Amanda Crisp
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Posts posted by Amanda Crisp
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while singing opera on her
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and who are probably misconstrued
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On 11/19/2017 at 1:11 PM, greek Wingtips said:
The persons that are the income to LL's need to be enticed to stay, the landowners to the creators, am hearing members leaving or scaling down to save money,
I want to know what LL's is doing about this, Its like the overdue bill that one keeps ignoring, it will come to ahead when you have to confront it, but by that time it will be too late.
Unfortunately, some of the factors driving long-term (since 2005) Residents away from SL lie outside Linden Lab’s ability to influence.
LL seems incapable of dealing with stalkers, griefers and semi-professional “Social Bomb Throwers” - and people eventually lose patience and go elsewhere.
LL has also taken no effective action to incentivize the SL Roleplay community (formerly a Big Deal for SL) - and RPers are known for being willing to dump $ on the in-world economy on avatars, props, land rentals and other gadgets to build their perfect Character.
Personally, I stay here because my Partner is heavily invested here. She enjoys DJing and helping to keep a night-spot going; and I enjoy and admire her :-) I’m here for her; not because LL has really -earned- what I invest in Tier each month and on my annual Premium fee.
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11 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:
Your "All in the Family" analogy is broken. Carrol O'Connor didn't write the show, Norman Lear did. Was Archie Bunker a racist? Yes. (I don't know actually, I've never seen the show.) Was Norman Lear racist? No. My understanding of Norman Lear is that he used the show to shine an unflattering light on -isms and phobias through satire. Carrol O'Conner was rowing in the direction Lear pointed.
I can't imagine Lear laughing gleefully at an audience that missed the point. Nor can I imagine that the show was the expression of Lear's bigotry and we all misunderstood him as a brilliant satirist. I don't know how you'd prove something so soft to the satisfaction of everybody, but I think the consensus is that All in the Family was a net positive for American society. It may have been painful at the time, but satire's bite is supposed to hurt.
Amanda, I can only go by your own characterization of the RP you do, but if your laughing in IMs to one another is about the gullibility of an audience that embraces the stereotypes you present, then yes, you are racist. If you are laughing at your own lampooning of bigoted behavior, and your audience gets it, you are not a racist. If you are unable or unwilling to discern whether your audience gets it or not, you are careless.
It seems that Norman Lear can be given credit for using an unpleasant role to shine light on a more noble purpose, but I cannot :-)
We are laughing -at- the mindset being depicted; not gleefully celebrating stupidity.
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1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:
What we are contesting is your intelligence, for wasting such an important right to spread vile and easily disproved racist nonsense.
You keep missing the function of Roleplay :-) Storytelling is not intended to convert anyone to any belief; it is intended to tell a story....
.....where the bad people lose in the end :-)
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8 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:
So, let's break this down. You are defending racist role play because, you say, it "mirrors the actual dynamic tensions in society," correct? In other words, you are defending a racist understanding of motivations and identity because you think that These accurately represent -- "mirror," in your words -- the real world.
So . . . the racism in your RP is no longer about story arc or narrative. Your RP is racist because . . . well, because you are?
I am very well aware that RP is often used -- in controlled contexts and under expert supervision -- to deal with PTSD. Arguing that it is only therapeutic If it is reductive, falsifying, and, yes, racist is sheer and utter nonsense.
This is the familiar "we're paying for the privilege of being racist (or misogynist or homophobic or transphobic), and that gives us the right to be as objectionably mendacious and idiotic as we want!"
Well, sure, maybe. I'm delighted to observe, however, that my even more secure right to call you out as a racist costs me exactly nothing. I think I'm getting much the better deal.
To clarify, the thrust of my thoughts about Roleplay Is that by portraying a character whose role it is to behave badly, I drive plot for the other folks whose characters oppose me :-)
When I take on a character (that’s called “acting” by the way) my job is to portray that character, even when I and the other players are laughing in IMs to one another over what a complete piece of garbage I am portraying In Character.
I provide an accessible villain and they get to exercise their heroic muscles and literary talents opposing me. When that story-arc completes; then one of them gets to be the Mean Person next time :-)
That makes me a racist ? Carrol O’Connor was a racist for portraying Archie Bunker?
Tangentenally, it’s very cathartic for me when I’m not playing the heavy - to be able to Roleplay the act of dealing with bad behavior much more directly than our sensitive society deems “correct”. If the other character is being an evil bastage; you can tell them that and then play through an attempt to discourage their evilness.
