I’ll be honest, I don’t really watch 2 Broke Girls on the television, I’ve watched the odd episode and it seems to be on the telly a lot during the evenings in the UK, along with the Big Bang Theory. I’ve watched far more episodes of the Big Bang Theory.
However news reaches me via a post over at SLUniverse by Brenda Connolly (AKA Connolly) that a very recent episode of the show included references to Second Life. I mean really recent, like this week! This is backed up by an update on the wikipedia page : Second Life in popular culture which also references the episode. Actually that page is missing references from The Big Bang Theory.
Anyway, there were apparently a few references in the show. One exchange related to a character called Han (not solo) who missed an arranged visit to one of the characters because his Second Life wife was having a baby. The character complained that he had had fake sex nine months ago and not told anybody …. I guess you had to be there!
According to the SLU thread there was a further reference regarding the traditional don’t you need a first life before you have a second, ho ho ho. Anyway, this does exemplify that Second Life is still a popular and relevant enough name to be made fun of. There’s no such thing as bad publicity …. usually.
However looking at the wikipedia page also gives me a chance to engage in a little Kevin Baconesque style referencing. Let’s call this, the Philip Rosedale game.
Philip Rosedale obviously created Second Life. One of the references on screen to Second Life came in the movie Hot Tub Time Machine. One of the stars of Hot Tub Time Machine was John Cusack, who also starred in the movie High Fidelity, which is also the name of a forthcoming virtual world venture, created by …. Philip Rosedale!
Oh come on, that was impressive! This post has way too many exclamation marks. I actually watched Hot Tub Time Machine for the first time not that many months ago and was surprised by the Second Life reference, the guy had been imprisoned in Second Life for crimes within Second Life.
Obviously virtual worlds such as Second Life or High Fidelity will have really made it when they are making references to popular culture themselves and it’s not a matter of intellectual property theft arguments, one day, in a future that may or may not be far far away hey.