Dear Leo,

You spend most of your time creating content on the Internet. What would you think for example if everyone in your home town poked fun at you for doing seedy things all day long, just because you’re using the Internet?

That would be unfair and ignorant don’t you think? And it wasn’t far from public perception a few years ago before the Internet was embraced en mass and not just by geeks.

But why is this unfair? After all, the Internet is crawling with pornographic material.

Just like the Web, Second Life is an open platform which lets its users do anything they like. And indeed a certain percentage of Second Life contains seedy activity. Do you really think the ratio of seedy to non-seedy in Second Life is any different to the Web, the Internet, every day life, the magazine rack?

All the more disappointing is you’ve interviewed people from Second Life like Catherine Omega, and you even have an account. Was this really what you perceived while using Second Life? Or do you just poke fun because it’s the in thing to do and disregard your journalistic integrity?

In Twit episode 155, 10 minutes in (though this isn’t the first time) you said people go in to Second Life, buy nude suits, wonder around naked, and it’s for lonely people.

Having followed most of your work in podcasting from the beginning, and I’ve donated to the TWiT network twice so I genuinely appreciate your work, but the flippant remarks you make every time Second Life crops up in conversation hasn’t done it any favours.

Best,
Anthony Hocken

PS: This also applies to the likes of John C. Dvorak but then he speaks so much crap nobody takes him seriously anyway. Cranky Geeks is a mildly entertaining show, and John is a likeable character, but anything worth listening to comes from the guests and not John’s loose tongue.