Peering Inside: The Second Life year in review (part 5)
The media
The media loves to hate Second Life, mostly breathlessly hyping it to be something it isn't, and then beating down the the strawman it has created by complaining that the reality doesn't match this hyped up simulacrum.
Each full turn of the mass-media's Second Life hype-wheel takes about six months, resulting in approximately two press backlashes each year since 2005, and these last twelve months have so far proven to be no exception.
We're about due for the next turn of the wheel, so hang on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen.
- Reuters discovered that griefers are not solely an offline phenomenon. After this, quite a few other newspapers and magazines discovered it too.
- Second Life's incorporation into such television shows as Law and Order, and CSI:NY portrayed little more than a parody of the virtual world, though CSI:NY at least got involved and produced their own viewer in partnership with the Electric Sheep — with their own registration system, orientation islands and mystery games. The potential influx was never realized, as apparently many of the people who are into CSI:NY just aren't into SL. The Office (USA) did an Second Life mention too, but it was (in a sense) so incidental as to make Second Life appear quite mainstream.
- Socialrank started tracking Second Life blogs, but it apparently largely broke early this year and nobody noticed.
- An attempt to do Celebrity Survivor in SL, more or less ended as a flop.
- Most journos who visit SL seem to just want to lament the lack of a penis and go and find one and a sex club.
- Sky News created a ruckus, and then followed that up with some misrepresentation.
- MTV sought people online to make fun of on television.
- Reuters covered the WEF at Davos, Switzerland again this year interviewing a number of notable attendees in Second Life.
[Read on]: Linden Lab policy, business, staff and announcements