Second Life natives are feeling as if off-world businesses have begun an invasion of their virtual world by setting up shop there and have already begun "rewriting history" - even before they are proclaimed victors.

"The bullshit and hyperventilation about recent developments in Second Life has now officially turned into a theater of the absurd," writes the Second Life Herald, which has the cleverest of taglines: "Always Fairly Unbalanced" (via MarketingProfs Daily Fix). The post takes to task an Ogilvy PR exec's scribblings titled "A Gallery of Virtual 'Firsts' from Second Life."

Companies such as Nissan, Wells-Fargo, Ogilvy, Adidas, Sun and Reuters have recently opened Second Life outposts, but Second Lifers say such firms are not first-movers but are merely following in the footsteps of those who have actually built up Second Life since Linden Labs launched the virtual world three years ago.

Consider this rant - the equivalent of a Native American's "what am I - chopped liver?" to those who claim Columbus discovered the New World:

"Where we come from it is not merely bad ettiquette to falsely claim a 'first' and ignore three years of pioneering hard labor by the people you are supposedly trying to market to, it is something of a crime to take credit for what others have done, and it is no less a crime to give credit to late-coming billion dollar corporations for what hard working people did all on their own many times over for three years. Until you learn that keep the fuck out of my way."