Ren Toxx

Some SL friends I’ve had for over a decade, and to this day I don’t so much as idly wonder how they look in real life, let alone feel the need to know.

I just tell them I “don’t roleplay” and prefer “honest friendship”. Depending on how little they indeed care, some will ask what I mean, some won’t even bother. Of the former, few last more than a few minutes’ worth of conversation before deciding it’s just easier to move on & look elsewhere for the type of cheap, fake random friendship they actually prefer—regardless of their unwillingness to admit it, or maybe because of it. Often it’s new people who (somewhat unconsciously) will trade honesty for the self-deception of having quickly made ‘lots of friends’; and at times I do talk with them about it—that, no matter how understandable their feeling of loneliness in SL, the time they spend collecting fake friends is time taken away from making real ones. Nevertheless, I don’t recall ever having made a friend from these. Some, of course, just grumble ’what are you, some sort of philosopher?’ (apparently the modern word for anyone who chooses to think anything through), but others actually say they ‘like me’ for it... and yet, predictably and indeed tellingly, never come back to build on that.

Another way, to quickly add/remove different sets of HUDs (or anything else, really) for different situations, is to wear all the HUDs you want for each situation, then save it as an outfit (name it ‘!Situation #X’ or whatever), then go to your Inventory > Outfits folder, locate it, and remove from it everything but the actual HUDs (you’re not removing the actual items, just links to them). From then on, you can just open your Outfits list (Ctrl + o) and use the “Add to Current Outfit” or “Remove from Current Outfit” functions to quickly wear/unwear that particular set of HUDs without changing anything else of whatever you’re wearing at the moment. In this way you can effectively make different, quick sets of ’Favorites’. Tip: name these special ‘outfits’ starting with symbols like ! so that they’ll appear on top and you won’t need to scroll down to find them, if you have a lot of normal outfits that might otherwise show first.

Vanilla.

My ‘rules’, such as they are, revolve a lot more around whether to even accept/send the request in the first place. Not making this a criticism, Prokofy—there may be a perfectly good reason why you do things differently. But if I had the problems you describe, I’d be hard-pressed not to conclude it’s my own friending policy that needs revision. I very much doubt I’d be inclined to add people who are stalkerish, neurotic clubgoers, self-absorbed DJs, or otherwise mindless friend hoarders. True, you can’t always tell after just a few conversations… but the point is, if that’s when I added, then I might as well consider letting more time pass before doing it. Which is exactly what I do; and yes, I get plenty who go on to consider (and often say) that I’m unfriendly—which, in and on itself, I find a mighty handy indicator of which ones won’t be good friends anyway. The result being that all of my friends know I take no crap, so they don’t offer it.

No. As others said, cheap, stacked skyboxes have that amongst other limitations. What you can do is to block IMs from strangers while there. There’s a Debug Setting, VoiceCallsFriendsOnly, which does exactly that when you set it to TRUE; and for convenience, some viewers like Firestorm even let you put it into their Quick Settings panel, to quickly switch it on & off. Does it prevent jerks from cam-perving you? No, but it does prevent them from IMing you to comment on what they see, which is what’s actually degrading your SL experience. Keep in mind that, unless you dress somewhat conservatively and are very meticulous (donning underwear even when not visible, carefully setting up your alphas, pasties and whatnot), some people will perv you when out & about. Alas, for each one obnoxious enough to tell you about it, there’s at least five who will do it at pleasure without informing you—either because it allows them to carry on doing it without your taking preventive measures (like teleporting out), or because they don’t imagine any gain in acquainting you with their perviness.

With text, yes. For its intended use, no.

Yes. I solved it talking to people.

Yes.

Which is exactly why she left so quickly: to avoid any such consideration. That’s the (supposed) benefit of the ‘slamming-door-on-your-way-out’ tactic. It’s also why she reminded me so much of the other thread with the YouTube ’leaver’ guy who complained of confusion while visibly and consistently darting past any and all tutoring sources, and only stopping to showcase things he could find that weren’t so self-explanatory. In her case, leaving quickly saves her from having to face the questions about how she managed to find only 30-day limited places and none of the open ones which everyone else did. Don’t be sorry, Colleen. I’ve helped newcomers for years, and eventually you can smell it in these types: they prefer not to be helped.

