{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "We took a tour of the abandoned college campuses of Second Life", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/126658161098/", "html": "<a href=\"http://fusion.net/story/181901/we-took-a-tour-of-the-abandoned-college-campuses-of-second-life/\">We took a tour of the abandoned college campuses of Second Life</a>\n<p><a href=\"http://raggedjackscarlet.tumblr.com/post/126657851528/we-took-a-tour-of-the-abandoned-college-campuses\" class=\"tumblr_blog\" target=\"_blank\">raggedjackscarlet</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>Oh man.</p><p>Y\u2019know\u2026 there\u2019s something we get wrong about visions of the grimdark cyberpunk future: we think it\u2019ll all be calculatedly fashionable\u2013 like the <i>derelicte </i>couture of Shadowrun and The Matrix, like the perfectly sculpted criminal rogue personalities of half of Hollywood hackers (the other half being Sheldon Cooper). And we think it\u2019ll be all <i>Sturm und Drang </i>romantic, a gothic neon cityscape blanketed by a never-ending storm, a world historical event every time a computer is booted up. <br/></p><p>But <i>this,</i> this right here is a record of some authentic <i>cyberspace ruins, a virtual abandoned city.</i> and the structures themselves are plain, silly, and inoffensive.<i> This is normcore cyberpunk. </i>This is what happens when futuristic web and VR technologies collide with human mediocrity, and human quirkiness as well.</p><p>The future is here, and it\u2019s remarkably silly. <br/></p></blockquote>"}