Wednesday, June 3, 2009

A Second-Rate Second Life: II. Ugly to the Bone

Written 28 May, 2009

A Second-Rate Second Life

II: Ugly to the Bone

Second life is so resplendent with beautiful


and beautifully ugly content


that it’s difficult to understand why some people surround themselves with ugly ugliness like this.
 
I should point out that I’m not talking about mere tackiness in this post. I’m talking about fugliness—vomitous shapes and textures that crush the spirit and dampen the soul.

When we lived on Forsaken, a Polish couple lived in a broken-down house with a jar full of eyeballs in the refrigerator. Their property was ugly, but deliberately so, and not unpleasant to look at (well, except for the eyeballs). It was well-made ugliness.

Here’s a photo of WELL-MADE ugliness.


But there’s so much UGLY ugliness. There’s nothing well-made about this. It’s just butt-ugly, with no redeeming aesthetic value. I’m talking ugly, ugly to the bone.


Why, one wonders, would someone make and spend time in something so jarring to the eye? It’s not as if there weren’t warehouses full of nicely-made freebie houses, castles, and dungeons!

Could it be that the folks with stupid ugly builds just have no taste? None whatsoever? Maybe so. Maybe back on Earth they live in apartments with Day-Glo walls and virulently-colored chairs and are oblivious to passing drivers who drive into trees, ogling. Maybe they’re simply unaware of the ugliness with which they surround themselves.

And who know? Maybe they LIKE it!

Living in ugliness—and perhaps more importantly, living without aesthetics—well, it just makes for a second-rate Second Life.

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