After spending some time meeting its residents and exploring what they have made, Second Life remains an enigma to me. I entered into this strange and mysterious online world a few weeks ago with the hope of exposing some of the weird and creepy things that are rumored to happen there, and there was plenty of it. Because it presents itself as a platform where everything is user created (clothes, structures, worlds, player models, etc.), there was no shortage of creepy items and locations that could be explored. The only problem was that there was a lack of people to ask about the weirdness. For example, I discovered that there was a My Little Pony role-play area. Yes, an area where you can escape the monotony of everyday life and become a pony for a little while. I was so ready to meet some of the people that actually enjoyed this, but sadly I, SUPERTomTuckerMAN, was the only player there.

The search for the unusual and strange started to become more and more difficult. Finding worlds where weird and unusual things happen is incredibly easy, but they are often empty. Second Life has become a desolate wasteland of creativity. Everything I encountered clearly took a long time to make, yet everything is abandoned. While looking for more people I found a medieval role-play area. My plan here was to seek out whoever was in charge and interview them, and maybe even challenge him to a fight to the death or something (just to make a scene). Upon teleporting to the world, I noticed a board with about ten names and pictures of people. These were the people in charge of the server, and it only showed that one was online. This one guy was literally the door man, and he was standing right next to the entrance. As an investigative reporter, I was dressed in my dashing suit and tie. This was apparently an issue, as the guy pointed me in the direction of free medieval clothes. Being a novice to Second Life, clicking “wear” only put on a women’s dress. Nothing else worked so I just had to explain to the guy at the door that I wanted to role-play as a woman, to which he responded by saying “sick dude” (talk about breaking out of your role). This place also proved to be abandoned, as a short trip into town showed a building full of pictures of previous important players, almost like a hall of fame of sorts. Discouraged about my lack of findings, I was beginning to face the harsh reality that maybe even the weird and strange in Second Life is beginning to become outdated.

After spending some time Second Life, I can confidently speak on what I have learned about this weird place. There are basically two types of players, those who socialize and explore and those who create content and role-play. I interacted with both, and neither had very much to say. Those who role-play scolded me for asking why they play the game, as play is basically the worst word on planet Earth to them. There aren’t many of these people left, so the only real evidence of their existence is what they have created and left behind for people to explore. Even the social part of the game confused me a little bit, as I stood in a crowd for a while and talked to different people. Messages would come very slowly, minutes apart, and conversation remained extremely shallow. It’s almost as if these people just click “dance” and stare at their screen. The lack of depth these people showed really was a bit eerie, as often times I felt as if I was talking to an NPC.

Second Life is a platform where the user has complete control of everything in game. The inhabitants have created countless worlds, items, and clothing items, but all of it is just left there now. It has become a wasteland where not even those who created it are still around. From concerts to actual business meetings, weird perverts to pony role-play, I will never make sense of this game. As that giant blue guy smoking a cigar put it, “truth is this game will never make sense. It’s something to do when I’m bored, I like to explore stuff, see all the awesome things people come up with.” SUPERTomTuckerMAN, investigative reporter, signing off for one last time.