Op/Ed: Get A Life! Any Ideas Which One?
by Alphaville Herald on 20/12/08 at 10:35 pm
by Sigmund Leominster
It’s incredibly easy to trawl through the Internet to find stories about virtual worlds and the Second Life experience. And the stories are typically centered on a pretty well focused set of topics: sex; sex with children; infidelity (sex with someone else’s partner); bestiality (sex with someone else’s pet); and general corruption aligned with moral turpitude. For every column inch regarding a charity event in Second Life that raises money for autism, there are ninety-nine others about perverts yiffing themselves to hell and practicing unspeakable acts of depravity beyond the imagination of the Marquis de Sade – or at least members of the Moral Majority.
So when something happens in the virtual world, the commonest response is for people to “Get a Life!” A quick Google search for the words “Get a Life” paired with “Second Life” pulls up 41,400 instances – which is presumably now 41,401 since you are reading this as a published article. You’ll also find members of the “Get A Life” brigade posting responses and comments to articles and blogs, offering their sage advice to go and “do something real” while simultaneously mocking and berating anyone who sets an avatarian foot into a virtual world.
Whether it’s Second Life, Entropia, Kaneva, World of Warcraft, on any flavor of virtual life, the typical resident is clearly a loser, has no friends, can’t get a partner, and has no social skills whatsoever. The answer is obvious – uninstall the software and “Get a Life!”
Now, what is stunningly obvious in any of these cries for sanity is the absence of any suggestions for what “A Life” is supposed to look like. None of the “Get a Life” brigade members seems to be able to define exactly what this “Life” is that needs to be “get.”
Maybe it’s like this: Go out to a store and spend hundreds of dollars in a bag of sticks. Take these sticks to a large, private field and spend more money to be given the right to walk around it. While you are there, use the sticks to knock some small balls into small holes. There’s no reason to do this except that this is what you can do with sticks and a ball – hit things into holes. Spend a few hours doing this and when you’re done, book ahead so you can do it again… and again… and again…
In the real world, some people have a name for this; they call it “golf.” I know, it sounds stupid to waste all you time hitting balls with sticks, but it is, apparently, “A Life.”
Or how about another one. There are a small number of men in the US who never grow up. When they are kids, they run around playing with balls and jumping on each other. As adults, they get paid to do this. What’s really remarkable about this is that they only get paid because millions of other guys are crap at it! So the men who suck big time at throwing balls and jumping on each other pay ridiculous amounts of money just to watch other men do it. Imagine, paying just to watch! Some of these watchers will also buy shirts with the names of other men on the back and wear them. But they are not gay. They are called “football fans.” This too is, allegedly, “A Life.”
And has anyone ever watched Extreme Fighting? Here you have two men wearing Speedos who get covered in sweat and roll around with each other. Most have had their body hair shaved to make their skin smoother and they spend lots of time working out so that their well-toned, muscular bodies can look good when glistening with oil and rubbing against their opponent’s groin. And as they bump and grind on a leathery floor, hundreds and thousands of men will be watching and cheering. These are called “Fight Fans” and have “A Life.”
Apart from the fact that Extreme Fighting on TV with the sounds turned down looks like gay porn without the penetration, all these examples are supposed to be “Life;” these are some of the things the “Get A Lifers” (GALs) imply are far more worthy activities than jerking around on a computer screen and dressing yourself up like animated Barbie and Kens.
The need to put down other people and promote your own perspective as being the “right one” is as old as when Cain took a stick to his brother’s balls because he felt his produce was better than Abel’s. Since then, the whole of human history has been little more than the actions of one group trying to ram its ideas down the collective throat of another. I’m pretty sure that when Julius Caesar steamrollered across Britain, his first words to the crushed Britons after “Veni, vidi, vici” were “Fac ut Vivas!”
