While you can't do these things in real life any more, you can do them in Second Life.

[Beth Macbain]

4 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Being reactionary is seldom rational no matter what triggers it.

Much like this entire thread suggesting LL react to COVID-19 by capitalizing on it?

For the people who truly do not understand why this is such an atrocious idea, take a look at this and this and this for just a few examples. 

[Dano Seale]

7 hours ago, animats said:

Fortnite usage in Italy is up 70%.

Surprise of the Century this after they've closed all the schools eh? 

I shall spent my quarantine time tracking figures in the US to see which kills more - the virus or the shootings related to it!  

[Tolya Ugajin]

41 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

What are you on about?

America never really had a bunch of white people at church or in public meetings?  Never had well-to-do families eating large Thanksgiving dinners?  And people don’t do these things now?  I mean, granted ours is in a log home, but other than that, Rockwell's painting kinda looks like Thanksgiving at mom's house every year, although I suppose nobody wears ties.  What do you suppose a town hall or union meeting in Vermont (94% White) looks like these days?  Or a service at a typical Lutheran church (97% White) - heck, even Catholic churches would be predominantly White, particularly if you're at a service outside the Southern border states.

By your "not even America looks like this anymore" standard, it would be impossible to paint a group of humans these days.  What, 1 in 50 of the people in those paintings are supposed to be Native American?  One in eight has to be Black, and somewhere around 1 in 5,000 needs to be trans, to satisfy your artistic criteria?  Or is it the fact that those paintings don’t reflect suffering and misery that offends you?

Do you similarly slam Michelangelo's Pieta because not even Judaea looks like that any more and Mary's dress would never have been so voluminous?

I’m sure the OP would be just fine if, say, the picture of people in church were from a Baptist service (in case you're not familiar, 40% of African Americans are Babtists), but instead of constructively suggesting alternatives, which, heck, even Prok managed to do, or going with the “appearing to be marketing off a crisis would be tacky” angle, you choose to go full SJW.  The OP is pointing out that SL is a way for people, who are trying to withdraw from society to stay well right now, to fill the void, but, by all means, let's make an issue of the lack of diversity reflected in the paintings - by only one of America's most well-known artists.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

30 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

There were places in America that looked just about exactly like those pictures. Not everywhere, of course, but that doesn't mean that they didn't exist.

I've no doubt that there were thousands of such Pleasantvilles, USA (pop. 1500) throughout America. For all I know, there may still be some in existence.

But that's not the point: these paintings are not documentary images recording one particular facet of American society: they purport, by their own account (see the captions) to stand in for, and be representative, of what "America Stands For."

That's arguable. What is true, and the point I was getting at, is that as representations of what America, as a whole, actually looked like, they are woefully inadequate. Even Rockwell, himself, when confronted with criticisms of them as over-idealizing, responded that "I paint life as I would like it to be." (Italics mine.) Not even he pretended this is life in the US as it actually was.

30 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I imagine Rockwell's head as accepting enough to hold those ideas without much stress and that he was savvy enough to know how far he could reach without falling off his soapbox. As Prok shows, he did reach.

I will plead guilty to using "Norman Rockwell" as a synecdoche for what these pictures, and arguably much of his oeuvre, have come to symbolize -- and, I'd argue, how they are intended to be employed in the OP.

Were this a discussion about Rockwell's artistic, social, and ethical vision, with reference to his body of work, I'd agree with you. Rockwell is more complicated than he is given credit for (and much more complicated than the OP's use of these images suggests -- although not so complicated that his head wouldn't explode at "yiffing").

But it's not about Rockwell, or his art: it's about the symbolic freight that his nostalgic vision bears. He's only partially responsible for that, but my point still stands: these are terribly inadequate representations of his America, and "our" America. And they are entirely alien to most non-Americans, myself included.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

By your "not even America looks like this anymore" standard, it would be impossible to paint a group of humans these days.  What, 1 in 50 of the people in those paintings are supposed to be Native American?  One in eight has to be Black, and somewhere around 1 in 5,000 needs to be trans, to satisfy your artistic criteria?  Or is it the fact that those paintings don’t reflect suffering and misery that offends you?

See my response to Theresa above.

That's a ridiculously reductive perspective on how to achieve a more diverse and open artistic vision. There are a huge variety of ways of depicting diversity of experience that don't involve some kind of ridiculous catalogue of all of its human representatives. And one starts by not succumbing to a narrowness of vision that actively excludes, as these images do.

And I'm not "offended" by them. Frankly, I am entirely unemotionally engaged by them, either positively or negatively.

And that's kind of the point.

[Madelaine McMasters]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I will plead guilty to using "Norman Rockwell" as a synecdoche for what these pictures, and arguably much of his oeuvre, have come to symbolize -- and, I'd argue, how they are intended to be employed in the OP.

