With everyone who's anyone descending on Second Life, heralding it as The Second Coming, you gotta wonder when the hatorade's gonna start flowing. Standard case of build 'em up, only to knock 'em down. Game blog Terra Nova does just that with these lucky 13 options for possible backlash:

• 1. It's all just sex. sex sex sex I tell you
• 2. It's not just sex, it's prostitution
• 3. It can be used for hiding / laundering money
• 4. Terrorist can use it to communicate / plot attacks using it's wonderful simulation abilities (though we've talked on TN about how VW's might help the fight against Terrorism)
• 5. Age play or Furries or both: when awww kittens turns to ewwww, give us the wholesome wiikitty
• 6. OMG children could use it and (see 1) sex, omg omg omg abuse, grooming - shut it all down now
• 7. Hold on a moment, we just noticed - it's not real!
• 8. Addiction
• 9. Gambling
• 10. The numbers are 'lies'
• 11. Better mouse trap
• 12. SL is all just brands these days - what's the point, you have to be a company to have a real presence and all the users are just mindless fodder that escape the real word into a place where they just get bombarded with the same old messages, look Fox News just opened up sim. Virtual O'Reilly bringing his 'culture war to the virtual' that's the last straw, like we needed another one
• 13. And the outside bet - no really, it is just as wonderful as everyone says

I'll toss in my hat and add "It looks like ass" to that laundry list. While Terra Nova isn't wishing ill will on SL, the site guesstimates that booing and rock throwing will start in March, so get that popcorn and stay tuned! Brian Ashcraft

Second Life Facing Backlash? [Terra Nova]