LifeSwitch

June 15, 2004 10:41 PM

Nice Flash, weird experience. These guys say they will help you get a new life on another continent, in a new city. Take the ”psychometric test”, but somehow you always end up in the Bolivian slum. Of course, it's not what it appears to be. Is it good or bad advertising? It's called LifeSwitch.
posted by Termite (16 comments total)

I'm not entirely sure what that's all about, but that guy is pretty darn creepy.
posted by majcher at 11:12 PM on June 15, 2004

They say they will help you get "a life of leisure in the sun." Gotta be a sham.
posted by scarabic at 11:29 PM on June 15, 2004

It is nice Flash though.
posted by scarabic at 11:29 PM on June 15, 2004

"We hope that it's given you a glimpse of the everyday struggles faced by people around the world."

Ummmmm... no.
posted by falconred at 11:41 PM on June 15, 2004

i don't get it.
posted by cohappy at 12:14 AM on June 16, 2004

Vanilla Sky, anyone?
posted by Kwantsar at 12:34 AM on June 16, 2004

Ungh, bad UI design. At one point in the location selection, there's a "you have chosen blahblahblah" page, with a "confirm" button. There is however no way to go back, cancel, not confirm etc.
posted by fvw at 12:37 AM on June 16, 2004

LOL Kwantsar!
posted by scarabic at 1:15 AM on June 16, 2004

Okay, So they advertise a change in lifestyle in order to get people to move to the countries they are working in?

I don't really get it, maybe they figure that the people will bring their own little part of first world living to their new life, be motivated to make their new life compatible with the needless luxury they have been accostumed to, as if being interesting and exciting wasn't enough. Actually, it's not such a bad idea...

Well, it's kinda creepy, but burma actually sounds kind of cool. Hmm...
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 1:44 AM on June 16, 2004

They want you to donate money was the impression I got..
posted by kenaman at 3:34 AM on June 16, 2004

Mountain terrain - Relaxed Life = Bolivia.
Seaside area - Sportive life = Bolivia.




"From now on the process couldn't be more simple. Follow the instructions on screen and our system will analyze your application against a database of hundreds of dream reassignments of new beginnings."
posted by Keyser Soze at 3:55 AM on June 16, 2004

Is that Will Farrels younger brother?
posted by Dr_Octavius at 6:07 AM on June 16, 2004

Just in case you're wondering where the whole thing leads if you follow it all the way through, you'll discover that LifeSwitch is a "front" for a Christian charity group that provides aid to what they call "the indigenous populations" of rural Bolivia (as opposed to the nasty, European-descended urban minority; I couldn't find a way to link in that deep, sorry). Anyway, the screen "explodes" and fractures, then fills with depressing facts about Bolivia's politics and economic climate. There's a form right after that for sending donations.

it does take an awfully long time to get to the point of the site and since I never really believed I was registering for "the life of my dreams," I only followed because I was killing ten minutes before a meeting...
posted by JollyWanker at 6:47 AM on June 16, 2004

I thought that for a group looking for donations it was an engaging way to prompt one to think about how your live compares with otheres. While we think perhaps our life is a drag and we'd like to trade it for another, in reality most of us are doing 'OK'. There was also the interesting juxtaposition of the way we perceive these places, and to a certain extent, the way these places could be, and the grim reality of the places they are.

Seems to me, that if you're going to be hawking for money for your cause, it's better to do it by getting people thinking than to just lay the guilt on them.

Although, that confirm button with no back button bugged me too. "No wait, I wanted a non-english speaking place." Oh well, maybe I was meant to be trapped into my 3rd world life by then. :)
posted by adamt at 7:35 AM on June 16, 2004

Just send your life to the first 3 people on the list, and in just 10 days, you'll have as many as 5,280 lives in the mail plus valuable spam. Ms. Lee-Anne Manfrengensen of Middlevale, Brazil, a professional pilot, didn't send her life to the recipient list and 2 days later, she found that her pet viper had run away. She sent it last week and now lives in a new houseboat in an exclusive Dallas suburb.
posted by Stoatfarm at 7:37 AM on June 16, 2004

thank you, adamt.
the rest of you: heartless and snarky.
posted by zerolucid at 10:29 PM on June 17, 2004