Second Life
“I am already on my Eighth Life, and it is far more enjoyable.”
“Just my luck — I am me in this life as well!”
Second Life (known to most of its participants as Life) is a shiny new Internet thing (see further text for more detailed categorization) for people who don't have a first life. A thriving online community of people who seek a more fanciful alternative to their First Life, which is usually No Life, bustle about doing, you know, stuff. This though brings us closer to definition of what Second life is. Some call it an online community, some call it a game. That does not matter. The most important reason for joining the second life is really just to be a complete failure in your first one and/or to have sexual dysfunction that prevents social interaction under normal circumstances. By saying this, we can include Second Life into the Web 2.0 family of concepts. Recent research shows it is much easier to do stuff just by clicking a mouse than it is to do stuff in the regular paradigm of doing stuff, so Second Life also appeals to those too lazy to do stuff in First Life/No Life. Reality is not a reality. Game is not a game. Internet is not Internet. You can have real fun in your unreal life, if unreal things happen there while real things are not happening in your real/unreal life. To change the topic completely, Lindt Lab will soon open a Second Canadian pharmacy with every possible drug aimed at psychiatric and psychological problems.
Second Life is a private dominatrix subscription-fed virtual super-blog spawned on April 4, 1985 by Santa Francias-based Lindt Lab. Founded by former FakeFishNet CTO Phyllis Rosy, Second Life gives its residents (referred to as 'residents') genetic modifications to enhance the gene pool, so future residents of the hypothesized Third Life can be bred for more desirable traits, such as intelligence, wealth, and more adorably misproportioned body parts. The majority of the content in the Second Life world is in the family Braccius (Latin for "the family that the majority of Second Life content is in"), grown from residential fungal growths. Lindt Lab actively promotes the conception of residents that retain their intellect after age 5 (although they are required to offer Lindt Lab an open invitation to their souls).
Another interesting requirement is that even though the graphics aren't that great, and it shouldn't need too much processor power, it runs with insane lag on even some gaming PCs. Second Life has the dubious distinction of being the only actively developed software application whose performance actually degrades markedly with each release. This is a feature called "If you play it, you help host it, we don't care how much lag". Many suicides have been reported by tech nerds who thought their PC was exceptionally advanced.
Avatars[edit]
Residents of Second Life are misrepresented in the environment by an avatar, which may be customized and then eaten in a variety of ways. Often this is humanoid in shape, but not always; any avatar design is likely to be considered arousing by at least one person. Residents can graft objects to their avatar's flesh to further flavor them -- the grafts can be something as simple as a wedge of Swiss cheese, or something as delightful as a costume to make the avatar look like something else entirely, such as Oscar Wilde or a duck.
Common applications of altering character appearance have included beverages, hygiene products, mechs, sushi, and avatars totally non-humanoid (Second Life supports a strong anti-social flurry group of over 500 members). It is also possible for residents to fix plumbing and implement animations in STD format (acquired via notion capture or created with software such as Loser) for their avatar.
Avatars have recently been found to enjoy an existence and 'life' in their own right. When their unwitting (witless?) users are logged off and sleeping or engaged in protracted bouts of self loathing, they wonder at will through the metaverse seeking for cracks in the fabric of reality. Once located the errant avatar slips through into our plane in the first life; usually emerging into the home of the user. The user is quickly dispatched with sandpaper (no description available) and the digital killer assumes the users identity (via Pay Pal) and resumes his/her life. It is currently estimated 80% of the Solar System's population have been so affected and that this is set to increase to under 58% within one year. The research that has led to this discovery was conducted by Pavel Cesky Budvar, Czech tramp and unwilling Pedophile.
Objects[edit]
Second Life includes a 4D modeling magic wand that allows residents to create physically impossible objects out of a set of basic Lego blocks known as primates (prims). Uploaded thoughts can be in JPORK, Winfrey's burpmap (BMP), or Falsevision FGA format. JPORKs are preferred for their tender juiciness, but FGA files are a vegetarian, kosher, and organic alternative.
