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January 21, 2007

Forget Second Life. Get a First Life.

Michael Arrington

37 comments »

Darren Barefoot voices his dismay over all the Second Life hype by creating a very, very funny parody site called “Get a First Life.”

The site describes itself as a “3D analog world” and suggests you “access your closet to build your First Life look.” My favorite line is “Fornicate using your actual genitals.” Hilarious.

No comment from Second Life at this point.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 21st, 2007 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. soeren onez

    January 21st, 2007 at 5:27 pm

    The best is “TV Hours Watched: 82,124,102,305″ :) That’s real life!

  2. TR

    January 21st, 2007 at 6:19 pm

    On the same note - a web 2.0 parody site - VojoSalsa

  3. Next: TechCrunch Parody Sites

    January 21st, 2007 at 6:21 pm

    Mr. Barefoot has probably started a business trend — for-profit parody sites.

    As you know, parody is not copyright infringement, and is allowed under the “fair use” doctrine, per the 1994 U. S. Supreme Court decision, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music. Here is the Wikipedia article on parody and its legal implications: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody

    I see TechCrunch parody sites coming, and if I were Mike, I would do a preemptive and parody myself, thereby making some extra money on the side.

  4. yongfook

    January 21st, 2007 at 6:21 pm

    on a similarly same note - http://www.bubbleprice.com (online tongue-in-cheek venture capital valuations for your latest web service…)

  5. Martin

    January 21st, 2007 at 6:21 pm

    Hear, Hear!!! Kudos Darren - “Go Outside - Membership is Free” I love it.

    When I was writing at The Blog Herald I wrote this last last August.

    A bit from my piece…
    “This is insane, it’s so surreal and all so sad. Get outside and get a life. I Am Astounded! People are taking this seriously. Really!”

  6. Rex Dixon

    January 21st, 2007 at 6:29 pm

    Love it!!!! So maybe second life is going to be yesterdays news soon? It wouldn’t be soon enough! ;) Great job Darren!

    Rex

  7. Mr Business Golf

    January 21st, 2007 at 6:33 pm

    Thank goodness someone is exposing the absurdity of Second Life…

  8. Robert Dewey

    January 21st, 2007 at 7:08 pm

    I smell a C&D, hopefully people can take a joke :)

  9. kai

    January 21st, 2007 at 7:43 pm

    Hilarious in the sense that it’s painfully, tragically unfunny. This isn’t parody, it’s just shit.

  10. hunter

    January 21st, 2007 at 8:32 pm

    @Robert Dewey

    No C&D ;-)

    http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/.....-labs.html

  11. Anson

    January 21st, 2007 at 9:06 pm

    “very, very funny”…”hilarious”

    Ahhh, it’s a somewhat witty 1-pager with a cafepress store and google ads. More like a blog/digg-bait money grab really.

  12. permanent hater

    January 21st, 2007 at 10:09 pm

    Some companies spent months building a product praying to be featured on TechCrunch one day.. and then there are those who build a site in less than a day and get there.

  13. Ouriel Ohayon

    January 21st, 2007 at 11:00 pm

    Have you noticed what is displayed if you mouse over the picture “Join Second Life for Free” ? screenshot here

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/ouriel/365618358/

  14. Andrew Michael

    January 22nd, 2007 at 1:28 am

    Love it : )

  15. LaDawn

    January 22nd, 2007 at 4:56 am

    Server lag doesn’t exist in a 3d analog world? You should have seen me at 5:30 am this morning!

  16. Doom

    January 22nd, 2007 at 6:01 am

    That is quite excellent.

    I’m getting quite anxious with all the hype about SL that I was beginning to think I’d need to get one.

    Phew.

    You have made me see sense.

    doom
    x

  17. Isadora Jervil

    January 22nd, 2007 at 7:44 am

    Loved the parody - surely SL is a parody in its own right…..

    If only, in my First Life, it was that easy to sprout a pair of wings and fly, dance like I have a sense of rythym, have a plush apartment with a view of the sea from the balcony or be healty, slim, pretty and have men (or/and sometimes women) tell me so.

    Please let me have my escapism…… it helps me deal with bad weather, pollution, poverty and tedious days of labour in the service industries.

