A Second Life DJ has prepared forty-seven separate two-hour tribute sets after the humiliation of being only the third person to post a heartfelt message following the death of Dolly Parton.
DJ Lexi Voltage said the incident had exposed serious weaknesses in her ability to grieve competitively. “By the time I’d written ‘There are no words’, two other DJs had already found some,” she explained. “One of them had a poster. I’m not letting that happen again.”
Lexi has since assembled an extensive library of emergency playlists, promotional graphics and deeply personal memories, allowing her to respond to a celebrity death with what she describes as “authentic emotion and minimal turnaround”. At the centre of the operation is an Excel workbook titled LEGENDS — DO NOT SORT WITHOUT EXPANDING SELECTION.
Each artist has a dedicated row containing age, musical genre, two hours of suitable tracks and a moving explanation of how their work helped Lexi through a difficult period she will identify closer to the time. “There’s a column for ‘Mum used to play this on Sundays’,” said friend Mitzi. “Another for ‘Got me through my divorce’. She hasn’t been divorced, but she says she doesn’t want to limit the material.”
The spreadsheet also contains prewritten messages for local chat, including “This next one has always destroyed me”, “Most people only know the hits” and “I honestly don’t know how I’m going to get through this set”. Each is assigned a timestamp so that spontaneous emotion can be delivered at regular intervals. “She’s got ‘Sorry guys, need a moment’ scheduled for forty-three minutes in,” Mitzi added. “That’s also when she usually goes for a wee.”
Lexi says the Dolly incident was merely the latest in a series of missed opportunities stretching back years. “I missed Whitney Houston because I was at a christening,” she recalled. “By the time I got home, everyone had done ‘I Will Always Love You’ and Crystal Frequency was already describing herself as emotionally exhausted. I couldn’t even get a slot on the Sunday. Apparently the club had ‘paid its respects’. Well, I hadn’t.”
George Michael presented another devastating scheduling problem. “Christmas dinner. Family everywhere. My brother-in-law wanted to play a board game. I’m sitting there thinking, do any of you understand that Crystal is probably uploading a monochrome profile picture right now?”
Lexi remains particularly bitter about missing Elvis, although friends have repeatedly explained that he died in 1977, decades before Second Life existed. “She accepts that as a technical limitation,” said Mitzi. “But she still thinks she would have done the best set.”
Her response to Dolly’s death had initially seemed promising. However, eleven crucial minutes spent choosing between a broken-heart emoji and a white dove allowed two rival DJs to establish substantially greater devastation. “Crystal got twenty-seven reactions,” Lexi said. “I got six, and one of those was someone asking whether I was still doing Tuesday.”
Lexi now checks entertainment news before breakfast and keeps forty-seven unfinished posters ready, each requiring only a date and a suitably sombre photograph of herself at the decks. “She’s in the foreground on all of them,” said club regular Raven Bloodrose. “The artist gets a little circle beside her left elbow. Apparently that’s to preserve the branding.”
A separate worksheet provides responses for anyone questioning her lifelong devotion, including “I don’t have to prove my grief to you” and “Some of us were fans before it was fashionable”. One backstory currently begins, “I first discovered [ARTIST] when my father brought home [DEBUT ALBUM] in [PLAUSIBLE YEAR].” “She’s highlighted the brackets in yellow,” Mitzi said. “After telling everyone she’d grown up listening to ‘INSERT FORMATIVE INFLUENCE’, she’s tightened the process.”
Problems have nevertheless emerged during testing. An accidental sort assigned a dance producer three formative summers at Lexi’s grandmother’s house and gave a folk singer responsibility for getting her through “my wild Ibiza years”. Several potential tribute subjects have also announced extensive tours, causing Lexi to move them into a tab labelled NO IMMEDIATE ACTION.
Club management has declined her request to keep every evening provisionally available “in the event of a significant loss”, explaining that Thursday bingo cannot simply be displaced whenever she gets a news notification.
Lexi insists the preparation is ultimately about respect. “These artists gave us everything,” she said. “The least I can do is be ready.”
She has since declined an invitation to another christening. “You have to decide what matters.”