Kristina Dell Can’t Get the Box Off Her Head.

by tenshi on 19/08/07 at 10:00 pm

Time magazine joins SL haters

by Tenshi Vielle, Fabulous Fashionista

I’ve been rather annoyed with Time magazine the past few days. Icracked open an issue to read the interview with Drew Carey, and thenseveral pages in I was assaulted with an article about Second Life -illustrated by some horrible mash up of a Second Life screen shot and over sized human beings, cut out and pasted together like a third gradeart project.

Alas,the picture was the least of my issues. The largest issue was thatwithin the first paragraph of the article, like so many others thathave been published recently -  started off with the negativity andjust kept right on going. (Note: All quotes are from the original article. My thoughts follow.)

"Reality is catching up with Second Life, the much hyped 3-D websitethat lets users create alter egos called avatars who can walk, chat,fly, have sex and buy and sell virtual stuff for real money."

Thereyou have my problem with the whole article right there. Instead ofstaying with the neutral platform, the first sentence proclaims thatyou can have sex in second life. I’m not saying you can’t. I’m just saying that out of the base functions of Second Life, the things this game was built with – sex isn’t one of those functions.

Walk,chat, fly, buy, sell – those are base functions. The sex came inlater, after people who could build realized that you really COULDmanipulate your avatar into nearly anything you wished, to do anythingyou wished. Second Life was subjected to a virtual Pandora’s Box byallowing anything to be created.

Thus, we also have childpornography running on the grid in some underground sectors. Is thatLinden Lab’s fault? No. So stop blaming them. The grid growth hasgotten out of control. They didn’t plan for this size, and I’m notquite sure any of them thought their users would be so twisted enoughto upload pictures of six year olds in coitus. I haven’t seen thosepictures, and I hope I never do. I hope those assholes are arrested forsuch a thing. Again – I don’t think Linden Lab should have to be responsible for the creation of those items – only the removal of the offending material and the users attached.

"[...]but the site’s failure to live up to expectations is serious business."

Whatexpectations? What exactly are you talking about? You mean you couldn’tfigure out how to get the box off of your head? Way to go, congratulations on being another small-minded user. Second Life, as faras I know, began as a basically unknown covert operation until theywent public. They didn’t go ahead and make all kinds of crazycommercials on television, nor did they set the bar higher than theycould reach. The users set the bar for Linden Lab, and right now,Linden Lab is having a little bit of trouble keeping up. Patience isnot a virtue in Second Life. Patience simply doesn’t exist.

"Amid low traffic and raunchy behavior, American Apparel and StarwoodHotels are a couple of the big brands that have pulled out of SecondLife recently."

I’m not even touching that one.

I do NOT believe that high-endreporters should sign into second life for an hour or two, fail tobother to learn the controls, walk around and behave like idioticnewbies, and then sign off forevermore and write a national newsarticle about it. That’s not good journalism. That’s disgusting.

"(I spent my first hour on Second Life wearing both sneakers and highheels because I couldn’t figure out how to discard one pair. And yes, Ipassed Computer Science 101.)"

Computerscience 101 doesn’t have a thing to do with how Second Life isprogrammed and run, sweetheart. Computer Science 101 teaches you what amotherboard is and how to turn that funny little box on that blinks andpurrs and  lets you send your E-boyfriend an email occasionally.Computer Science 101 does not, however, teach you how to use MicrosoftExcel, Photoshop, Maya, or even Second Life. Those are different thingsyou have to learn on your own. How foolish of a thing to say.

Honestly,guys, I’m not quite sure why I’m venting about this on the Herald, butI sure as all heck had to vent. I felt this article to be horriblymisinformed and disgustingly orchestrated.

Way to go, Time. You just lost a reader.

 

36 Responses to “Kristina Dell Can’t Get the Box Off Her Head.”

  1. Alyx Stoklitsky

    Aug 19th, 2007

    Second Life runs on sex. Don’t try and pretend sex is just a tiny portion of it.

  2. Cocoanut Koala

    Aug 19th, 2007

    That’s a good point – about how there was no sex until users created it.

