Ain't Free (2019)

• 78%
• 2019
• Georgie Roxby Smith

The 'free' world of online gaming is a farce willingly 'bought into' by gamers and social networking users, particularly virtual worlds. After 15 years online, one might imagine Second Life as a digital ghost town, but it remains a semi-popular virtual world with over 800,000 active users spending an estimated 336 million hours inworld in 2018 alone – perusing the almost $5 million virtual goods for sale on their marketplace. Ain't Free explores the carnival of empty capitalism and the desire to present the best self, best house, best imagined life through relentless purchasing and upgrading of skins, hair, bodies, apparel and homes. In the entrapment of the extended ego of the offline self - presented to an increasingly reducing online audience - the isolation of the never-ending loop of consumerism seems inescapable.