It seems that anyone who spends any time in a virtual world is now fair game for the GALs. Indeed, griefers are simply life members of the GALs who typically justify their activities as being a way to “show” people that their Second Life is hollow and that they shouldn’t take it so seriously. The irony that spending hours griefing in a virtual world just to tell people that they shouldn’t be wasting time in a virtual world is funny in of itself. As is the fact that the “Get a Life” whiners seem to spend lots of their time on-line convincing people to get off!
My advice to the “Get a Lifers?” — Get a Life!
mootykips
Dec 21st, 2008
heh. what an original and astute observation sire. i will be subscribing to yuour newslater.
Weasel Blackadder
Dec 21st, 2008
Ridiculing other minority interests is an strange way of defending a minority interest. There is nothing wrong with Second Life, Golf or Extreme Fighting and denigrating the latter two just puts you into the same camp as the people you are attacking.
I would also say that the kind of combat that you seem to consider homoerotic is the most technical that there is and a typical fan usually has enough background to at least understand what is going on. You clearly have no clue, and I can assure you that to anyone with at least working knowledge of full-contact martial arts you sound like a berk.
Orion Shamroy
Dec 21st, 2008
0_o
yiffbag
Dec 21st, 2008
While this article is totally communist gay, with images of smooth oiled up groins rubbing up against each other dancing in the author’s head, the maligned activity of Outdoor Sports does in fact do wonders for the health of the body and mind; the sunshine provides for natural vitamin D production, fresh air, a communion with the real – natural world, (and maybe with real people who dont take it up the ass) all are good reasons to leave Second Life and to Get A (real) Life.
Remember, people were doing all their living, and putting all their efforts there (the real world) prior to 2002. So its a pretty good place really.
damnedyankee
Dec 21st, 2008
“Remember, people were doing all their living, and putting all their efforts there (the real world) prior to 2002. So its a pretty good place really.”
Then what are you doing here on the computer worrying about the rest of us? Piss off.
And have you seen the state of the real world?
LOL
Dec 21st, 2008
Intresting articel, some valid points, however you did forget one word in your rant. the word “REAL” as in “GET A REAL LIFE” not a secondlife. That one word missing in this article can easily help a reader to overlook the meaning and reason why so many people say “GET A REAL LIFE” or “GET A LIFE” when refering to the population of Virtual worlds.
Ivo Meads
Dec 21st, 2008
The only thing this pointless op-ed proves is that you can make any behavior look silly if you can describe it in the right words. Congrats. The rest of us discovered this late in our high school years.
And, it misses the point entirely. You don’t “get a life” by being a football fan, playing golf, or watching cage fights. You “get a life” by being engaged with the world, by building relationships that endure, and by developing a base of social and material assets from which you can make a solid and positive contribution. In fact, people who “have lives” might watch football or play golf or have a favorite cage fighter…or they might play World of Warcraft or hang out in Second Life…but they’re also doing more than that. They’re active in their careers, contributing to their communities, good friends, and (if they have a partner/partners) good members of their families.
In fact, if you were to get up every day and go to the driving range, put in tons of time on your swing, play a round in the afternoon, then go to some menial job you’ve kept for a decade only to pay your greens fees, and then retire to your parents’ garage or a slovenly little loft apartment, where you then spend all night on golf forums…guess what? People will tell you you need to get a life, too.
But beyond that, the golf metaphor is pretty lost because, when you practice and play golf, you at least are getting some modicum of exercise, improving your coordination, and often out making the kinds of contacts that can aid you in your future. This is much less to the point with consuming professional sports, so if you were to try and have an argument, it should rightly be there. That said, many people thing that “superfans” of various teams are themselves somewhere between drunk idiots and weird nebbishes.
And, fundamentally, we bring it on ourselves. Why? Because we make a big deal out of what is essentially a 3D chat room. It’s not like the press has the Eye of Sauron and peers into SL omnisciently to cherrypick out sex stories. These things happen because people, generally those engaged with the game, go to the press with them.
I won’t call this a swing and a miss. I will happily call it a foul ball, though.
Sigmund Leominster
Dec 21st, 2008
I don’t recall saying anything about NOT taking exercise. I guess if you push the mouse thousands of times per day for weeks you’ll burn off some calories.
