Spotted: Green Apple Cleaners in Gossip Girl Second Life (Video)

Spotted: Green Apple Cleaners in Gossip Girl Second Life (Video)
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When Reitz Lange, the producers of the Gossip Girl "machinima" videos needed to create a dry cleaners set in Second Life, I suggested that they green the virtual store. The television show and its sister Second Life sim are fantasy worlds yet are based on Manhattan's physically extant Upper East Side. Naturally, the Green Apple Cleaners store located there instantly sprang to mind -- read about the issues here: CO2 v. Organic Cleaners Battle of the Green Claims. You can see the final result in the clip from the Gossip Girl "machinisode" video over on EcoWonk.

It's up to each of us to seize every available opportunity to redesign our human-made systems which aren't capable of re-purposing molecules, materials and waste into ecosystem cycles. Second Life is a veritable Etch-A-Sketch for such a re-imagining and for conducting it to a general population. I know, I know: Gossip Girl is just a silly diversion of a show all be it with some well-meaning Hollywood types knocking about. And it's a teenibopper show no less.

However, both businesses and do-gooders have always both looked to get their messages across. To let others know what they stand for. In the case of the former it's what their brand, product or service has to offer. The latter, what they believe in and how it will benefit a common cause. What's new for both sides is the acknowledgment that the mission at hand is and has always been identical: acting effectively, accomplishing goals and seeing results. Hence the triple bottom line.

In these times it's becoming clear that with this integration of business with values, and of values with business, comes the use of marketing tools to reach hearts and minds. The topline dangers are respectively greenwashing / goodwashing on one hand, and the redirecting of funds from core practice as well as potential conflicts of interest on the other. Recently commenters on DIGG criticized the marketing of Earth Hour suggesting that the financial and natural resources spent on the campaign might be better used or conserved. The question that emerges is "What price knowledge?" Better yet, "What price understanding?" Finally perhaps "What price wisdom?"

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