Laguna Beach to Air First in Virtual World
An early model of Virtual Laguna Beach built out in Second Life
Good news, metaverse fans: This week’s episode of MTV’s eye-opening reality show Laguna Beach will premiere not on television but in the “music” channel’s virtual world, Virtual Laguna Beach, built on the same technology as There.com. The show will go on at 9pm Eastern time this evening, to coincide with the VLB “Winter Formal” being held tonight. The episode then airs on TV on Wednesday at 10pm. (Second Life residents can also visit a model of Virtual Laguna Beach in their own virtual world, sans the TV show. More on that below.)
From the press release:
All the festivities begin at 9 p.m. ET/ 6 p.m. PT on Tuesday, Sept. 26 with the full showing of the Laguna Beach episode in-world. Members can watch it with their dates upon arriving at the dance, which takes place at a Spanish-style villa nestled by the sea. They can also view the episode at any number of other hot spots in-world, including Laguna Cinema, the VIP Club, the Laguna Arts Center, Kyndra’s House or Sanctuary. Once the dance begins, members can recreate all the drama they see on-air, watch as the king and queen are crowned, and rock to music provided by the popular Laguna Beach radio station on URGE, MTV Networks’ digital music service.
The dance and in-world premiere cap a week of festivities in which members shop for stylish new evening wear and nominate themselves and each other for the titles of winter formal king and queen. . . . The Winter Formal is just one of many cool experiences that will be ‘unlocked’ in-world as the show progresses.
It sounds like MTV has been adding some interesting socially interactive features in recent weeks. VLB fans themselves will apparently be competing to become the king and queen of the winter formal. Rumor has it that future episodes — perhaps all of the them — will be premiered in VLB before they hit the airwaves as well.
Meanwhile, if you don’t want a whole new avatar in a whole new virtual world, you can apparently visit an early version of VLB that was built in the Second Life by the Electric Sheep Company (sponsors of this blog), who helped build out the current project on There.com technology. Electric Sheep Giff Constable has blogged about an early model of VLB [<– SL link] that you can still visit in Second Life. No early viewing of any TV shows, but who knows, you just might get crowned Queen of the Winter Formal, if you’re not careful.
Feeds
What do you mean when you call Laguna Beach “eye opening”? Have you watched the show?
Hm, eye-opening might not be exactly the right term (I have the flu today that everyone else seems to have). I do find LB eye-opening in its way, though. Not the content; everyone knows teens snog. More in the production, the multiple cameras, the over-produced feel, and the way that “reality” can come to so closely resemble “fiction” when handled properly. There’s something very interesting in that, I think.
Umm.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii i dont get it i wanan go on vlb.commmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ama
yeah this thing rocksssssssssssssssssssssss
go laguana beach!!!!!!!!
That’s very interesting, wonder if there’s all the Drama the show has. ;)