Cocksure Lab nixes nipples
by Tateru Nino 
Jul 1st 2008 at 3:00AM
Filed under: Culture, News items, Second Life
While Linden Lab's emissaries are busy scouring the Second Life fifth anniversary hunting down images of male and female people and avatars that might have a visible nipple, and insisting on the removal of such unspeakably offensive material (beware! Every mammal on the planet has at least two of these hideous markings!), one figure has the balls to remain above it all.
Michelangelo's strapping jock, David, though he might be appearing completely nipple-free, still gets to let it all hang out, having been granted the big okay by Everett Linden to stand proud, tall, and unmodified (at least from the waist down) among displays with far more severe restrictions imposed. Nipples might be out out of order, but the Lab's staff seem to have ensured a successful cock-up for the delight and wonder of one and all.
The Lab's staff may stand firm, but we're finding the whole package lacks consistency. Either the Lab needs to grasp things with both hands and tackle the issues (whichever of the available positions they may choose), or it's the users that will ultimately get the shaft in the end.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ghen said on 7:20AM 7-01-2008
I see what you did there...
Multiple times.
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Tateru Nino said on 8:41AM 7-01-2008
I got about halfway and almost couldn't go on :)
dandellion Kimban said on 8:22AM 7-01-2008
Well, this David and his PG rating is hell of a fun.
Though, I contacted Timmi Allen, the creator of the statue to ask him about nipples, and the answer was that Lindens have nothing to do with the absence of them. (http://metaverse.acidzen.org/2008/davids-nipples) Surely, statue exhibited in his garden is also nipple-free.
Which makes it all even more strange.
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Uccello Poultry said on 8:33AM 7-01-2008
While building the Isle of Lesbos exhibit (http://slurl.com/secondlife/SL5B%20Physical/228/17/24) I asked a couple visiting coordinators if art in our exhibit was "PG enuff" and got the reply "You mean the paintings with the nipples?" So I dutifully airbrushed out the nipples from a copy of Botticelli's 'The Birth of Venus' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Venus_(Botticelli)) and two other works from the classical world. I look at it this way: By agreeing to certain restrictions on use our group was given free exposure of another type. By last count over 1000 people had visited our little corner of SL5B and the comments I've heard tell me that folks are taking advantage of the information resources about the Isle and lesbian culture. My goal is accomplished with just a little pain. Sounds like real life.
If this had been my individual exhibit I could afford to let my personal feelings about this outrageous flip-flop have more influence. As I created the display for a group, though, my responsibilities were bigger. And I know that everyone involved is going to learn from this years hits and misses.
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dandellion Kimban said on 9:30AM 7-01-2008
Which just leads us to conclusion that 21st is more restricting than 15th century. Great!
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Marianne McCann said on 11:56AM 7-01-2008
Someone had a bit too much fun writing this -- but glad it was said. Maybe someday we'll get past all this and SL (and the rest of the darn world) will have some sort of seisible and consistent content policies.
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Marianne McCann said on 12:27PM 7-01-2008
...which leads me to wonder. If I took a photo of my avvie standing next to that statue, how many kinds of trouble would it cause?
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TigroSpottystripes Katsu said on 4:31PM 7-01-2008
LMTO!!! what a puntastic blog post, thanx! xD
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Tateru Nino said on 9:58PM 7-01-2008
Interestingly, the stricture on visible nipples was supposed to apply to visitors, rather than exhibits and exhibitors - at least according to the documentation I've gotten from organizers.
Either way, I'm confused about one thing. I know that Linden Lab did not crack down on David's nipples, specifically (though there have been other incidents) but why is this artwork actually *missing* them, while still retaining other, more prominent attributes? That dichotomy right there doesn't seem to make any sense.
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dandellion Kimban said on 5:10AM 7-02-2008
It is a puzzle, isn't it? I could accept that prim count was the case, but hardly that anybody would make prim nipples on that statue, it takes not much skill and knowledge to see that they would be done on texture.
But what is really amazing here is that Lindens are not behind all the censorship on the grid. It terrifies me that some of is happens on artist's side, like that air-brushing up there. Not to mention that that kind of vandalism (cause it is vandalism) leads us to the world where everything is either completely cleaned of anything even remotely sexual or extremely kinky. Idea of the world that covers both of those extremes and nothing between them is scary. http://metaverse.acidzen.org/2008/world-of-the-extremes
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Tateru Nino said on 6:24AM 7-02-2008
I think you may be particularly interested in the Comics Code Authority: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority
Their rulings (not unlike those of the ESRB, at various times) led many creators into a cycle of aggressive and often self-destructive self-censorship.
The CCA didn't need to crack down on indecent exposure or bad language or to keep vampires and werewolves out. Writers and artists fearfully skirted *widely* around content that might even attract the attention or veiled disapproval of that body.
The most effective censorship is to make people work to avoid being censored.