It seems the love affair of the media, however 'interesting' the research, continues apace.

It also appears that, with the exception of those that hate SL we're moving past the attacks into more or less balanced pieces, and, in some of the mainstream media away from sex in SL as the core of the story at long last.

The NY Times is carrying another article. This one is making SL appear to be horribly bourgeois and all about keeping up with the Joneses, clothes, cars, sex beds and all. It's slightly misleading - in fact if I were a furry I might be downright insulted by "But the largest slice of the population follows the crowd, and the crowd is not dressing up as dragons." Even if I had to acknowledge the truth of it.

The Toronto based Globe and Mail carries an article about the law and behaviour in SL, looking in quite a lot of depth at griefing, but skimming over child porn, gambling, Bragg v Linden Lab and so on. It's not sensationalist though, it's looking at how laws are being formed and how tools are gradually coming into being to help control this.


Finally, Education World carries a potted but interesting and useful guide to some good education spots in Second Life - along with a good piece of general advice: "these sites admittedly stress the 'wow' factor of a 3-D virtual environment. As Sean suggests, once you are hooked, you can find the more practical, but less dramatic, places."

More like these please in the mainstream media - certainly steps in the right direction.

(Thanks to Carol Tucker for some of the links).

Canada's national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, has reprinted their article on SL online. It's a decent overview of SL, citing references to such diverse topics as the BBC Radio 1 event, the American Apparel opening, the Relay For Life, and Canadian griefer Plastic Duck. There are also mini-interviews with resident Anna Mandelbrot; David Fleck of Linden Lab; and Mark Wallace, also known as Walker Spaight of the Second Life Herald.

There are passages that rankle me, most notably the line "Players can purchase cyber genitalia that animate with a fellow avatar's touch, or -- for those into bestiality -- animal parts and costumes, which are exceedingly popular." I haven't covered my thoughts on Furry roleplaying yet, but I'd like to mention that Furry sex is NOT bestiality. Bestiality is sexual relations between a human being and an animal. Furries are humans identifying as animal/human hybrids. The key point here is that at all times there is absolute acknowledgment of a human mind behind the avatar. As Janeane Garofalo says "You can love your pets... just don't love your pets!"

Regardless, this article is another example of the world coming to terms with this new virtual space, and its wide-ranging applications.