As many as might feel threatened by the badges themselves, I guess? I do get that you think they’re silly; in fact I’m agreeing with you on that, with different words. I’m just saying that if people left SL for everything that is silly one way or the other, regardless that it comes with an actual picture of a badge or not, then SL would have been utterly abandoned years ago. I’m not sure it would’ve even taken off in the first place. Practically everyone does something silly—or that others see as such—, and much of it boils down to ‘badging’, no matter how subtly. I might not participate of it, but I don’t feel affected by it. It doesn’t corrupt my textures, nor empty my friends list or my L$ balance. So it doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of Second Life, that I should vow to abandon the platform entirely.

Thing is, I see people with “patted / liked / whatever X times” titlers going around. It’s a badge. Do I pat them, or like them more for it? No, but I don’t automatically shun them either, and I certainly don’t threaten to leave SL if I see one. I also see people badging themselves, more or less figuratively, with group tags, profile texts, picks, profile pictures, costumes or outfits or avatars; even with words and actions and attitudes. And yes, it’s a foregone conclusion that they want to wow others with it, never mind that most can’t admit it. And no, I’m not wowed by it myself—but again, I don’t feel threatened by it, to the extent of saying I’ll leave SL if I see one. I call it being fine with whatever rocks other people’s boats, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone.

It’s just a variation of that (recently discussed) YouTuber who ‘tried’ Second Life without terribly bothering to hide the fact that he was mindset not to like it. All the essential red flags are there, including pretending not to have noticed all the places that are both wide-open and newcomer-friendly, while at the same time making the most of the few restricted ones. So I’ll say the same: there’s no logic in bending over to try & accommodate people who are going out of their way to find and enjoy suffer bad experiences. Not only there’s no way to please them because they didn’t want to be pleased, but it screws a lot of users who do want to enjoy themselves in here. Land access options? No, we won’t give you any, because a single snowflake may be upset by it and publicize his disappointment. Better we have many willing users disappointed, just so we can try & please the one who enjoys displeasure—and was going to leave SL in a couple days no matter what, anyway.

I’d disagree. It has white knights, black knights, Luna sort of trying to be both, Solar basically emojing the living daylights out of Luna (Klytina would be proud), a metric sh*t-ton of memes... and I can’t believe no one commented on Drakeo trying to interview himself back by page #14? What’s not to love.

No, that ‘leaver’ cannot be retained because, for one, he was never a ‘comer’ in the first place. In fact I’d almost characterize him as a ‘hater’, if it wasn’t that he wasn’t actually interested in hating SL, either... only in making one of those long-fashionable YouTube videos ‘amusingly’ (generous choice of adverb here) putting down a product you never had the remotest interest in. But as long as you get clicks, Likes and “ha-has” from watchers just as indifferent to the product in question, it’s all good. It’s also as if I entered a restaurant of Mexican food, which I don’t like, for the sole purpose of finding and featuring in a YT video all the things I do, indeed, not care for. But it’s OK, you can monetize that. You always could, centuries before computers even existed, never mind the Internet. And of course, most times it ends up having precious little to do with whether the product is in fact any good. For sure, this guy maybe thinks he successfully concealed that he never wanted to like SL or understand it. But he does that very poorly. Running around fast enough to avoid paying attention to anything, let alone whatever would indeed provide an explanation? Check. Arriving at a specific newbie—helping place (with two helping agents, that I could spot), saying “help?” as if actually asking for it, but making sure it was only to his private recording (and therefore his YT audience) rather than anyone there who could—and most likely would—have indeed helped him? Check. Twice featuring specific places with age restrictions, and making the most off them for his predetermined point of widespread unwelcoming-ness? Check. Going to a shop and asking sarcastically if he was expected to shop? Well, that doesn’t even merit a “check”—more like a colossal “duh”. More generally, the trick is to make it sound like you’re actually making an honest review, but never explicitly saying so—and, if possible, adding a giggle here & there. That way you cover your ass, in case someone tells you it’s a lame-ass review. Anyhow. Even if the argument was “couldn’t we somehow modify Second Life to retain even these types, in a ‘change-their-mind’ way?”, the answer would still be no. You see, many people simplistically think it’s just a question of somehow ‘expanding’ SL to offer something for them, too. But like most products, Second Life is already carefully balanced to satisfy a somewhat broad audience... key word being balanced. Hide or even eliminate advanced features so that new users can’t feel confused by them? Sure, if you wish to screw any and all advanced users. Plaster the user experience with far more texts, pop-ups and windows offering a myriad of ways to give you help? Absolutely, and cue in the complains of unwanted / spammy help offerings. Dumb down the help material? No need to: most people refuse to read any of it, anyway—and some of them then go on to face the very issue and impatiently complain that they don’t know how to solve it, right after hitting “Close” on the explanation or darting past it as fast as they can, just as this YouTube guy did. It’s not that there’s a lack of helping material. The “RTFM” acronym was coined for a reason, no matter that these types think that a video of themselves failing to do so is inherently funny, let alone informative.

