Second Life™ has now been a part of our global internet for seven years. It began in June 2003, and promised a new way for people to create, communicate and interact together – and for hundreds of thousands of people, it has delivered and continues to deliver on that promise. Corporations entered, hoping to exploit the new medium, and left almost as quickly, unable to adapt their real-world ways to a virtual environment. Old media outlets set up outposts and put reporters on the “SL beat” – but they, too, disappeared. By the end of 2007, the Great Corporate Exodus was complete – and the media were falling all over each other to declare Second Life the Next Great Dot-Bust Failure.
Three years after that exodus, people are amazed that Second Life is still alive – and not merely alive, but humming along as a respectably-profitable business, even in the throes of a debilitating global recession. No, Second Life did not change the world – at least not for everyone. But for those who saw what was genuinely possible, for those who embraced the vision and made it their own – the world was indeed changed. Seven years later, this grand experiment in life, love, sex, music, art, fantasy, community, education – and yes, commerce – continues to flourish and thrive.
But you wouldn’t know that by following the media. Every few months or so, another barely-researched article gets written by one more bored freelance writer who most likely isn’t getting paid enough to care about his subject matter. This week, the publication is Entrepreneur and the freelancer is Jason Daley. Writing on the subject of Second Life Enterprise, Linden Lab’s behind-the-firewall Second Life standalone for business, Daley wastes no time in writing off Second Life as a failure, citing the sum total of his knowledge of Second Life’s extensive history in one sentence: “Well, the [Reuters] bureau closed early last year, and Linden Lab’s virtual utopia is full of malls selling nothing but pixilated genitalia.”
As a blogger, and not a journalist, or even a “freelance journalist” – or whatever the self-employed wage slaves writing generic 500-word articles on Mechanical Turk for two dollars each are calling themselves these days. Let’s just say I’m not a lazy hack who can’t be bothered to research beyond creatively rearranging press releases. I write because I enjoy writing, and I enjoy writing on subjects I’m passionate about. Second Life is one of these things. So when yet one more self-described “journalist” comes along to unzip and piss against our wall, I make no apologies for the snark and invective that may spill from my fingertips as I dress him down.
Oh, I know he’s reading this. After all, he’s created a blog specifically for the purpose of self-promoting the articles he’s managed to get published. I can guarantee he Googles himself on a regular basis – particularly when he’s managed to get something published. Oh, did I happen to mention that Jason is not only a self-described “freelance journalist” but also a self-described “freelance editor”? Just a little word of advice, Jason – if you edit as well as you write, then don’t ask your readers to point out your spelling errors and broken links. I’m presuming your website acts as a portfolio of your work?
Stick to writing about things you have a genuine interest in, Jason – which is skiing, apparently. You seem to be have no problem writing interestingly and at length about skiing. Leave the writing about Second Life to people who have actually spent time in it – at least long enough to realize that SL is alive and vibrant and amazing and … yes, sexy and naughty at times. As for your claims of ubiquitous malls pregnant with penile protrusions and press-on vaginas, Linden Lab has moved all explicitly-adult content to it’s own continent – which is something that you would have learned had you actually done even elementary-school level research on your subject or – god forbid! – actually visited Second Life recently. And this is precisely the problem – the bland are leading the blind. Rewriting PR blurbs and padding them with dismissive opinions based on complete ignorance of the subject matter is precisely why print journalism is dying.
And judging from the date on your website, this article is the first “journalism” work you’ve had published since February. Congratulations.
Seriously, though, if you would ever like to actually see what Second Life is all about in 2010, sign up for an account and give me a shout. I can show you a thing or two about Second Life – which, frankly, would be a start.
And I could keep going, but I’m already up on Mr. Daley by three-hundred words.
And now, I’m going to bed.
(EDIT: Oh, the bittersweet irony – both of my links were broken! Thank you, Neko, for pointing that out. If I were a journalist, I’d be really embarrassed right now.)
