The Drax Files Made in SL Episode 2: Giant Snail Races

Only in Second Life = gigantic homemade snails race and bounce and win every Saturday since October 2004 !!!

Some of you may want to ask me: “Draxtor, aren’t there more important things to talk about in the world right now than snails made of pixels running around in a non-existent make-believe website?”

To this hypothetical question I would reply with any or all of these four points:

1. some of these snails are not made of pixels but rather cardboard:

All aboard with cardboard !!!!

2. some other snails are not made of pixels but rather crocheted:

My name is Dorie and I have a crochet problem ….

3. Second Life is not a website: it is a GAME where you can get work-out advice from Richard Simmons among other things!

who is your favorite Simmons? Richard, Gene or Jean?

4. Second Life is not a GAME: it is a multi-user virtual environment. It doesn't have points or scores. But it has tanks with beer and foam.

All snark and pop-cultural irony aside: if you read this post BEFORE 12pm SLT on October 31st then please do join us for the premiere of episode #2 featuring a wonderful community of snail racers, cheerleaders, designers and fans 👇

As you can glean from the thumbnail (SPOILER ALERT?) there will be scenes in this mini documentary of a custom made Drax snail, complete with items that suggest a certain (duh …) affinity to a 981 page (excluding the footnotes) novel about entertainment addiction, tennis and assassins in wheelchairs.

may I interest you in a novel that will take 3 months of your life?

Another spoiler: a VERY talented SL resident helped me with the snail (coz I am useless in regards to building anything more elaborate than a sphere linked to a cube)

a SL creator atop a snail trying to figure out attachement points

Do your eyes spot an appreciation of my fave Linden incorporated into the snail design? Oh yes your eyes have not betrayed you 🤗

yep: this is how Strawberry looked back in her Sansar days …

Anyways, I had an absolute blast working on this for the past several months, participating as a spectator and talking with good and kind and talented people from all over the globe.

fave snails + RacerX (DA BOSS!) + editing the thingie

The Giant Snail Races - in my estimation - are a perfect example of what matters most to longtime residents in the virtual world of Second Life: free expression of creative ideas, the spatial realizing of these ideas, tight-knit community of interest to share these ideas with and all that without getting hung up about age, gender, race, geographical location.

only in SL can a documentarian with a dog interview a dog that shows up with her rabbit

And in case you are hung up about the “serious stuff vs non-exisiting worlds”: let me tell you that most people I met in SL over the last almost 20 years are perfectly capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. They deeply care about so-called “real world” issues but they are also able to embrace simple silly fun. With one prerequisite: the activity must involve actually being allowed to SHAPE the world this fun is happening in rather than simply CONSUMING it.

RIP Ebbe who understood so well what makes SL special!

Thank you to all my silly and serious SL friends and Lindens and mesh bless!

See you in-world !

Draxtor out …