Yes, sometimes kindness can be fake and/or look “excessive”. But so can hostility—in fact, I’d say it’s as common. People coming to a place to be the most antagonistic & idiotic they can be, in the loudest possible way... and often bringing buddies with them, to ensure they’ll have an audience who’ll clap them and pat them in the back afterwards, for the supposed merit of the act. I know a lot people are drawn to, or genuinely entertained by others doing it, in a shallow ‘ooo shiny!’ way, but I honestly can’t bring myself to be impressed by it. It’s just as fake, and therefore, every bit as stupid, if not more. At least fake kindness often has a genuinely good purpose to it: it avoids gratuitously making others feel uncomfortable. And if I want acted hostility, I’ll go watch a movie—at least the actors there are often professional & skilled, plus there’s an actual, deeper point being made than just the act itself. Same for fake activity, really. ’Lively’ club whose activity consists of everyone desperately gesturebating over each other, to the point where no meaningful talk can be held? Yeah, thanks, but I still feel very unimpressed by its sheer fakeness. If at some point, in some place, people are there but quiet, it’s because they want to be quiet at that particular moment; I don’t have that kind of need to change them to my benefit; if I’m bored, that’s my problem, not theirs. I know a lot of people can’t actually grasp that (even if they say they can), but it’s true. One only needs to remember the last time one had to go AFK for a relatively long time, or actually focus on an absorbing IM, and one will (or at least should) understand that others might do the same in their own time. So no, I can’t say I’m terribly bothered by ‘nice and quiet’.

London City.

Try one of those absolutely empty regions, and also disabling sounds momentarily, to see if for some reason it’s actually coming from something you’re wearing. Also, some viewers have a Sound Explorer function that shows all kinds of sounds, with type, object owner, etc. Even if yours doesn’t, there’s always the Beacons function (Ctrl + Alt + Shift + N), which is standard. I use all these constantly, as I’m not at all fond of the sometimes excessive sound decoration of some places, and often end up muting most if not all of it.

I’m very fond of London City, but sometimes visit Ahern too. There’s some such established hangouts, plus many fleeting ones; and you can always peruse the Second Life Editors Picks’ Chat Hotspots or Pubs categories.

Hell, no, I’d bore myself to death.

I love it. I do use some appliers for makeup or controllable transparency, but I was oh so happy to get rid of my body’s ‘onion layers’.

Once or twice but, being a weirdo, my overriding thoughts are to stand my ground and not let myself be swayed by concerns of superficial originality or ‘uniqueness’, so I absolutely don’t go away or change even if the entire avatar seemed a pixel-by-pixel clone of mine—which would be improbable enough. If anything, I’ll join whatever general amusement may ensue from the circumstance.

The miles-away-hello doesn’t terribly bother me. I assume it’s highly scripted and therefore absolutely valueless; so, like most of these scripted congenialities, I just ignore it—and sometimes actually mute it, to filter out fake chat spam. Every now & then this means I end up muting the owner or host, but that’s alright: they’re probably too busy if they need a script to do their talk, anyway. What does creep me out is when a host goes way overboard and, upon my first ever entrance into the club, greets me like “Ren! So glad to see you!”—or, even worse, “Long time no see!”. I don’t mind an unrealistic script; like any chatterbot, there’s limits to what they can do, and if one is programmed to say it’s my loving husband, it has to do it. But a human being actually (or at least presumably) thinking thru what they type? Yeah, no, I’d rather take my chances with the bot: at least they have no choice in the matter.