    I get really incensed, too, at this overreaching media notion that the test of pass/fail in SL somehow has something to do with whether latecomer real world commercial interests like American Apparel and Starwood Hotels, who came here to take advantage of what the residents had already spent years building, decide to stay.

    As if these companies are the test of SL’s entire value, and what it’s all about.

    coco

  3. Myrrh Massiel

    Aug 19th, 2007

    >I haven’t seen those pictures, and I hope I never do. I hope those assholes are arrested for such a thing.

    …it’s almost comical how everyone discussing the sensationalistic attention given to ageplay seems compelled to conspicuously note their revulsion for unrelated child pornography; a flipside parallel to the storied politically correct meme of noting “not that there’s anything WRONG with that” after mentioning homosexuality…

    >Don’t try and pretend sex is just a tiny portion of it.

    …but it is, and that cursory users never bother to look beyond its immediate shock value is the cause of this common misperception…

  4. The Grid Live

    Aug 19th, 2007

    Second Life News for August 20,2007

    Kristina Dell Cant Get the Box Off Her Head. Ive been rather annoyed with Time magazine the past few days. I cracked open an issue to read the interview with Drew Carey, and then several pages in I was assaulted with an article about Seco…

  5. Angel

    Aug 19th, 2007

    >> Thus, we also have child pornography running on the grid in some underground sectors.

    Do you have proof of this statement or are you just making it up? Is it more prevelent or less prevelent than on the outside interweb. Based on that your SL name is associated with uploaded pictures forever and that your SL name can’t be changed I would think that the incidence, if there even is any at all, if far lower than say a medium like newsgroups.

    All that statement shows is that you are so desperate to rant you need to reinforce your pathetically weak views with the “Think of the Children” line.

    Stick to fashion, serious news is out of your league.

  6. Levi Anansi

    Aug 20th, 2007

    My Letter to Time (who actually used to mean something)…

    Dear Ms. (Mrs.) Dell,

    “Marc Bragg”

    I am really surprised that you would submit an article with this name attached, without actually publishing the facts surrounding the case involving Marc Bragg. Sure, anyone could google the case, but this is a place unknown to most internet users. In short he used an exploit in the SL website to obtain online land for a pence of it’s online value. For that, he was banned and his assets removed from the game. I don’t see how simply mentioning his name without qualifying the circumstances surrounding the case does justice to journalistic integrity. Your mention of him does not, by any means support the rest of the paragraph that states the online exchange of funds, which we all know is accurate from a free download excel sheet provided from Linden Labs.

    As to the statement of Child Pornography and illegal online gambling. Linden Lab put a halt on both activities rather quickly upon notice, and rightfully so. What you missed was the fact that linden complied, and in terms of CP reacted very quickly. In fact they have banned accounts in the past for the simple implication of child pornography in pixels and not in fact. When fact was revealed they reacted quickly, and the US press was a step behind. They banned those accounts and shared them with local authorities before the domestic press caught wind. Paying Second Life residents are actually quite responsible people, and reported the infraction to LL. Another fact you failed to report.

    As far as major brands pulling out of second life. We can agree on this, they are not getting what they expected, perhaps for the simple reason that they, like you, don’t know how to change their shoes. This is not about computer science 101. Although I am glad you passed pascal with flying colors, this is a different environment. This is not, at it’s core, a programming language or an operating system. This is an environment that runs like a regular 3rd party application (see dream weaver, acrobat, MS office, etc.). This is an MMO to some of us. If you played Star Wars Galaxies/There/Everquest II/City of Heroes/World of Warcraft/etc. you would find the same amount of dissalusionment as to “where should I go, what should I do.” The fact is major brands in real life are two steps behind in Second Life. Here, we have designers who have been working on a craft for 3 years or more. The have experience in the culture and vibe of Second Life, have been very successful, and continue to innovate the boundaries imposed to create styles both attractive and well marketed in their niche. There is *no* person or department of talented people who can walk into a new technology and expect the results American Apparel and Starwood Hotels (whoever they are) expected. This is a new place (even after 4 years). A reputation takes time to build. The fact that they walked in, and walked out, is what sealed their online fate. Just like real life, and even the internet itself, if you want to build innovation and trust, it takes time. Personally I am loyal to two SL designers, and they have earned every last bit of my business.

