Jenny Diski on Second Life

Novelist Jenny Diski tries out Second Life:

I suppose it was my idealist tendencies which caused my difficulty with Second Life. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but was, that this alternative world has a material life and economy uncannily similar to the one we’re already stuck with. If you are looking for another way of being, you’ll be deeply disappointed. But you probably won’t be because you will understand that it couldn’t be otherwise. I was beguiled by the idea of a world apart from the real world which people keep telling me I have to come to terms with. It turns out that there is no second life on Second Life, only more of the same old first and only one, but cartoon-shaped.

Link: LRB | Jenny Diski : Jowls are available.

(via Maud Newton)