the episode you're talking about! 7 starts asking really inappropriate questions about their sex life. I loved me some Voyager.
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Kittenish
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
I have trouble enough managing my real life, let alone a virtual one!
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Crabby Cakes
11/21/08

@Kittenish: Yeah, living in the Jezeworld is as far as I want to take it.
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BabyJane
11/21/08

@Kittenish: @Crabby Cakes wants some Dance Biscuits.: Me too.
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pantsless economist...access RESTORED
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
Real conversation with my dad the other day:

Pantsless, did you know, there's these *other world* video games, and you create an *avatar* and people can make a real living selling stuff in the *virtual world*?

He said everything in such wide-eyed disbelief. I like it when baby boomers discover what goes on in teh intertubes. :)
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hellosunshine
11/21/08

@pantsless economist: My parents just got on Gmail, and I explained Gchat to my mom the other day over the phone. She is So. Excited.
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blueVamp
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
Has anyone seen the Law and Order about the guy who kidnapped the girl who's avatar looked like a girl he'd prevously kidnapped?
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hellosunshine
11/21/08

@blueVamp: YES.
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RedHotz
11/21/08

@blueVamp: Wasn't it actually CSI:NY? I am a huge fan of both Law and Order and CSI so I tend to watch all of them haha.
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msAnthrope
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
when these virtual worlds advance to holodeck quality, count me in. until then, it's just more time spent staring at a computer monitor and i already do that all day long.
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NowhereGirl
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
Anything taken to excess can be bad for you. Anything. Second Life and other online games are not inherently detrimental. If a person does not have the self restraint to keep themselves from going over board, it's their fault, not the game's. For every person who does harm to their lives and relationships with something like this, their are thousands who are just fine. Also... if a person has a tendency towards addiction, and didn't have a game to obsess about, they'd find something else.
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Adora Belle Dearheart
11/21/08

@NowhereGirl:
Word. I was hugely obsessed with Sims/Sims 2. I would spend hours and days playing in a fake virtual life, ignoring my real one. Good thing I got over that. Though now my obsession is mindsweeper...
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BrutallyHonestBabes (aka Mrs. Sarah.of.a.Lesser.Hobbit)
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
I was thinking of selling virtual cupcakes laced with Vicodin to the Jezebel community. My shop would also have tee shirts Clive Owen has slept in, a dunking booth with Tucker Carlson in it, and virtual baby pandas to pet. Gimme money!
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Mkp-hearts-NYC
11/21/08

@BrutallyHonestBabes: ...I don't think you should limit yourself to virtual cupcakes, personally....
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BabyJane
11/21/08

@BrutallyHonestBabes: I think you're on to something!
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VPea
11/21/08

@BrutallyHonestBabes: im ashamed to admit a huge crush on tucker carlson :O(

he has gorgeous skin. and men that make me sick excite me!!!

Ill take one baby panda please.
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BrutallyHonestBabes (aka Mrs. Sarah.of.a.Lesser.Hobbit)
11/21/08

@VPea: Perhaps I can proved a service whereby I allow you to dry him off after the other ladies have dunked him? That will be one million dollars.
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Adora Belle Dearheart
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
Hold the phone. I thought second life was about attaching digital peens on everything and anything.
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Mkp-hearts-NYC
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
....I think there's a difference between playing as /yourself/ in an avatar style game (I was a Sims addict, not a 2nd Lifer) and playing a character. Then again, with the Sims you're controlling both players (unless you're hooked into the network, which I never was)..so I probably wouldn't get mad about my guy making SimJim and SimJane get it on, but I'd be uncomfortable with SimMyGuy going on the Sims.com network and meeting up with a real stranger.
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ceejeemcbeegee is not here
11/21/08

In reply to The Real World: Do Virtual Lives 'Count' ?
I know a woman OBSESSED with Second Life. But her and her husband play it together, their avatars have little online trysts, so... I guess that's OK?

I joined for a hot minute, but it's not for me. In order to make "money" I have to be at "work" (at my computer) at a specific time and heck... I don't even like doing that in REAL life, much less a virtual one!
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Crabby Cakes
11/21/08

@ceejeemcbeegee: A former co-worker of mine went into debt "buying" items for his Second Life life. This made no sense to me until I found out you can PAY REAL MONEY for online "stuff" for your "life."

If he spent that much money on his real life, he might have had a real life.
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BellaNotte
11/21/08

@Crabby Cakes wants some Dance Biscuits.: Even scarier to me is that some people buy virtual genitalia to enhance their virtual sex lives.
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
11/21/08

@BellaNotte: Whoa that is way to freaky!
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