Jon Rafman is literally Kool-Aid Man in Second Life. Using the character as a “contemporary representation of the 19th century explorer,”1 from 2008–2011 he tread uncharted territory for the sake of expanding worldviews, also providing tour guides for others. Rafman’s quest of discovery in Second Life questions the moral integrity of modern experience, asking the cost of integrating ourselves in digital environments. Documenting fantasies from Second Life’s underworld, Rafman provides commentary on our identity as citizens of both physical and digital places. Through which, we must be “consumed entirely,” in order to engage with our virtual selves. Invoking both “dread and desire”, any sense of self through digital means requires the process of “losing oneself in cyberspace.” 2 Second Life is a prime demonstration of net-art, as its content is user-generated, functioning as online folk-art. Rafman embraces what’s “created without the intention of it being called art.”3 demonstrating the genre’s value by recontextualizing it for outsiders. A prescient mindset, exemplified by today’s ‘meme- ification’ of everything, ‘context fragmentation,’ and default state of ‘post-irony,’ a type of tongue-in-cheek humor that’s completely earnest yet entirely sarcastic. Now more than ever, ‘net-artists’ such as Rafman provide perspective on what it means to engage with digital culture, showing us that both physical and virtual conceptions of ourselves hold the same importance.

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