    The article, isn’t this the base of it all? This could have been better researched, played, and even published. This is Time Magazine right? This is the basis of pictorial and verbal reality, at least it has been throughout my generation (see
    X). You can do better than log into SL and gauge that all activity is based on the “pop” places with mature checked tab. Those of us who subscribe, and actually log in for more than two months know better. Personally I stick around for my legendary parcel and the live music scene, which is quite healthy. Oh right, you missed that while you were changing your shoes based on an old pascal script. Seriously, this article is very poorly researched, although it is well written.

    Thanks for reading and best,
    Levi Anansi

  7. Morgana Fillion

    Aug 20th, 2007

    I’m not sure where all the words devoted to child pornography are coming from in the context of what is being said here.

    SL is not all about sex, but even more to the point, the sexual-based activities that are in SL are primarily not about child pornography.

    If a criticism of the Time’s mention of sex as one of the things that does occur in SL is valid, then why ratchet up that notion by bringing in, not sex, but child porn? Isn’t that committing their same error but magnifying it a hundred times?

    I don’t see anything wrong with the idea that people in SL can create all manner of activities for themselves in SL – including sex. That *is* a fundamentally core activity of human beings whenever and however they congregate. Even these businesses that can’t seem to latch in realize that when they engage in RL advertisements that subtly or blatently appeal to customer’s desires to be involved in one another sexually.

    But that has not got one thing to do with child porn, so why is that being mentioned here?

  8. Second Lulz Vigilante

    Aug 20th, 2007

    @Alyx

    Yeah it’s all about sex NOW. But it wasn’t as prevalent until 2 things happened:

    1) Users created the content for it

    2) Open registration happened.

    Once open registration happened, every cheap desperate noob on the internet flooded into SL and business owners realized you could use sex to get all these people to add to your traffic rating. It’s an even more exploitative alternative to camp chairs. There were sex places on SL before open registration but not like there are now. All that shit has mushroomed.

  9. Nicholaz Beresford

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Why didn’t I hear anyone complaining when the whole media was hyping SL based on bad facts?

  10. Rodion Resistance

    Aug 20th, 2007

    @Alyx Stoklitsky
    Ehh? First life runs on sex too–otherwise you wouldn’t have been born.

    The following is something that most people keep on overlooking about information technology–any new kind of technology to help pass on information can and will be used for matters related to sex…just look at history…

    …cave paintings (breasts, fertility rites)…
    …stone carvings (Celtic fertility statues)…
    …papyrus (Songs of Solomon, to name a few)…

    then later…
    …Gutenberg invents movable type (I bet some people printed pornographic pamphlets then)

    much later…
    …telephone (phone sex)
    …video, betamax, VHS (porn)…

    …then, later…the internet…

    …another point is, Tenshi said “I’m just saying that out of the base functions of Second Life, the things this game was built with – sex isn’t one of those functions.” which is precisely correct–it wasn’t LL who deliberately added all the sex balls and anims in the game…it was the users who brought it in. When DARPA invented the internet, Larry Flynt wasn’t behind the keyboard coding all the stuff to make it work.

  11. Tenshi Vielle

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Sheesh, even YOU guys can’t get over the sex part. Come on. The funniest thing in there was her lack of want to understand the game. This article in TIME was a pre-determined diss.

  12. Tenshi

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Oh, and (re: Child Porn mention) – it was mentioned because it was one of a million user-created items that Linden Labs has to take the fall for. It wasn’t a “think of the children” angle. In fact, it wasn’t much of an angle at all, save for being used as an example.

