Turn-Ons: Linden Dollars, Nonhuman Avatars; Turn-Offs: Mechs, Furries, Exploding Pigs, Anshe Chung

“What sort of man reads Playboy?” Playboy has long posed that vaguely rhetorical question in the pages of its monthly magazine. Well, now we finally have the answer. He’s a Second Life entrepreneur, an established man of experience and poise, comfortable in his furry avatar with the taste, talent and unrelenting drive to make it in a virtual world where conflicts are resolved with exploding pigs. Oh yeah, and he loves hot avatar-on-avatar action!

Linden Lab’s Second Life, the metaverse’s premier destination for folks missing a first, is getting a new tenant: Playboy. The world’s largest-selling men’s magazine will open shop in the Internet-based virtual world sometime in June. What sort of form it will take remains to be seen. A metaverse mansion and grotto? A retail outlet peddling Playboy Bunny avatar skins? Or perhaps a simple casting call for the girls of the next “cultural zeitgeist”?