And SLer named Cathartes Aura posted a comment on last's post on Project Sansar which makes some good points, but also argues that Linden Lab is financing Sansar because Linden Lab's board is "ashamed" of Second Life and its many sex pervs, and it's a new variation on a commonly-repeated myth:
IMO the board members of LL never liked or appreciated what their money created... Why do they care that sex exists in SL? IMO it's because the board/VC's were ashamed of SL and its residents. They thought of us as the "weirds"... The "freaks"... Not exactly what they had in mind - they wanted a g-rated world only and we gave them something very different.
I frequently read some version of that assertion from one anonymous avatar or another, so to set the record straight: There's no evidence whatsoever that Linden Lab's board was or is ashamed of virtual sex and Second Life's assorted "freaks" -- in fact, the board has consistently tolerated the creation of adult-themed content in SL.
I've talked several times at length with Mitch Kapor, Linden Lab's founding lead investor and board member, and have never heard a dint of anything like animus or shame about SL's many sexual subcultures. In fact, in a long 2009 interview, he told me this: "I still think that in the evolving world of Second Life there’ll be room for peaceful co-existence of many styles and usage... in order to achieve the full potential." He said this as SL was amidst a mass market launch and partnerships with major companies, most especially IBM. During that conversation, the only time he mentioned anything about sexual content was in relationship to griefing. Or as he aptly put it: "There's a lot of work that needs to be done in the flying penis department... it is kind of mandatory now."
Based on that talk and many others with Linden executives (while I was working with the company as the "embedded journalist" and afterward), along with the major policy decisions the board approved, I believe the general attitude is something like this:
Linden Lab's board was and is perfectly accepting of weird/strange/explicit content in Second Life, with their only chief concern being how this content impacted SL's brand perception, or partnerships with major companies.
You can see this in the company's 2010 moves to hide Adult content from unverified users, and Amsterdam-ify sexual content. They did this instead of, say, requiring all Adult content be moved off SL to another separate grid, or doing away with it all together -- moves that most other corporate boards would have ordered when aiming for an IPO. For that matter, the board would have said something about sexual content when Linden Lab officially created a marketing partnership with the R-rated Suicide Girls site in 2006 -- or after publishing my 2005 post on Second Life's sex industry which Linden Lab literally paid me to write.
To pull it back even further, sexual content started showing up in Second Life in Beta period, in early 2003. (In the beginning, there was a prim, and the prim became a dong, and lo, the dong was placed upon.) But Linden executives consistently regarded all this with wry, affectionate, occasionally bemused amusement. The only concern was not to publicize the sexual content until Second Life had achieved mass growth. That way, the company could honestly say, "Yes, there's lots of porn in SL -- but not any more than the regular Internet, and we have controls if users don't want to see that kind of content." As growth slowed, and Adult content became more and more prominent, this has become a difficult narrative to maintain. But with IBM and other staid partners long gone, that's become an academic point.
All that said, it's likely that Project Sansar will be much more stringent about Adult-rated content. But even if that happens, Linden Lab will literally have the best of both worlds: Second Life the ancient Burning Man-esque freakshow which maintains a waning but well-monetized userbase of the virtually kinky who have nowhere else to go, who thus help subsidize the mainstream, consumer-facing, ready-for-business Sansar.
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Dang, almost made it an entire post being thoughtful and fair 'til you just had to generalize SL's userbase as a virtually kinky freakshow.
E for effort.
Posted by: Ezra | Wednesday, May 18, 2016 at 05:20 PM
That's a fair point, I should have been more clear that it's likely many/most SLers will eventually move to Sansar while the kink fans will stick with SL where they can keep their freak flag fully flying freely.
Posted by: Wagner J Au | Wednesday, May 18, 2016 at 09:29 PM
People like sex. Get over it.
Posted by: cyberserenity | Wednesday, May 18, 2016 at 11:37 PM
There's no way people won't be getting it on in Sansar. As long as there's IM there'll be naughties and as long as people can create or buy/sell content to each other they'll find a way.
You think all those silent couples at Franks are chatting about the weather and their nice gowns ?
Posted by: Mondy | Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 12:01 AM
Kink, weird perversions, strange fetishes... it's all business in Second Life... and business is good. The adult content market in SL makes up a sizeable chunk of revenue for Linden Labs.
Supply and demand, that's how the market works, if you don't pander to demand then you lose a part of your customer base. No doubt, Sansar will eventually go the same way. Adult content is here to stay!
Feed your perversions you crazy people!
Love and kisses,
Tes.
Posted by: Tesla Miles | Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 04:45 AM
If only Hustler bought LL:)
Posted by: zz bottom | Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 06:32 AM
I seem to recall a CEO of ll complaining about the customers, over and over again.
Posted by: Shockwave Yareach | Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 08:02 AM
Maybe something from Cathartes' mother:
Dr phil and Second life
Posted by: average user | Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 08:03 AM
Sansar will flop flaccidly without shagging. It's not how I found my bliss in SL, but it's a human need and SL provides an outlet.
Let folks pixel-hump it if they want, and don't censor content used by consenting adults.
As long as I don't have to see if, shag on.
Posted by: Iggy | Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 12:02 PM
You seem to be missing the point of my opinion piece, Wagner... Do you have a one-track mind? It wasn't about sex. LMAO!!! ;)
The first part was about being embarrassed by all us "misfits" and not promoting SL adequately because of that "shame". IMO that lack of promotion had to do with sex. Or more to the point what some folks want to label as deviant sex. ;)
I could care less what anyone does as long as they are over 18 and not into pedo shiz, That is f#$ked up!!! And LL needs to do a much better job at weeding out/perma banning them!
