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 Existentialist feels Second Life has no meaning, either. Dylan Macoo's avatar sulks against a virtual building in Second Life. And despairs. Macoo, a 24-year-old grad student at Penn State and part-time accountant, said that his participation in Second Life continues to grind on without hope, without meaning. "I feel so full of dread and angst," said Macoo. "I feel the weight of this burdensome virtual world collapsing on my cartoon-ish shoulders." Macoo used to try to meet people through Second Life, but grew tired of being rebuffed and quit, even though some considered him an intellectual bully. He repeatedly asked people he met what they read and then began a long speech about things other people had said about these works, ideas generally gleaned from professors and the back cover notes on his required reading. "So I didn't read Moby Dick or Notes from the Underground," said Geraldine Weeters, whose thin, mini-skirt-clad avatar seems a far-stretch from her actual appearance. "That doesn't make me a bad person. The sweat pants I shoplifted might, but not reading books doesn't." His lack of agility and control made first foray into Second Life as uncomfortable and the object of derision as his first day in junior high gym class. He was unable to move, levitate, or fly. "If they would have asked me to take a shower in front of thirty guys my virtual experience would have been complete," said Macoo. "It's not like the Matrix at all." Compounding the problem for Macoo, the lack of success in virtual worlds is the same lack of success that he has experienced in the real world. His inability to date consumes him now on two different worlds. "I asked one girl out and she told me she had a boyfriend," said Macoo. "Even though her profile clearly said single. Like I don't get that in real life." In his one pure act of authenticity, Macoo turns his avatar into the nearest wall and violently and repeatedly bangs his head into it. "Hell is other avatars" he types.
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