Burning Man 2007

We saw what happened with the SL5B (Second Life 5th Birthday) where organizers working hard for almost a year were quickly shot-down amidst the massive sanitation of the celebration by Linden Lab

It’s a pendulum that started with a complete hands-off approach by Linden Lab – refusing to ‘interfere’ with anything the residents did. So much so that ‘ageplay’, banking, stock exchanges and gambling began to flourish. Now the pendulum swings toward the sanitized, thumb-on-the-residents-back – and it’s likely to never swing back to where it was. Linden Lab seems to take one extreme or the other.

After some really nasty press, (not entirely accurate and rather alarmist and sensationalist and no, it wasn’t the SL Herald,) Linden Lab began to pull up their bootstraps and jump through hoops with huge backpeddling. They introduced “Identity Verification”, which later morphed into “age verification” (bullshit, I say – Second Life is for adults-only. Some 12 year old finds their way to some pr0n paradise – I say LET THEM.)

That more or less floundered and hasn’t been heard of since the controversies died down. Then there were the cries about the banking situation. And cries about land bots and things… and cries about ad-farms and and extortion and cries about…

Be careful what you wish for.

No one twisted anybody’s arm to go running around to the pr0n clubs, or to put their money into these banks, or any of all that other crap, yet it was the shrill vocal minority that whined about it all. And remember, the alleged trading of RL photographs of child porn in the sensational news story that seemed to be the catalyst for all the bad press about Second Life is alleged. The last word from Linden Lab is that they have not been able to find these assets in the system, thus the media company fanning those flames may also have been blowing smoke up Linden Lab’s ass - just to ‘validate’ the sensationalism of their so-called news story.

Now Linden Lab is sanitizing everything. Some of the most ridiculous restrictions were placed on entries submitted to the SL5B celebration. The Burning Man celebration always has been a complete free-for-all. And the real life version is wilder than Marti-Gras – a lot more promiscuity and wild raving.

Everett Linden sez: “To celebrate the inspiration that enriched Second Life, over the past six years, Residents in Second Life have gotten together to build one of the largest, most unusual and most creative events found in the Metaverse— the annual Art, Fire and Community festival known as Burning Life.”

So, are we in for more controversial hoopla coming out of Linden Lab regarding the Burning Man celebration? This is more important than SL5B ever could be, as it is the Burning Man tradition that Second Life is based-on and the was the inspiration for it’s very concept.

Well, Linden Lab is looking for your ideas. But it might be safer to suggest more conservative things like “Shirley Temples” and “Mister Rogers” and “sesame Street” and heaven forbid you suggest anything that has to do with any kind of nudity (even though PG movies show tits and ass all the time, at Linden Lab it means you’d better be an angel,) and certainly nothing to do with ‘children’.

Oh shit – scratch the Sesame Street stuff… OH! How about we suggest Linden lab not do a burning man as all? It’s easier to punish everyone because of a few loud-mouths.

Source: Burning Life: A call for volunteers « Official Second Life Blog