Following the Congressional hearings about Second Life, Jon Stewart delved into the underlying issues as part of his news broadcast, The Daily Show.
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New York – The Daily Show, the primary source of news an information for the important digital native demographic of people between 18 and 29, took an in depth look at the issues facing residents of Second Life in a segment entitled Avatar Heroes with Rob Riggle.

After quickly moving past less important issues, such as why Congress was holding hearings about Second Life in the first place, or whether or not Osama bin Laden is building terrorist friendly sims from the basement of his mother’s cave, Stewart and Riggle moved to important issues of avatar envy and avatar construction.

Susan Tenby, Senior Manager of Online Community Development for TechSoup, the technology place for non-profits, has been bombarded by questions and friend requests every since Mr. Steward expressed avatar envy for her Second Life avatar, Glitteractica Cookie. Members of the TechSoup community are rallying behind Ms. Cookie and hoping to raise awareness of the important role that Nonprofit Commons plays in Second Life.

Rob Riggle appeared in Avatar Heroes in the shape of a dolphin and explained well the reasons people may want to express themselves in non-humaniod shapes. However, this did not impress Nimbus Rau. Ms. Rau runs Metamorphoses, a shop specializing in non-humanoid avatars. Ms. Rau has one of the best dolphin avatars in Second Life, along with cat avatars and many other interesting shapes and tools.

“It was amusing, but I'd have been more amused if they'd actually used SL avatars rather than getting their CGI folk to make some up,” Ms. Rau replied to questions about the show. When asked if the segment including dolphin avatars resulted in increased sales, she observed that dolphin avatar sales have been increasing recently, but she attributed this mostly to the Pern RP sims that have been opening up recently. One of the books in the Dragonriders of Pern series is The Dolphins of Pern.

When asked if she would consider making avatars more closely resembling the one that Mr. Riggle sported in Avatar Heroes, she responded “ugh, no thanks! That thing was fugly! *laugh* Why, do you think there's a market for... what was the phrase, ‘fish ta-tas’?” Ms. Rau knows her business. Although she is only one year old in world; her rez day was the same day as the Avatar Heroes broadcast, she’s already sold over a hundred dolphin avatars and interest is continuing to grow.

The episode also explored activism in Second Life. Riggle presented an image of a Code Pink activist attempting to disrupt the virtual hearing. The activist in the clip was eaten by a giant caterpillar. No one in the Codepink SL group admitted to being part of that action, or of planning any other actions in the near future, perhaps out of fear of griefers in the shape of giant caterpillars.

Avatar Heroes provided an important initial view of the power and important issues of Second Life. Hopefully, they will learn from the feedback from groups like TechSoup, and CodePink and business people like Nimbus Rau and continue to do important, serious coverage of developments in Second Life.