Indie pop start Father John Misty, which is the stage name for Josh Tillman, doesn't just write scabrous songs about virtual reality. As it turns out, he used to post pics from Second Life on Instagram as if they were actually happening to him (as above), which totally confused his fans. In other words, a man named Josh Tillman with a second life as Father John Misty posted about a second second life in Second Life.
And as you'd expect from Father Misty, he did all this with some thoughtful intent, and commentary on the Internet's virtualization of experience:
Indeed, while the art of Father John Misty is endless pored over by ever-more intellectual bores, Josh Tillman spends his off days uploading stock photos of men taking selfies to Instagram. “Stock photos are so stupid,” he states matter-of-factly from his L.A. home. “When you look at a stock photo, nothing in that photo is incidental – every choice that you see in the photo is deliberate and is intended to resonate in some way with injunctions within the super ego... I started finding Second Life photos that represented what I was actually doing. So if I was in London, I’d find a SecondLife photo of London. And then my friends who live there would be like, ‘oh, I saw that you’re in London!’” - he peels off in fits of giggles - “So that was good!”
If you're looking for Father Misty's Second Life, however, no luck, as he nuked his account. The echoes of that experience, however, live on in Google's eternal cache where they'll likely live forever. (A topic also suitable for another Father John Misty song.)
Hat tip: Ciaran Laval.
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