The folks I am referring to are Goreans, BDSM folks, and especially furries/yiffers among others.
Especially the yiffers... Now I do not give a shiz if someone wants to go furry and yiff away. More power to ya!! ;) But I'll bet ole Mitch Kapor does give a shiz... A big shiz...
The following are his words from the SL5B party I think? ;)
"The pioneer era in Second Life is beginning to draw to a close. It has been five years and we are at the beginning of a transition and I think it is an irrevocable transition. And I am hoping what you see now is a slide of a technology adoption curve, a classic bell curve that shows early adopters on the left and then a set of pragmatists as we move from left to right and so on all the way over to the right edge of the curve, we show the laggards. This technology adoption curve is well known for the way to characterize the adoption of these disruptive new innovations. Now, where are we on this? OK, could I have the next slide please.
When you see this resin, you should be seeing a big red vertical arrow just at the margin between the early adopter phase and the pragmatist phase. That is really where we are today and I think that has some very important implications and I want to talk about that for a minute. So the first is, in the earliest wave of pioneers in any new disruptive platform, the marginal and the dispossessed are over represented, not the sole constituents by any means but people who feel they don't fit, who have nothing left to lose or who were impelled by some kind of dream, who may be outsiders to whatever mainstream they are coming from, all come and arrive early in disproportionate numbers."
Sounds like Mitch has no clue, Wagner... No clue about SL or the very fine folks who are its' residents. Back then or now... That is a pretty f$%ked up thing to say about your customers IMO. ;)
The main point of my post was Sansar is DOA if it doesn't include in-world MESH creation/building tools/deformers. DO f$$%king A. ;)
The reason being is people want to build. Create. Make their own experiences. Not buy what some "professional" content creator feels is the experience I should be having. It's one of the main reasons SL is dying a slow death and why Sansar is going nowhere. Average Joe likes to create right alongside the "professionals".
Want Sansar to succeed? Look at what has already massively succeeded. Minecraft looks like a pretty good place to start... LMAO!!
And the Turkey Buzzard goes hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!! ;)
Posted by: Cathartes Aura | Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 12:39 PM
Someone really needs to shoot that Turkey Buzzard. Or hump it. :P
Posted by: Issa Heckroth | Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 03:17 PM
I agree about Sansar being DOA without inworld tools though.
Maybe not DOA, but it will be as flaccid as a flexi prim dong.
Posted by: Issa Heckroth | Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 03:20 PM
"But I'll bet ole Mitch Kapor does give a shiz... A big shiz... The following are his words from the SL5B party I think? ;)"
Actually that 2009 quote in this post was specifically in response to the SL5B controversy. He felt he was misinterpreted as bashing the pioneers. "People felt I was being dismissive in telling folks that they were irrelevant," he also told me then. "I was trying to celebrate their pioneering accomplishments. And also to recognize that after the pioneers come the settlers."
Posted by: Wagner J Au | Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 11:56 PM
IMO Wagner what this world needs, both the virtual and meatspace world, is less BS and more challenges to so-called authority. Your job as a "journalist" is to call "them" out on their BS. But since your bread is buttered by LL you spin for them. Spin Spin Spin. ;)
It's an insult to SL residents to continue to cover for Mitch Kapor and the LL board. We have all seen the end results of their disastrous decisions since 2006.
And you proved one of my points. LL courted corporations/linden pets at the expense of their "Average Joe" residents. And they continue to do so to this day in both SL and in their new "product" Sansar.
IMO ole Mitch never wanted to run a virtual world with sex in it. He wanted something that the corporate world would embrace and want to use and want to pay him "big bucks" for using. It was a bizzaro world fantasy of ole Mitch after that first virtual penis and vagina appeared. Game over for corporate adoption of SL. It was never going to happen. Mass adoption was still possible but they f$%ked that up.
So, instead of embracing what they did have and going for mass adoption of SL "warts, sex, and all". They went a different route. And look at what we are all left with. Disaster.
It's healthy to call the 1%r's, the establishment, out on their f$%kups. It leads to better decision making by them. It puts fear into them. They actually have to consider what Average Joe wants and how these really f$%ked up policies that ole Mitch and the LL board have imposed on all of us since 2006 affect the vast majority of residents - the 99%r's.
Average Joes and Janes are the ones paying for LL/SL, keeping it afloat, and financing the development of Sansar. Not ole Mitch, not the board, not the landbarons, not the "professional" creators, and not you Wagner. ;)
Those Average Joes and Janes up to this point have been dismissed with utmost disrespect. The contempt shown to them and their concerns over the last 10 years is there for all to see. It's obvious.
It's your blog, boss... But to continue covering for ole Mitch, ole Ebbe, and the LL board at this point seems to be more about you wanting a future in corporate "journalism" than holding these folks accountable for their incompetence.
And the Turkey Buzzard goes...
HIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! ;)
Posted by: Cathartes Aura | Friday, May 20, 2016 at 06:10 AM
.... and this is why conspiracy theories like this exist among many SLers -- there's no way to falsify them. I haven't been a contractor for Linden Lab for literally over 10 years, but that's irrelevant because we already seem to be deep in birth certificate territory here.
Posted by: Wagner J Au | Friday, May 20, 2016 at 10:02 AM