  13. Morgana Fillion

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Yes, it was. I’m simply saying that you should reread your articles before posting to edit out parts of it that aren’t on message. The child porn side rant has nothing to do with the rest of your message here, and muddles your point by shooting past Time’s simple comment that sex exists in Second Life, and going spending an entire paragraph making sure people know that you disapprove of criminal predatory behavior. It suggest that all sexual activity is in the same suspect category which is the *same stupid thing all these major media articles keep doing.*

    Just learn to edit your reports to keep on focus, and you’ll be fine. But going there in an article ranting about other sloppy reporting is just not good. You made some good points in here – focus on those and save the kiddie porn rant for another day. Basic writing advice, Tenshi.

  14. DaveOner

    Aug 20th, 2007

    So we’re complaining that the media thinks SL is all about sex on the same web site that had an expose’ on bukkake and has that Post 6 bullshit??

    You know you guys are part of the problem, right?

    Also, you’re complaining about a media outlet criticizing SL with inaccurate/incomplete facts on a web site that spends half it’s time complaining about SL with innaccurate/incomplete facts? Don’t like competition or something?!

    Maybe people should be paying attention to these articles and what people are seeing of SL and act accordingly if they care about SL.

  15. Shiraz

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Very interesting article. Overall, I do think that Ms. Dell made some minor valid points about the frustration with SL and the snail’s pace of development we’ve been seeing for some time now. Plus, I don’t even know what a company like Dell actually *does* in SL as of yet, although when they figure it out I’m sure it will be fabulous.

    But there is no doubt, “sex” was not part of the original design of the game. You have to sit on pre-made poseballs in order to “engage” in sexual activity. Do we bust on television manufacturers because you can watch porn on your TV? So calling it a part of the design is naive and irresponsible, a common occurrence when the reporter has no idea of what exactly they are covering. I agree, judging from the fact that she complained about being unable to wear shoes properly, she definitely did not spend a whole lot of time in SL and therefore was not qualified to write an unbiased article. (Oh yes, and let’s refer to some random Gartner guy who seems to have as much qualification to say what he said as Paris Hilton has being a “celebrity”.)

    And sex? Yes, it’s a part of SL. Big whoop. Get over it. Any open source platform like SL is bound to get sexual content added by users, just as those who want Harry Potter-themed worlds put those in, or those who like the whole “Gorean” thing will add their own flavor. People, this is nothing new. Reporters are always complaining about sexual content and violent activity; it sells magazines.

    Oh, and BTW, Angel, the next time you comment, might want to make sure it actually makes sense, mmmkay? Don’t you know, it’s so passe to discredit an article just because you don’t like the writer…oh, and the word is prevAlent, just so you know.

  16. Tenshi Vielle

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Morgana, you argue with me just for the sake of having someone to argue with or complain about. Let it go. If you don’t like the way I write, don’t read it.

    DaveOner; the problem is that the majority of the articles that appear on the Herald are by different writers who don’t often collaborate on pieces, nor series. Hence you get such a wide variety. That’s also the nice bit about the Herald. :)

    Also, I am SO suing Sony the next time I find porn in my DVD player. Damn them. Damn them for creating and or supporting such filth. They should be responsible. GOD WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!!!

  17. Tenshi Vielle

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Also: I’m remembering the “naked” mod for The Sims 2… nobody went and sued EA games for that crap, did they?

  18. Morgana Fillion

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Chill, Tenshi – I’m not ‘arguing’ with you. That would require you having a good argument for including that paragraph. I *am* critiquing your article, and I get to do that without your permission, just as you get to critique the TIMES without asking for theirs.

    That’s part of the joys of writing publicly. Roll with it.

    As for not liking what you write – I continue to hope that your writing will grow and develop into something readable. I think that makes me a bigger cheerleader on your behalf than about 95% of the people that read you. As it’s been pointed out, the Herald’s editors don’t edit – that means you need to develop that skill as a part of your growth as a writer. The most important part of editing is figuring out what parts to leave out. That doesn’t mean that what you say there is crap – it means it doesn’t belong in this particular article. Save it for the next one.

    Now, if you don’t like that advice or this critique, ignore it (that don’t read it advice works both ways). But you also have the option of taking valuable information from it and doing better next time. And in spite of your hyper defensiveness, I continue to hope that you will. If I didn’t think you had potential to learn to be a better writer, I would have stopped bothering long ago and just joined the hoards that read you for the entertainment value of watching what you’ll mangle next.