As to the health values of golf, Golf Digest published a report in August 2006 that suggest the majority of golfers are actually in poor shape. 76% drink alcohol, knocking back on average 6.8 drinks per week; 19% have never set foot in a gym 18% always use a cart if they can; and 54% consider themselves to be overweight whilst 66% of them actually are overweight with 13% being clinically obese. Food for thought – or in the golfers’ case, hot dogs for thought (29% buy a hot dog at the halfway house).
@weasel: “Ridiculing other minority interests is an strange way of defending a minority interest.” Actually, it’s a great way to defend a minority interest by (a) reframing the opposition’s original criticism and (b) applying satire – which is not quite ridicule but admittedly pretty damn close
Of course, the fun is taking ANY interest and using sarcasm, satire, and hyperbole to make it appear trivial and stupid. The key thing is that we all have a point of view that predisposes us to see the world in different ways, and ridiculing a point of view is just one way of highlighting the hypocrisy of making judgments about other people’s behaviors based on what “I” think is “right” or “proper.”
And yes, I am a cultural relativist so no-one need bring up that old chestnut.
General Drama
Dec 22nd, 2008
The people who take Second Life most seriously are those who think its their personal responsibility to save the rest of us from SL. “Griefing Saves Lives” and all that rot. Who made you senior asshole boss of SL?
Frankly, I consider the poor health effects of second life usage to be doing a public service. By causing all the emofags and drama queens in SL to have such terrible physical shape, their risk of cardiovascular related diseases, diabetes, and other health issues related to grossly morbid obesity is greatly increased, thus helping to ensure that as many of them as possible die as possible, and the rest become so ungainly and/or asocial that they will never reproduce.
Ergo, Second Life is Evolution In Action, by removing people from the gene pool who are of substandard genetic stock (ethnicity being entirely irrelevant here, epic fail knows no skin color). Being oh so srs bsns about harassing people to ‘get a real life’ therefore is anti-evolutionary and does a disservice to the human race. The best thing that griefers and others on the ‘its a game’ and ‘get a life’ mantras can do is to STFU and let these people go to hell in their own self selected manner of making real life safer for the rest of us.
Galatea Gynoid
Dec 22nd, 2008
@LOL: Actually, that highlights how badly the people who say it are missing the point. Just because someone chooses to spend their time playing SL is no more a reason to suspect they don’t have a real life than when someone chooses to spend their time watching football or playing golf. And yet there are a lot of people who will tell someone playing SL to “get a (real) life” when they wouldn’t think of saying the same thing to the other two. The fact that you think whether the word “real” is included or not makes a difference suggests you missed the point entirely.
Ivo Meads and others have their definition of what constitutes having “a life”. Note that Ivo’s definition doesn’t preclude playing SL, so telling SL users to “get a life” (whether you insert “real” or not) is just stupid based on that definition. There’s no reason to assume SL users don’t have “a real life”. It would be doubly stupid to suggest SL isn’t a part of it, any more than golf or football isn’t a part of a lot of healthy people’s lives. Part of a healthy life is finding time to do what you enjoy (regardless of whether others would enjoy it or not). Playing SL may very well be an important part of “getting a life” for them.
My own definition of having “a life” would preclude giving a rats ass what Ivo’s definition is, or anyone else’s. Everyone has a life, but not everyone chooses to live their own life their own way. When you live by someone else’s standard, that’s the closest thing there is to not having a life, because you don’t have a life of your own. Everyone is different, and has different goals. What is success for one person is abject failure for another. No one can judge whether you’re succeeding in life or not without knowing you intimately well.
Thus, no one tells anyone else to “get a life” unless they’re stupid. If they know the person they’re talking to well enough, they can offer much more specific advice on how they can achieve their goals. And if they don’t know the person well enough, they’d be stupid to think they can even tell whether that person has one or not, or how successfully they’re living it. Thus, saying “get a life” to someone else is a sure tip-off that the speaker just doesn’t have a clue.