Were this a discussion about Rockwell's artistic, social, and ethical vision, with reference to his body of work, I'd agree with you. Rockwell is more complicated than he is given credit for (and much more complicated than the OP's use of these images suggests -- although not so complicated that his head wouldn't explode at "yiffing").

But it's not about Rockwell, or his art: it's about the symbolic freight that his nostalgic vision bears. He's only partially responsible for that, but my point still stands: these are terribly inadequate representations of his America, and "our" America. And they are entirely alien to most non-Americans, myself included.

As I see it here, this is as much about the selection of Rockwell's works (witness the difference between Animat's and Prok's offerings) as Rockwell. Though I certainly enjoy nostalgia, I'm also wary of its danger. By today's standards, Rockwell didn't reach all that far. Rockwell nostalgia will be tethered to a viewpoint that's fairly alien to many today (and then, when they had less voice). This, and our tremendous ability to forget the bad and remember the good, accidentally rehabilitates the sins of the past.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

As I see it here, this is as much about the selection of Rockwell's works (witness the difference between Animat's and Prok's offerings) as Rockwell.

Yep. That's partly the point I'm making -- although, again, what Rockwell has come to represent generally in our culture is something of a distortion of his actual understanding of the society he was documenting. He is, as a cultural icon (rather than as an actual person or artist) both bigger, and sadly smaller, than his real output should suggest, because he's become a handy cypher, a "stand in" for certain attitudes, by both the left and right.

And, again, it's also true that Rockwell was nostalgic, even if not quite so glaringly simplistically as we often think.

[Dano Seale]

44 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

oeuvre,

Ok, help me out here - due to my ridiculously useless secondary school education, one of the few phrases from French lessons I can recall is "oeuvre la porte" - "open the door". I've seen you use this word twice now and neither relates to "open". So, me being dumb as a rock, am I spelling it wrong in my version? Enlightenment is sorely needed here tyvm!  🤔

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 minutes ago, Dano Seale said:

Ok, help me out here - due to my ridiculously useless secondary school education, one of the few phrases from French lessons I can recall is "oeuvre la porte" - "open the door". I've seen you use this word twice now and neither relates to "open". So, me being dumb as a rock, am I spelling it wrong in my version? Enlightenment is sorely needed here tyvm!  🤔

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/oeuvre

ETA: The verb you are thinking of is "ouvrir."

Edited March 13, 2020 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Selene Gregoire]

The real America.

 

 

[Dano Seale]

7 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

ETA: The verb you are thinking of is "ouvrir."

Merde! ..... Tres bien mon ami, merci beacoup!  😊

[Beth Macbain]

We used to only be able to do this in RL, but now we can do it in SL! 

Just picked this up at an event and I think it may be an essential accessory for forum viewing.

https://gyazo.com/a5edf390ab2e7038b3560ba7273623ae

 

[Lindal Kidd]

I grew up in a Norman Rockwell town, in a land that the Saturday Evening Post told me was Norman Rockwell's America.  So yeah, when I see a Rockwell painting, I feel nostalgia for my youth.  Was it true?  Certainly not.  Were there other "Americas" at the time?  Of course.  Was it "right" for me, and my family, and my community to feel smug about "our" lifestyle and vision of America?  Nope.

But in spite of our having made a lot of progress in many ways, there is still nostalgia for the "good old days".  If you put on the rose-colored glasses of memory, you can remember the good parts that we've lost, while ignoring the bad parts that we've made some inroads on fixing.

And I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.  If we cannot look back to a "better time", how can we envision ways to make our own time, and our future, better?

[Dano Seale]

5 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

Just picked this up at an event and I think it may be an essential accessory for forum viewing.

https://gyazo.com/a5edf390ab2e7038b3560ba7273623ae

You're dropping your possibly infected covid-19 virus popcorn all over the place! Bloody irresponsible I say!

[Beth Macbain]

9 minutes ago, Dano Seale said:

You're dropping your possibly infected covid-19 virus popcorn all over the place! Bloody irresponsible I say!

I am self-isolated in my SL home. 😷

[Tolya Ugajin]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

See my response to Theresa above.

That's a ridiculously reductive perspective on how to achieve a more diverse and open artistic vision. There are a huge variety of ways of depicting diversity of experience that don't involve some kind of ridiculous catalogue of all of its human representatives. And one starts by not succumbing to a narrowness of vision that actively excludes, as these images do.

And I'm not "offended" by them. Frankly, I am entirely unemotionally engaged by them, either positively or negatively.

And that's kind of the point.

I call BS.  You're intial post was hostile and dismissive.  Frankly, it read like something off a PragerU parody of leftist critique of modern art, which is why I could not resist scolding you for it.  Your response was also flat out wrong - Rockwell's work does indeed reflect (in a common, artistic, idealizing fashion) what America, in many places, looked like then and (adjusting for the clothing) looks like today in many places.  Believe it or not, vast swathes of the Earth are NOT racially diverse like Toronto, most people self-segregate in their churches, and racially mixed families are still far from the norm.