    Now… you’ve registered your defensiveness and that you don’t like me. The second isn’t relevent and the first is just an example of why it’s very difficult to talk civilly with you, but that’s your issue, not mine.

    Can you now move on and tell me if you don’t think that attaching ‘child porn’ to ‘sex’ is potentially more damaging to public perception of SL than an article simply noting that sex exists in SL? Because that was the point of my post, not how fond we are of one another. I am not talking about you – I’m talking about your writing and the subject matter of your article. How is that not a valid point of discussion in the comments on it?

  19. Tenshi Vielle

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Morgana;
    I don’t need, nor do I want, your patronizing version of “cheerleading”. I’m not sure if you understand that. You put yourself off as the devil’s advocate when, really, you’re just the devil in a suit of calm. You’re peeing in the pool. Stop it.
    –Tenshi

  20. Greg

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Morgana – did you read the article in question?

    “Governments are scrutinizing the four-year-old site as a possible haven for tax-free commerce, child-porn distribution and other unsavory activity.”

    And again:

    “German police are looking into allegations that members traded pornographic photos of real children on the site, and several European governments are upset that adult avatars are having sex with childlike ones.”

    The Time article itself mentioned it twice. So how do you figure that she is “off message” by bringing it up? Please explain. Furthermore you’re criticizing her writing style? That’s funny…I haven’t seen your articles on SLHerald, or anywhere else for that matter.

  21. Dirk Talamasca

    Aug 20th, 2007

    TIME has not been worth wiping your ass on for quite some time.. I was a subscriber for many, many years back when it was truly informative. Those days are long gone and so is my subscription.

  22. Morgana Fillion

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Give me a break.

    “Not to flatter myself, but I’m beginning to wonder if you’re stalking me virtually. You seem to magically appear whenever someone questions my integrity or my writing or my skills of creation. Magically.”

    Tenshi, don’t IM me about what you don’t want to say here. It doesn’t take ‘magic’ to read the Herald or other public blogs.

    If I ever once even tried to find you in-world or attach spyware on you to attempt to find out a single thing about you that you don’t announce yourself publicly, that might be stalking. If I was one of the many people who religiously follow you in total anonymity, it might even work. Your IM to me is the first time, to my knowledge, that either one of us has made any sort of contact in-world at all.

    This is a public blog post. With open comments. Commenting in this arena is to stalking as, oh…. sex is to child porn.

    I don’t know if you’re flattering yourself or not with that tripe – I suppose if you’re going to be paranoid, you might at least feel flattered by the supposed attention. But you are deluded if you think I’m going to avoid you, either, so as long as you’re writing publicly where I read, I will be reading your words, and commenting when or if I please.

    I take it by this IM that you don’t have an answer to my question, so I’ll just assume that that paragraph isn’t something to comment on because you actually meant nothing at all by it. And oh hey! That’s my point – if it has no meaning, keep it out of your article. Beginning and end of what I said. Save words like ‘stalking’ for when they mean something – that’s trite.

    And by the way – I have, in past posts, told you I *liked* your build and even in this discussion today told you you made good points. If your building skills or integrity is being questioned today, it’s not by me. Your writing is, but by *me* not because ‘someone’ is and I waved my wand and showed up.

    Could you please either just not respond or respond at the level the comments are being offered?

  23. Ann Otoole

    Aug 20th, 2007

    there would not be so much negative publicity about sl if linden research had not stuck it’s head up arse and ignored the customer base consistently while eroding the performance of the product with useless unwanted features instead of fixing defects. they could go a long way by changing the development staff over to serious professionals. as it is they don’t even understand why it is a bad thing to allow nulls in certain types of columns in the database. very amateur at best.

    so they will get beat up on the playground.

  24. Mark

    Aug 20th, 2007

    “So we’re complaining that the media thinks SL is all about sex on the same web site that had an expose’ on bukkake and has that Post 6 bullshit??

    You know you guys are part of the problem, right?

