Jon Stewart, America's longtime voice of reason, is leaving The Daily Show to pursue a second life, so let's remember that time back in 2008 when Jon Stewart talked about Second Life on The Daily Show:
Oh, Glitteractica Cookie, he hardly knew ye. And if you're wondering why The Daily Show segment on Second Life does not actually depict Second Life, there's probably a very good reason for that. (Which come to think of it, is also probably why the segment is more snarky-snarky, than smart-snarky.) Here's the inside story:
As I recall, producers with the show did contact Linden Lab, asking the company to create and shoot the Second Life machinima featuring Rob Riggle as the dolphin with breasts:
Linden Lab likely felt the segment would make Second Life seem silly and geeky (they were correct in that belief), and at that point, Linden Lab was hellbent on convincing major companies it was not a game but a 3D content creation platform and also the 3D web (they turned out to be way off in that assumption). At the same time, the Daily Show producers weren't very knowledgeable about Second Life, and didn't realize they could have just hired 3rd party Second Life developers to shoot the machinima, and that they would have gotten much better results. So they went and created the pseudo-Second Life in some 3D animation software. (Maya, I believe.)
So all in all, not one of the show's better segments. Such a missed opportunity, because instead of doing all that, Stewart could have created far more punchy comedy by pointing out that Second Life and virtual worlds in general actually had very few users relative to the importance Congress was giving it in this 2008 hearing. (Something that's still the case, 7 years later.)
Anyway, all that to one side, it's still a pretty funny clip, and a bittersweet way to watch the great funny man go. And with dolphin boobs, can you really go wrong?
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UPDATE. 3:42pm: Now this is smart-snarky:
Brian Williams?! "@slhamlet: Jon Stewart Gave Second Life the Daily Show Treatment (W/o Actually Using Second Life) http://t.co/I5iw35pqiV"
— Mark Hachman (@markhachman) February 11, 2015
I'll miss Jon Stewart!
Posted by: EI Consulting | Wednesday, February 11, 2015 at 05:24 AM