Though separated from what they produce, people nevertheless produce every detail of their world with ever-increasing power. They thus also find themselves increasingly separated from that world. The closer their life comes to being their own creation, the more they are excluded from that life.
A common fad sweeping the nation, Second Life, a video game that ranks with social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter seems to be an appropriate spectacle for someone producing a world and perfecting it to the point of becoming a recluse.Second Life is used by young adults as well as adults who wish to create some sort of "fantasy world" where they can meet new people, talk with them through self-made avatars that may or may not look like the user, most of the time in homes they build online but could never afford in real life. The significance of this spectacle in terms of the aphorism mentioned above is that some people work so hard to create these worlds and accumulate followers and friends, but most of the time they are cooped up in a dark basement with only a computer screen acting as a light source.
Another good example would be games such as world of warcraft where people spend 8-12 hours a day collecting imaginary loot for the purpose of collecting and perfecting more imaginary loot.
ReplyDeletei only bring this up because i know you have a level 97 forest troll mage or something like that and only answer to the name Narnia of Stormwind outside of school.