    Also, you’re complaining about a media outlet criticizing SL with inaccurate/incomplete facts on a web site that spends half it’s time complaining about SL with innaccurate/incomplete facts? Don’t like competition or something?!

    Maybe people should be paying attention to these articles and what people are seeing of SL and act accordingly if they care about SL.”

    Yes Dave, they (Herald staffers) embellish how upset they are at LL and SL because then they look chic, edgy and cool (especially to each other). This was even more true back when Prok had the loudest voice here.

    But as we see here by the string of relatively defensive pieces about REAL media criticizing SL we can see that deep in their cynical widdle hearts, they are just loving SL fanbois and fangurls.

  25. Reality

    Aug 20th, 2007

    First things first … Morgana: Keep the private issues and responses to private communications (IMs) OFF of the public spaces. They do not belong here. Ever.

    Second: Ann, if you do not like what you are getting out of second Life – cancel your account. If you honestly think you know what the user base wants in regard to features and fixes … apply for a job at the Lab and see if you can fix them.

    Truth is however that you know nothing about what the user base wants or about what the Lab is doing to fix issues. End of that story.

    Either actually do something or cut the crap. Your protests don’t accomplish anything at all.

  26. Morgana Fillion

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Greg – yes I did. But a person reading this article shouldn’t have to read the other just to make sense of the article here. What Tenshi did was take a quote (“Reality is catching up with Second Life, the much hyped 3-D website that lets users create alter egos called avatars who can walk, chat, fly, have sex and buy and sell virtual stuff for real money.”) responded to quite ably and then spun off onto her personal opinion of child porn.

    It gives the appearance of sex somehow leading inevitably to child porn (a linkage that many media sources have been pushing and deserves all the criticism Tenshi and other bloggers give it) and there into some odd need to assure readers that Tenshi isn’t in favor of child porn – something I think can be assumed.

    So either Tenshi is conflating sex and child porn and intends to, or she doesn’t intend to and needed some sort of transition – either of the quotes you made would have handled that – to ensure that the message didn’t appear to be that all sex in SL is somehow related to child porn.

    It’s either a writing issue or an ideological one, and I asked – repeatedly and without an answer – which one it is. If it’s writing, it’s easily fixed, and learning to read what one writes from the point of view of a reader is a good skill to acquire. If it’s ideological, then we would be in strong disagreement and I think it would make this article in league with all the others attempting to chainlock SL with child porn merely because users have control over content.

    But before I start taking issue with her on that, I want to know whether or not that is what she means – and I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt that it’s just a matter of the article needing a bit of red pencil editing. I’m amazed that is being taken as a personal attack. Most reporters have the benefit of an editor to do that – the bloggers at the Herald don’t. That doesn’t mean it’s a step that should be eliminated.

  27. Reg Baxter

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Seems like the Time Magazine article writer was a little biased and peeved that she “spent my first hour on Second Life wearing both sneakers and high heels because I couldn’t figure out how to discard one pair. And yes, I passed Computer Science 101.”
    That SL is was not instantly intuitive and perfect probably made her see SL in a negative light. She states statistics etc. in such a way that it appears she probably looked up news and blog articles rather than spend any time in SL.

    In contrast the a NY times article that was written about in the Herald on Aug 10th http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/garden/09second.html seems to be by someone who actually spent time in SL and and actually talked to regular players not just griefers and whiners. Both articles are probably “factually” correct but the NY times one is much more informed. This is also shown in the lengths of the articles as the time magazine was one page and the NY Times was 6 plus pages (on the web site anyway).

    And if my post there looks similar to this one it’s because it makes its point in both articles.

    Oh and good work Tenshi, glad to see you branching out, don’t let anybody bait you though, thats what half of them are tiring to do on here.

  28. DaveOner

    Aug 20th, 2007

    “DaveOner; the problem is that the majority of the articles that appear on the Herald are by different writers who don’t often collaborate on pieces, nor series. Hence you get such a wide variety. That’s also the nice bit about the Herald. :)

    That kind of proves my point. Even without any coordination there is an abundance of sexual-natured articles all over the Herald as well as other SL news sites (except the Insider who seems to be the one professional SL news site).

