Last month the Teen Grid Merge turned two years old. That’s two years of 16 and 17 year olds being allowed onto General regions in Second Life to mix with adults and two years of the regions that previously made up the Teen Grid being open to all members of Second Life.
Greeting newly transferred teens on Eros
When the merge first happened, there were dire predictions of doom and gloom abounding. The end of Second Life was said to be nigh, heralded by the coming of teens who would intrude themselves on adult areas and cause their parents to sue Linden Lab over the content they could access. Land owners switched their regions to Adult to be absolutely safe from teenagers or moved to Zindra, the all-Adult continent that was new at the time.
Marketplace sellers upgraded the maturity ratings on their items and those who didn’t upgrade were forced into Mature and Adult categories by LL, and there was an overall sense of fear on Plurk and blogs. The merge was going to be the end of Second Life in the minds of many.
But here we are two years later. SL is still open and flourishing (though some would debate that point) and teens walk among us, at least in General areas. No one talks about it anymore, the merge. There are still residents who are entirely unaware the merge ever happened and still believe that everyone in SL is 18 and over.
A bit of the old TSL website
Where did the teens go? Even I don’t know that. Most of my friends have turned 18 and integrated. Others have entirely disappeared, and some still have their accounts on hold until they turn 16, though I don’t doubt they’ve made new accounts, either teen or adult ones, and are wandering around.
The consensus on Plurk is the same, no one has noticed the teens lately nor any difference in SL since the merger. Some Plurkers suspect that the current teens are lying about their age since the age verification system is notoriously easy to trick, requiring only a birthdate to access adult content.
The Teen Grid has become just another piece of Linden land, though little about it has changed except for moving the old Bay City regions to connect with Bay City. Some of the old armies still live here, but it’s mostly dead and open and extremely old looking. Not much has changed since 2007, though that’s no big surprise considering the regular mainland is the same way, more or less.
It seems that something once considered to be so massive and fundamental of a change to SL has completely faded away, a positive thing in most respects. Teens have successfully integrated into Second Life and turned into a non-issue, at least for now.
What do you think? Have you seen any lasting effects from the merge? Have you noticed any teens or been impacted by their presence in SL?
