Well, that didn't take long. We've written that Second Life — simply because press hype of the Benchmark-backed virtual world had run so far ahead of reality — was ripe for a backlash. But that was as much wishful thinking as anything else. Now Ari Paparo, in his 2007 forecast, is describing Linden Lab's online environment as the PointCast of the second bubble, and its implosion so obvious it hardly merits the status of prediction. David Kirkpatrick of Fortune, defending the business journalists that have taken Second Life's user numbers as gospel, concedes the product is unusable. And a blogger on Terra Nova, a site dedicated to Second Life and other virtual worlds, gives 13 forms the backlash may take. To which Valleywag's Clay Shirky adds another four, after the jump.

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
14. Distribution of in-world activities show that the bulk of activity X is created by a tiny percentage of people. Public, not understanding power law distributions, is shocked.
15. Ponzi scheme: the economic stats are only sustainable in a period of perceived hypergrowth, and skepticism causes a run on the bank/devaluation of L$. (Were John Grisham writing this scenario, he would call it the Randolf Intuition.)
16. Marketers talk back — don't get any real numbers from Linden, complain publicly.
17. Marketers revolt — do get real numbers from Linden, recoil at ROI.