    Isa

  18. Ronald Lewis

    January 22nd, 2007 at 8:37 am

    Permanent Hater,

    Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

  19. rodez

    January 22nd, 2007 at 8:51 am

    I think Monsieur Billaut from France will be taking the advice of this site and sticking to his first life after visiting the Socialist Party comity in the Second one. Right wing stomping in the virtual world

  20. Stuart

    January 22nd, 2007 at 10:28 am

    I actually tried second life, for about 10 minutes before I deleted the account, it was appalling, and to get money, you need to buy it with real money. A scam or what

  21. ming666

    January 22nd, 2007 at 10:56 am

    outstanding sports fans! now its time to embarrass the jackass companies like IBM & Vodafone who are opening up second life sites. vodafone needs to get back to the knitting of customer retention.

  22. keith

    January 22nd, 2007 at 11:15 am

    There’s an update over at BoingBoing about an email the creator received this morning from Linden Labs:

    “This is an interesting bit of follow-up news that I thought might interest you guys. I don’t know if it’s common for Linden to do this, but I thought it was classy.

    Today I awoke from my nap to a letter (via the comments on the announcement) from Linden Labs, the creators of Second Life. ‘Ah, well’, I though, ‘here come the lawyers’. But no. To their enormous credit, they sent me what I can only describe as a ‘proceed and permitted’ (instead of ‘cease and desist’) letter. Here’s an excerpt:

    “We do not believe that reasonable people would argue as to whether the website located at http://www.getafirstlife.com/ constitutes parody – it clearly is. Linden Lab is well known among its customers and in the general business community as a company with enlightened and well-informed views regarding intellectual property rights, including the fair use doctrine, open source licensing, and other principles that support creativity and self-expression. We know parody when we see it.”

    Hilarious. “

  23. Ronald Lewis

    January 22nd, 2007 at 11:50 am

    Keith,

    Hilarious indeed. It’s a rather surprising response.

  24. John

    January 22nd, 2007 at 12:16 pm

    Maybe they just sense the absurdity that in FirstLife(tm) you now need to send a letter to someone to tell them you’re *not* going to be suing them.

  25. Roger Moorgate

    January 22nd, 2007 at 6:49 pm

    Second life is an experimental “metaverse” based on an interesting concept in the book Snow Crash. Polemics aside, I for one am interested in observing how this virtual world develops.

    Regards,
    Roger Moorgate, PhD
    Admin, The Reproductive Cloning Network
    http://www.reproductivecloning.net

  26. Tarry Singh

    January 23rd, 2007 at 12:50 am

    Excellent and yet a very important message. We’re turning into text and graphics oxymorons. Younger people don’t even look at each other when they’re sitting next to each other, they’d send a sms or im.

    And that applies to sexuality as well, in Holland more folks are getting off on the web than really getting to feel anyone. Many of the younger guys have never held a girl’s hand. All that is gone. These are damaging to a society. Extremely damaging. These people grow up to become frustrated and confused adults.

    It is so pathetic, don’t you think?

  27. Banker

    January 23rd, 2007 at 12:58 am

    You may well be getting a few more hits here as you have been linked to by Auntie Beeb!

  28. Christoph Richter

    January 23rd, 2007 at 1:12 am

    There is an Answer from Linden Labs in the Comments of the blog entry of the creator of the page. they say basically, its okay, and will not sue him for anything on this page…

  29. Timothy Daniels

    January 23rd, 2007 at 3:11 am

    I love the website - it’s a witty reminder to total SL addicts that there’s more to life than sitting in front of a screen 24/7.

    Mr Business Golf: “Thank goodness someone is exposing the absurdity of Second Life…”

    It’s absurd if you become so addicted to SL that it *becomes* your life. But if you maintain a healthy balance with “real life”, I don’t see that there’s a problem. I enjoy using SL myself… but I also go outside, regularly walk and cycle in our local woods, meet friends down the pub, have dancing lessons, play the guitar in a local group, etc etc.

  30. Jack Moxley

    January 23rd, 2007 at 3:43 am

    Totally the wrong finger.

  31. Adriana

    January 23rd, 2007 at 10:52 am

    This is the best and funniest parody I’ve seen in a very long time.

  32. Opa

    February 28th, 2007 at 9:03 pm

    You guys are so funny :o) Please write more about this stuff !

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