    I personally could care less either way because I know what SL is about which is different than what it’ll be about for others. But you can’t complain about how SL gets a bad rap for being a virtual sex machine and yet prepetuate that perception by writing about all the niche fetishes that go on in SL.

    As far as the hating so rampant in the forum/blog SL clique, I guess it’s like someone that abuses their child or spouse. You get mad when someone else hits them!

  29. Artemis Fate

    Aug 20th, 2007

    The whole American Apparel and Starwood hotels pulling out are such bad examples of corporations in Second Life, I mean they were some of the first corporations to come over, but they were also some of the ones to misunderstand what it was all about.

    Starwood hotels built up a beautiful version of their hotel, but I mean, what’s there to do in it? Hotels are necessary in real life because people need a place to sleep when away from home, but in second life, there’s no point to it. The only conceivable use of a hotel in second life is as some sort of sex place, which of course they’d want nothing to do with.

    American Apparel, also had a beautiful build, and it had the right set up to be successful in SL (clothing) but it misunderstood the fashion business and marketing in SL, by making carbon copy versions of their real life lines, often designed more for comfort than style (and what’s comfort in Second Life?), and priced them at higher than normal prices. I know I for one am not interested in paying 400L$ for a pack of boring blank t-shirts when I could get interesting and whole outfits for half the price.

    If Time had done some research, they might have seen stuff like the L Word sims, which are always busy with people, or the IBM sims, and how much IBM seems to have taken to SL, but I guess they preferred to jump on to the “Let’s hate SL” band wagon.

    I also noticed they had graffiti in the background from the “Second Life Liberation Army” who the hell talks about the Second Life Liberation Army now, or for that matter, ever? It obviously shows a lack of real research or understanding.

  30. Tenshi Vielle

    Aug 20th, 2007

    Artemis, Reg and Shiraz FTW!!! :) Thanks guys.

  31. DF

    Aug 21st, 2007

    Why does everyone mention sex, as if it’s a bad thing?

    Come on, even if SL *IS* 80% sex, does it matter? No.

    Sex sells, everyone likes sex (try an honestly deny that you don’t like having sex at all), and without sex, no-one of us would be around to complain about it.

    Sex is human nature, it’s not a big deal. no wait, it is a big deal, as it’s one of the most important things to keep our species going: producing offspring.

    Lighten up everyone… Sex is NOT a bad thing. So stop treating it as such.

  32. Gillian Waldman

    Aug 21st, 2007

    I agree with you, Tenshi. But Time is written for the masses and everything is so dumbed down it’s useless even reading it IMO.

  33. Nidol

    Aug 21st, 2007

    >>Also: I’m remembering the “naked” mod for The Sims 2… nobody went and sued EA games for that crap, did they?

    Actually, Jack Thompson tried to.

  34. Tenshi Vielle

    Aug 21st, 2007

    Jack Thompson would probably order his own children brainwashed if they picked up the original Mario Brothers.

  35. Second Lulz Vigilante

    Aug 21st, 2007

    @Rodion Resistance

    Good examples. But you forgot to mention the Tijuana Bibles. lol!

  36. Eyva Matova

    Aug 22nd, 2007

    I’ve seen two similar articles in magazines recently that all share this exact same view point: That SL is full of sex-crazed loners drooling over their keyboards, and there must be something wrong with this SL thing if commercial companies can’t make their millions in it. The points you make in this article Tenshi are spot on, I’m waiting for an article to be written where a journalist actually spends more than one session exploring and learning the world properly, and although I haven’t searched high and low, I still haven’t seen one.

    I’m in total agreement with some people making comments thinking they’re stating their opinion but clearly baiting you. Morgana, I don’t know you and have never seen anything you’ve written, I assume you write for something because you seem very comfortable sitting on your high horse and dispensing advice in a condescending manner.

    Maybe I’m biased because like you all I stuck with it and now can’t remember that foggy time before SL, but it’s a fantastic way to create, socialize and just have fun. And I don’t mind the sex articles because really, I’ve not had much experience with the sex side of SL, same with roleplay, and it’s all news to me :)

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