Furthermore, your follow up post was quite specific about the lack of diversity in those selected Rockwell works, so for you to now prattle about "reductive perspective on how to achieve a more diverse and open artistic vision" is ludicrous.  The selection wasn't diverse enough for you, you offered zero alternative, so, by all means, be less "reductive" in your simplistic and crude (that's what "reductive" means for the members of our studio audience) response.  Maybe a nuanced perspective, or helpful suggestions, rather than just repeatedly complaining there's not enough color.

In addition, I don't know the OP or their level of artistic education, but it's highly possible they simply went to Google to find pictures and, hey, here we go, these are the kind of thing I'm looking for, peaceful pictures of people in social settings.  Isn't blasting their post exclusively on their art selection just a wee bit...elitist?  I thought we were supposed to avoid assuming that everyone is well educated on such topics as art criticism?

Admit it, you saw Rockwell, you saw a series of paintings featuring only white people, and your knee jerk reaction was to, "Rockwell bad!  No diversity bad!" rather than to put any thought whatsoever into the message the OP was trying to convey.  Maybe accusing you of virtue signalling was a bit unfair (you hardly need to do that in the setting) but your response was indeed silly.

[CaerolleClaudel]

11 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Which is one of the reasons that I haven't gone premium yet.

Besides, that's a simplification: even Bellissaria is more diverse than those pics. Pretty sure there are people of colour living there, for one thing. And, you know, gay people. Maybe a smattering of furries? Oh, and practitioners of various kinks and fetishes the likes of which would make Rockwell's head explode.

SL isn't going to expand its user base by narrowing its appeal.

Are we sure about that? How well do we *really* know Norman Rockwell?

[CaerolleClaudel]

5 hours ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

There’s a reason I didn’t post a pic and it wasn’t because I didn’t find any.

Sounds like some Furries need to get together and close that gap.

[Madelaine McMasters]

57 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

And I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.  If we cannot look back to a "better time", how can we envision ways to make our own time, and our future, better?

This is the peril of nostalgia. We remember the past as a "better time", even though it wasn't. By almost any objective global measure (longevity, health, violence, etc.) things have been improving for all of recorded history. There are, of course, localized (in time and space) pockets of regression, but the overall trend remains. This is why I try to be careful to separate my feelings of nostalgia from my hopefully objective understanding of the past.

Also remember that the memories of your past were laid down by a "you" what was (hopefully) more ignorant than the current you. How much trust would you place in a child's understanding of the world at large? That's approximately what we do when waxing nostalgic.

Edited March 13, 2020 by Madelaine McMasters

[Beth Macbain]

/me takes all her words and eats them...

 

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

11 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

This is the peril of nostalgia. We remember the past as a "better time", even though it wasn't. By almost any objective global measure (longevity, health, violence, etc.) things have been improving for all of recorded history. There are, of course, localized (in time and space) pockets of regression, but the overall trend remains. This is why I try to be careful to separate my feelings of nostalgia from my hopefully objective understanding of the past.

Also remember that the memories of your past were laid down by a "you" what was (hopefully) more ignorant than the current you. How much trust would you place in a child's understanding of the world at large? That's approximately what we do when waxing nostalgic.

There's a related danger if you're looking at Norman Rockwell paintings and thinking that they're not "diverse" because everyone has close to the same skin color. North of the Ohio River, the idea of everyone whose skin color was "white" being the same wouldn't have been taken seriously when those paintings were made.

The current xenophobic posturing has been around for most of this country's history - however, 100 years ago it was the Cuccinellis and Lewandowskis they were trying to keep out; 170 years ago it was the O'Reillys. (Yes, I chose those last names carefully.) In the 1920's the KKK was protesting Democratic national conventions because they were considering nominating (horrors) a Catholic.

[Tolya Ugajin]

1 hour ago, Selene Gregoire said:

The real America.

 

 

Every bit as reflective of the "real" America as...a Rockwell painting.  America is big and diverse, and so are people's perspectives of it, which are based largely on where they see it from.

[Selene Gregoire]

16 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

/me takes all her words and eats them...

 

 

Hmmm... the fineprint..

Quote

*  Terms & Conditions: Any accredited educational institution or organization with a 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit tax status is eligible for a discount. Limited-time $99/month pricing (billed annually or quarterly) is available to qualified organizations who are purchasing new Regions or renewing their existing Regions.

Define "Limited-time".

[Bree Giffen]

I think I understand the reasoning to @animats suggestion. Recreating iconic images can be good advertising. I don't think following the image exactly is necessary because the world isn't like that and neither is SL. My suggestion would be to simply show wholesome images of SL residents doing things they normally do in SL which is kind of what @Prokofy Neva and @lucagrabacr have suggested recently. 

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

13 hours ago, animats said:

Bellisaria is Norman Rockwell land. That's what people seem to want in SL. Yards, picnics, American suburban home life. Something millions of people just lost. So, promote SL as a way to get some of that life back.

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