From time to time, we feel like some new blood on Second Life would be a good thing. Then, we notice that asking our friends to join is like asking them to pull their own molar without anesthesia. Second Life doesn’t seem appealing to most people, and frankly, I struggle to explain why I love it so much, too.
“What do you do there?” “Umm… I don’t know. Buy shit. Waste an awful lot of time and money getting ready for playing one day maybe.” It’s not sensible, and yet… It’s soooo awesome. (Building. I love building and scripting for it to be fair, but nooobody knows I exist. I don’t think they’ll approve of my Shop&Hop application, either. I wouldn’t.)
Still, first we have to stop sounding so desperate and embarrassed about what Second Life is… We need to celebrate what it is. It is a chaos. It is built by amateurs for amateurs. It’s a right laugh. It’s walking into someone else’s fantasies and vision. It’s a collection of horrible and brilliant. It is whimsical and unpredictable.
But what I think is that you either get it or you don’t. CONVINCING someone to try is not going to work. You’re drawn to it or you’re not. I don’t want anybody in there who doesn’t want to be there. It’s for people who GET IT. It is not a SENSIBLE THING to do. It’s for dreamers and visionaries, creators, and explorers. You NEED to be able to SENSE it. It’s not a logical thing, it’s a sense, and an instinct. It is what the Internet used to be before year 2000. Filled with people who were smart enough to deal with complications and patient enough to wait for it to load.
I don’t ever want it to be so easy that literal everyone is smart enough to log in… When things become too easy, the fun goes out of it for the intelligent and playful, those with imagination. I want it to remain a little bit… Scary. Like… “If I give it too much, will it swallow me whole?”
We have to (because Linden Labs won’t) tell people who will get it: It’s an adults only 3D internet. It’s built by the users for the users. Everyone can build on it. It isn’t a one thing built by one person, it’s a network of insanity built by countless of people. (And, that statistically, you have 440 times higher chances of becoming a millionaire being a creator on Second Life than on YouTube. 😉 )
