Teen Grid to Merge with the Adult Grid?

This rumor has been floating around for months, but the following piece of information recently appeared on a blog post from Linden Labs:

— If you haven’t yet noticed, the industrious people on the Teen Grid have sent an entire region across the age gap for our amusement. The Region is named (appropriately) SL6B Teen. It has appended itself to the side of the main event, and can be reached by a causeway from SL6B Polaris. It’s a lovely piece of work, and the Teens are undoubtedly the Future of Virtual Worlds. Come see how they are going to knock you off your pedestal, gramps.

If the two grids do merge (since the teens are the future of SL), I for one might not be sticking around much. Legally speaking, the rules of the grid will have to change. You can’t have anything above a PG rating if you’re going to allow minors and adults to mix.

I’ve read that some merchants are looking forward to the idea of having more teen consumers (read: frivolous spenders) come into the grid, but I’m not sure if they’re considering the possible number of adults who would leave simply because they could no longer be adults.

And I’m not talking about X-rated stuff, either. I’m talking about excessive censorship all the way down to watching what we say, when we say it, and to whom we say it. Consider that in movies, certain obscenities are listed as different ratings. For instance, use the F-word once in a movie and you can get a PG-13 rating; use it twice and you then have to make the movie rated-R. If you want a PG grid for everyone, you can't use that word anywhere, anytime.

I, for one, won’t feel like going to a club and knowing that the only thing I can discuss is math homework and Hannah Montana.