Captain Netizen
Dec 22nd, 2008
One interesting point was made by Ivo above: ‘You “get a life” by being engaged with the world, by building relationships that endure.. (etc)’ Why assume that SL and these things are opposites? I have met some wonderful people in SL, and I think my friendships with them are as real as any relationship that you could have with a person you have not met in the flesh. Also, I have seen some fairly impressive creativity being displayed in SL, sometimes by people who would probably be marginalised or disenfranchised in RL.
Antubis
Dec 22nd, 2008
I’ve always loved the irony of the GAL people you see on the internet, especially the ones who comment on the articles on THIS site. If you think so little of virtual worlds and such…why on earth are you reading the Second Life Herald?
George Zimmer, Founder and CEO of Men's Warehouse
Dec 22nd, 2008
Hahahahaha, oh wow, Second Lifers circlejerking about what is really real life and what is not.
Would you like to know the difference between the two?
In one world, Linden Lab (or us,) could pull the plug at any moment and everything you’ve worked so hard for is instantly gone forever.
In the REAL world, you are a mom’s basement-dwelling neckbeard that wears a giant cum-stained carpet sewn vaguely into the shape of an animal and a bedsheet wrapped about you like a diaper while you sit on a virtual game wanking it to virtual people because you’re too unappealing for any other human being to get within 50 feet of your presence.
Meanwhile, we trolls enjoy quite active social lives and are contributing, productive members of society, and that pisses you off because we are what you could and will never be.
And now you know, AND KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE!
*** GI JOEEEEEEEE ***
Ivo Meads
Dec 22nd, 2008
@Captain Netizen: I have met a number of wonderful people through any number of means on the Internet, with SL being the least among them. I would certainly not call my friendships with them “real”, but I would definitely say that there is a tangible difference in quality between my friendships which are purely virtual and those that have benefited from even a little bit of “face time”. Relationships I’ve had that have a RL component tend to have a stronger level of mutual welfare to them, they tend to build better social capital on either side of the relationship, and they tend to be less verbal/symbolic.
I’m not the only person to experience this, though of course others’ mileage may vary. I don’t see SL as being that fundamentally different from email or IM, in that regard.
Then again, part of the complaining about “getting a life”, IMHO, has to do with a broad array of social miscues, of which include the op/ed in question.
We
Dec 22nd, 2008
Does conversing with customers at McDonalds while you take their order count as an “active social life” now, George? I had no idea!
George Zimmer, Founder and CEO of Men's Warehouse
Dec 23rd, 2008
Awwwww, “We”, did I hurt your feelings that bad that you came up with the same rehashed ad hominem attack over and over and over? ;_;
We
Dec 23rd, 2008
Not an attack if it’s true.
Pssssst George: “Ad Hominems” are what you call an attack in the middle of a debate, not just a general attack. Don’t worry, you’ll learn about that when you get to junior high.
But look at you! Using such big boy words! You’re so ahead!
Lemmy Kickewe
Dec 31st, 2008
“In the REAL world, you are a mom’s basement-dwelling neckbeard that wears a giant cum-stained carpet sewn vaguely into the shape of an animal and a bedsheet wrapped about you like a diaper while you sit on a virtual game wanking it to virtual people because you’re too unappealing for any other human being to get within 50 feet of your presence.”
This above quoted text is so detailed that I can only but assume that Boy George is speaking from personal experience.
In other news, Sigmund The E-monster is still a priggish twatwaffle!
Sigmund Leominster
Jan 15th, 2009
Sorry to take so long to respond to George and Lemmy, but Mom moved me out of the basement temporarily so she could clean up the cum-stained carpet and fumigate the room following the removal of the small mountain of rat-infested, maggot-ridden, rotten, stinking diapers.
But now the botty rash has healed and I’ve managed to escape from Real Life, I just have to salute George on that wonderful paragraph, which makes me feel OK with being a “priggish twatwaffle” if my article can stimulate such splendid prose. I wish I’d written that description!