So the mainstream media and the overall blogosphere is having yet another negative reaction to the Second Life hype, and that reaction is expressed as ... you guessed it: Second Life Hype.

Who is hyping Second Life? The LA Times, CNN, Valleywag, the New York Times, Business Week, well ... everyone, just about, except apparently Linden Lab who don't seem to much care what press they're getting one way or another - and with good reason.

Hype is short for hyperbole, which is exaggeration (positive or negative) for effect. A question asked in one news piece recently was "Can Second Life live up to the hype?"

Well, no. Because, by definition, it wouldn't be hype if it did. Since hype works both ways, you could as easily ask "Can Second Life live down to the hype?" - yeah, you see the point. You see, if it's actually true, then it just isn't hype. At my daddy's knee once, I asked what hype was and he told me "It's a way of getting paid twice for the same lie." - now, he gave me kind of a more significant rundown after that, but that first response has sort of stuck with me over the years.

The particular outlet that printed that specific question was one which had poured out the Second Life hype time and again. The media has hyped Second Life (and other things) into something it isn't ('a big waste of time', 'a seething den of pornography', 'the holy grail and cure for cancer', 'the future of the 3d Internet'), and now they're starting to complain that it isn't what they said it was, but by hyping in the other direction.

If it didn't happen all the time I'd call it shameful. I'm not sure I'm allowed to use the words that I think are genuinely applicable here.

Stories that describe Second Life to be what it is - you know them. They're the ones that give you a nice warm feeling and make you smile. They should be the norm, but they're not. They're generally lost in the shuffle of "Second Life is base for terrorists" or "Second Life makes everyone rich" stories.

So, the hype wave hasn't gotten any smaller - in fact, it's gotten larger with more hype pieces around than usual. Never mind that it's negative hype. You can see that reflected in the signup figures. That suggests, rather disturbingly, that the readers aren't actually paying that much attention to the content of these hype pieces, and only to the quantity.

If I were one of those writers, I'd feel a bit sad about that - but, hey. They've been paid already, right? Mission accomplished.

You can sit there and wish that Second Life was something other than what it is. That it was the 3D Web, or the 3D Operating System for your PC, or that it was a way for lazy people to get rich - but falsely claiming it's these things and then complaining later that it's not what you claimed it was - now that's just doing your readers a disservice, though you probably don't care a whole lot about that, I'm guessing.

Tycho and Gabe over at Penny Arcade put the whole matter very succinctly. If you're bored with all the words and want this in pictorial form, that can be arranged.