Laguna Beach Avatars

Ewww....

As if it weren't bad enough that I am completely engrossed in the lives of perfect, blonde, tan, wealthy, vapid, BMW driving teenagers on the other side of the country, now I can also pretend to be them via online Avatars... Sweet! In case you couldn't pick up on my sarcasm, I am so incredibly appalled by MTV's newest and completely unshocking gimmick that I just lost my appetitie for lunch.

Sure we've all become accustomed to the fact that people can spring board into at least short lived super stardom by playing themselves in primetime TV's latest gag fest, but now they can also be played by teenagers and creepy 40 year old men all over the world.

According to the New York Times, "This week, MTV will introduce Virtual Laguna Beach, an online service in which fans of the program can immerse themselves — or at least can immerse digitized, three-dimensional characters, called avatars, that they control — in virtual versions of the show’s familiar seaside hangouts." Because I didn't feel bad enough about the fact that I will never be as wealthy, thin, or popular as the show's 16-year-old stars, now MTV has created even less life-like virtual versions for young women to pattern themselves off of. Now not only will Kristin Cavallari sound like a spoiled, scheming, vapid brat, but she can do it in acronyms.

The Times says that this is the first of three online worlds that MTV will launch this year. The next one is called VMTV, and "is a music destination where visitors can club-hop among hip neighborhoods, buy music, watch videos, sing karaoke or even start their own bands." My question about this is, can't you do all of those things in real life?

Ah, and what is in this for MTV, other than bringing back some of the stray teens that they have lost in recent years to MySpace and YouTube?
"One of the appeals of virtual worlds for MTV is the possibility that advertising can spill over into the real one. Visitors might buy a digital outfit for parties using currency they earned watching an infomercial or checking out a new product for an MTV advertiser. Then, they might decide that they would like to buy the same outfit for their offline selves, and, with a few clicks of the mouse and some real dollars, have one shipped to their home. In trial form, Virtual Laguna Beach has advertising relationships with brands including Cingular, Pepsi-Cola, Secret and another Viacom company, Paramount."

The young people of America, myself not withstanding, seem to be on the right track, but not quite there yet. Yes, we have figured out that we like interactive media better than one-way communication that just plays in front of us. If we can just get to the next step, where we figure out that we also want to do something with that media, instead of just pretend to live our lives, then we might be on to something. Unfortunately, we are a generation who has grown up with the instant media gratification of a polaroid camera, from social networking sites to viral video, I cannot argue with MTV Networks' Executive President Judy McGrath when she says, "MTV speaks uniquely to a group of people who are endlessly fascinated with watching themselves." Hopefully we start seeing ourselves doing something more productive with our time soon.