Paying Respects to Steve Jobs at Second Life's Church of the Mac - Please Share Other Jobs & Apple Tributes in Comments

There's a Church of the Mac in Second Life, which has existed in-world for over 5 years. It now resides in the ancient sim of Blumfield (direct teleport here), the creation of Molly Montale, partly inspired by a website of the same name. It has a Mac as a shrine, and photos of St. Steve on the walls. All this might have seemed like wry ironic commentary only 24 hours ago, but now, it's taken on a more profound meaning. When I visited to pay my respects, Molly kneeled on a pillow before the shrine of Mac, and instead of turning the pages of a Bible, she ministered with an iPad. And we stood there awhile and talked about Steve Job's tragic and deeply sad passing. If you want to share those memories with others, you could come and visit yourself: Direct teleport to the Church of the Mac at this link.

This isn't the only Jobs and Apple tribute in Second Life, by the way. Molly mentioned that someone had created a recreation of the Palo Alto garage where Jobs and Wozniak started Apple. And several years ago, another SLer built a pretty impressive recreation of an Apple store (see video after the break.) If you know of others that still exist in SL, please share descriptions and SLurls in Comments.

Comments

[Molly Montale]

Our RL neighborhood is near a large stone quarry. In the mid-twentieth century our neighborhood was full of Italian stone cutters. Many families had religious shrines in their yards. About 20 years ago I saw that someone had replaced the statue of Mary in a shrine in their yard with a Mac Classic. I always regretted not get a photo of it. Second Life allowed me to recreate it. I put a memorial sign to Steve Jobs outside the Mac church last evening. I will probably make something more permanent for inside. I've been pretty broken up about Steve's death. As you say, this has taken on a more profound meaning now.

[Ignatius Ononmatopoeia]

The best tribute to Steve Jobs, and all that followed that "1984" moment, is to keep on using the Mac OS--and even that other pretty-darn-good GUI from those guys in Redmond :P --to change the world for the better.

Wozniak, Jobs, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and the students who cobbled together Google while at Stanford, changed our world. They put the tools into our hands.

Even in my moments of doubt about what 24/7 connectivity is doing to us, I still think the benefits prevail.

[Anya Ohmai]

I wrote a blog post in tribute to this wonderful man and soul and I thought this was a lovely thing to do as a contribution from our world. Great place <3

[Molly Montale]

Marianne pointed out last night that the church held the #1 spot on the Linden destination guide. No doubt as a result of Hamlet mentioning it. I was stunned to go and see people all around the building last night. It shows how much people loved Steve Jobs and how Apple and Steve will always be linked in peoples' minds.
http://secondlife.com/destination/the-church-of-the-mac

[Seymore Steamweaver]

There's a pretty funny typo in the Think Different" sign at the entrance to the church "The round HEADS in the square holes" definitely should be "round PEGS" not heads.

Also while I visited there was some nucklehead spreading false information about Jobs, "Inventor of the Mouse" Ugh. I love, respect and have looked up to this man immensely, but he's no more the inventor of the mouse than Edison was the inventor of electricity.

[Molly Montale]

Seymore, yeah, I'm aware of the difference. I used Jack Kerouac's original quote for the sign. :)

[Rusalka Writer]

So many things I've created in my life I've made on an Apple or a Mac. My first computer was an Apple II+, and I've now lost track of how many Apple products I've owned. I am a published novelist, and all my books— good, bad, and ugly— have been typed into Apples. Apple itself made my full-time writing possible because I bought the stock way back when, and bought more when the iPod came out.

Steve Jobs was to me a great futurist. A great voice in science fiction, showing us what our future would be, then reaching out and delivering it today. A magician whose presence on stage meant wonder was not far behind.

He deserved to live long enough to forget how to use all his products.

[Seymore Steamweaver]

Kerouac didn't write The Crazy One's. Where in the world are people getting that idea?

[Seymore Steamweaver]

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac#Misattributed

[Catnap]

This is probably the first time Blumfield sim's had any traffic since 2005.

The Mac church is an interesting little curio. The spot itself and sim its in are in themselves a sort of monument to an idyllic concept for SL as a more resident and less merchant driven space that never came to be.

I was this year among one of the lucky few to grab up a rare spot there - a few come and go now and then but much of the seemingly abandoned land is held by speculators who don't sell, rent, or use their spots.