When I started writing "Sex, Money and Fame in Second Life" seven weeks ago, one name was on every avatar's lips: Anshe Chung. 
She's famous for her money, in fact--she claims to have become the world's first virtual millionaire in 2006 from selling developed real estate in Second Life to actual people. It turns out that Anshe Chung is a perfect hat trick for SMF--given that her past as an escort in Second Life is now being as widely discussed as her money and fame.
When I first landed in Second Life, I had no idea what any of this meant. Fake real estate? Real people? Millions of actual dollars? Is this like a bunch of kids playing Monopoly, squirreling away fistfuls of actual cash for selling tiny red hotels? In the first few days, I was dumbstruck by the notion as Phoebe Wunderland (the avatar of my Huffington Post editor, Romi Lassally) and I walked into walls, flew into ravines and marveled at how a New York writer and Los Angeles editor who have never met in person can bond while taking naked pictures of themselves to chronicle our developing avatar bodies.
I'll never forget the innocence of those early days, before I discovered concepts like ageplay (two or more consenting adults pretend to be having a sexual affair between an adult and a child); griefers (in real life, these people would be the guys who commit utterly malicious and ultimately meaningless crimes such as putting staples or crushed glass in trick-or-treat candy) and pose balls (the little round spheres you can touch to make it appear as if your avatar is in the throes of passion, or dancing a gig, or doing whatever it is you want your virtual body to do).
These days, I know how to move the furniture around in my cavernous borrowed house, outside the front door of which I recently installed a Zen rock garden. Now I can sit and watch the sun set over the shimmering virtual shoreline, at least in theory. Despite my newfound abilities, I was still unable to figure out how to get a pair of shoes to fit for my first interview with Anshe Chung (the avatar of Ailin Graef). I showed up barefoot when she teleported me into a room at Anshe Chung Studios Tower, and sat on a flower shaped chair in front of a bookcase stuffed with oversized volumes.
Anshe Chung likens her empire to a small shop constantly under the threat of being swallowed by a giant such as Wal-Mart. Many corporations are setting up shop in Second Life, although once the money is spent on development few seem to know how to gain any real traction. Anshe Chung's meteoric rise to the top of the virtual elite has been nothing less than a dazzling example of how people can evolve to meet the demands of a new paradigm--even to excel before there's a roadmap to point out the way.
We talked about her reputation, and she said that the "mogul baron monopoly superpower thing is total nonsense." She sees herself as a small business person and a "virtual resident...with "strict and clearly defined ethics."
Lately, she's been forced to defend that definition. A note card she once passed out while working as a Second Life escort has been circulating in the virtual world, and even made its way into a Wikipedia entry about Anshe Chung. Several avatars mentioned this to me within a 24 hour period--all of them movers and shakers in this strange new world. I heard that someone was going around telling people that he was writing an article for the New Yorker about Anshe Chung's history, so I tracked him down.
"Oh," he wrote, "the New Yorker is just a fanciful idea of mine."
Right, buddy. Still, by then, the rumors had already started to spread that this story was going to be broken wide open in the New Yorker, of all places. I would be happy to write the caption for that cartoon, New Yorker editors take note.
To lay it all bare: Anshe Chung's calling card offers a series of G-rated services, including an introduction to the Chinese culture, as well as a roster of mature services, ranging from Ghost Control, Cyberian Angel and Black Mistress to the most ethereal and intangible of all earthly and virtual desires: love.
Before you go thinking that Anshe Chung is going to bury her beautiful virtual head in the digital sand, know this: she's not embarrassed by her past, which is simply an exercise, as she describes it.
While Anshe Chung scoffed at the notion that she is a pioneer in a new era, I believe it's true, and it's not surprising that her character is being dissected and attacked because she has the courage to test the waters in a reality that didn't exist until users recently created it.
"Virtual reality can liberate people from many restriction of the physical world," she said. "Real world location, age, physical fitness, race and many things do not matter anymore in virtual reality. This allows minds to reincarnate in new ways...In general we must understand that the virtual reality is still very early technology, it is by far not matured and by far not as immersive as it is going to be...Virtual reality will become hard to distinguish from the real experience at some stage."
The people who start to experiment now, just like the companies that are buying up land without knowing, really, what they should do with it, will be the ones who know how to navigate the future.
PS. Thanks to designer Yuka Itamae, whose flashy stilettos come complete with a sexy walk, I will never have to conduct another interview barefoot. Painless strutting in tantalizing shoes should immediately be added to the growing list of reasons why virtual reality holds a singular appeal.
For more information about Eureka Dejavu's foray into Second Life, visit eurekadejavu. Rita J. King's website is www.ritajking.com.