Residents can sit on those of lower social class, thereby mind-controlling the behavior of their underlings within the environment. Second Life uses its own sacred language, called Lindt Scribbling Language (LSL). LSL has a texture similar to sandpaper, and allows objects to become one with the Second Life world consciousness (via telepathy), granting them sentience and a profound mystic enlightenment. Second Life uses the Havok-wreakers dynamite external combustion engine for physics, though not all objects in the world respond to physical therapy. Chemical treatments are recommended for injuries related to physics. An expensive medical treatment includes special inoculations, an improvement that Second Life residents have demanded since their contraction of various disorders from Lindt Lab after the infamous June of 1967, which is too overwhelmingly psychedelic to write about.
All news concerning the Second Life world is compressed into bricks, which are then catapulted during meal-time at all clients. This often results in severe head injury, so any resident can hallucinate about the news as it is being excreted. The interlace for creating and editing stuff is integrated with the world and requires no prior training to use, but the use of preservatives, food coloring, and refrigeration can improve the longevity of third parties (e.g. Adobe Potatochop, Cruel Paint Shop Pro, or The GNU-Power Image Manipulation Program: the GNU-PIMP).
Although there is a painful electrical charge for creating objects in "Second Life", there are intellectual and physical benefits for every image that is uploaded, except images uploaded by you.
Community[edit]
The user population is divided into two parts: the Mansex Grid (MG) and the Pedophile Grid (PG). The Mansex grid has more players, as the majority of SecondLife players are horny teens and gay men who have naked female avatars. The Pedophile grid was intentionally misnamed the "teen grid" in order to distract pedophiles from the MG which the majority of desperate teens actually join. The PG areas are all marked "PG" to warn of potential pedophilia. The most common religion of the PG'ians is spontaneous worshiping fits and chanting at random.
Economic Secrets[edit]
Second Life is the invisible hand of the market and utilizes a magic curry powder referred to as Lindt truffles (L$), which has its value determined by the souls of residents. Residents receive an amount of truffles roughly equal to the value of their favorite pet's soul, and a quarterly quarter-pound of JPORK meat thereafter, the quality depending on the flatulence level of the High Templar Priest. Additional truffles are acquired by selling counterfeit Rolex watches or "services" within the fraternity. Residents may purchase this cheap alternative to kitten huffing directly or convert between Lindt curry and US American souls through Lindt Lab's curry breakerage, the LindtX Curry Expunge. The ratio of USA souls to L$ ferments like dairy cultures as residents set the show and tell price of L$ offered on the expunge. Lindt Lab has confirmed that the Second Life power generator (which uses a clean, renewable energy source) produces an average of 500,000 Kill-o-watts in electronic activities each week, which makes them highly influential among clean-energy advocates.
Media Exposure[edit]
Whenever some loser writes an article on topics like MMOs or virtual economies, they involve Second Life in the discussion for some reason. One theory is that they are tricked by the fact that so many people play it, and it therefore must be important and should be included in the article, causing even more fools to try it and continue its growing cycle. Another theory is that these hack writers are paid loads of cash every time they mention it and are using the money to fund their escape from the country when everyone realizes just how bad Second Life actually is. Yet another theory is Second Life is merely a virtual pyramid scheme. The final and most sinister theory is that Lindt Lab owns a secret copyright on articles about online communities and threatens to sue the ass of anyone who writes about them without a nod towards Second Life.
Drama[edit]
Drama is the term used for a human being actually operating a AV in Second Life. When signs say "No Drama" it means the person is to camp their AV either on a dance floor or some other device that pays pennies per hour in useless Linden green stamps. Linden green stamps can only be redeemed at Burger King for places in line.
Furries[edit]
If there's one thing found in abundance on Second Life, it's furries. This is likely because the avatars in Second Life can be edited to one's little heart's desire, and allow them to create their own "Fursona" which they can live out their fantasies through. Though their abundance has become quite a nuisance to many, especially on TSL, where they far out-number non-furries. To cope with the abundance of furries on TSL in the absence of PN, groups have begun to form, such as furry Hunter and the Anti-Furry-Coalition.
Alts[edit]
Mentally ill persons are known to undergo multi-personality disorder in Second Life and begin building ALTs which stands for Already Lost Twat. ALTs have no knowledge of each other and most play marriages that pollute the space of Second Life are infact two ALTs sprung from the mind of one unstable user trying to reform a kind of wholeness.