In RL (real life) in the business world, dealing with bad behavior takes time, paperwork and lawyers - roleplaying spray-painting the rich bad-guy’s Mercedes is rather fun compared to that :-)
Roleplay is escapism :-)
So I contend that you are way off base to call me a racist :-) You are of course entitled to your own opinion :-)
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8 minutes ago, anna2358 said:
Can I suggest a re-phrasing:
... some of the Adult "race-play" regions I've seen are based on a whole heap of stereotypes about race and gender that I personally find very unpleasant.
I know some of us have legal training, at least they sometimes write as if they had.
In a democracy*, when the Majority feels something is unpleasant, then it gets laws passed to control it. In an autocracy, you get the laws when the autocrat finds it unpleasant. This is the principle difference between the two systems. In both cases there are often large numbers of people who disagree with the law, and sometimes, even in democracies, due to the quirks of fate, the minority view gets elected.
LL is a corporation, and is run by it's officers under the authority of it's board(or whatever it's called), given in the State in which it is Registered, the rules (not laws) it makes for SL are in the TOS. There are several legitimate ways for an approach to getting it's rules changed: you can appeal to it's officers, you can appeal to it's board, or you could even petition the government of the jurisdiction in which it is registered. The alternative, if you really don't like the rules, is to take your business elsewhere.
I see these forums as a place to let off steam, not as a serious attempt to sway the opinion of LL's officers. If they take note at all, then they are very conscientious.
* I live in the UK. It is not a democracy, but has some democratic elements to the way representatives are chosen. The USA is a Representative Republic, which is similar, but different. Most European countries are the same. Only Switzerland, to my knowledge, has some elements of true democracy. And these are not value judgements - I am not seeking to change anything.
One key component on governmental influence on private expression depends on whether there is an instrument in place that specifically makes free expression more difficult to attack than with a mere 51% majority vote. Constitutional monarchies or Republics might have such things written into their “ground rules” to protect the privilege of dissent or even Provocative Art.
One expression that I have heard over the years that exemplifies this concept is; “You are committed to freedom of expression when someone says something that makes you furious; and yet you are willing to defend their privilege of saying it.”
Something similar was attributed to Voltaire / Francois-Marie Arouet :-)
Its one of the harder concepts to live, and unfortunately many in my homeland no longer bother to try.
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1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:
With the greatest respect, Amanda -- and I find your argument an interesting, if deeply flawed one -- let me pose you my own question:
"How much respect for or enjoyment of an action movie would we have if the foundation of the conflict were entirely built upon unpleasant and socially dangerous racist stereotypes?"
The advantage of Roleplay mirroring the actual dynamic tensions in society can be measured in this way;
It allows people to develop coping mechanisms for those selfsame social tensions that do not involve “run and hide from the thing that bothers me”.
For persons like myself who daily deal with a certain level of what people like to call “PTSD”, Roleplay can even be therapeutic as it provides a safe outlet to “game out” responses to stressors in a virtual environment. After all, within my own head I can’t hide from what bothers me - so I had to learn to cope.
Lastly, the environment must be taken into consideration. Roleplay sims are privately owned and players spend upwards of $20 on average just to build an avatar for play. Everyone is there voluntarily to participate in writing a story based on the theme of the sim. Should someone with no interest in helping to develop a recreational story be able to dictate what story can and cannot be told?
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1 hour ago, Innula Zenovka said:
I know you said you weren't replying to me specifically, but I have to say that the kind of RP you're talking about isn't -- or at least I don't think it is -- the kind I had in mind. I'm talking about adult venues that offer sexual RP based on very specific and thoroughly objectionable sexual stereotypes about black men and white women,. I won't try to describe it because I don't feel like fighting with the content filter, but I think the relevant comparison is porn rather than action movies.
I tend to classify sex-centric play more as fetishistic sexplay than Roleplay (even though it involves playing a role). Unfortunately, over 12 years in SL I have seen more than one “Roleplay is evil” campaign where story-based Roleplay was lumped in with the sexplayers and everyone received a morally - indignant verbal shaming.
Story Based Roleplay May well include erotic content, but it is not the purpose of it.
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13 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:
I've not read the whole of this thread, so forgive me if it's been covered already, but some of the Adult "race-play" regions I've seen are based on a whole heap of very unpleasant stereotypes about race and gender.
As a general response (not to this post specifically) to those who have voiced concern over SL role play sims where occasionally people RP behaving Badly and doing Very Bad Things, I would pose the following question;
”How much fun would an action movie be if the Bad Guy never did anything that gave the Hero a chance to be Heroic?”
Roleplay Sims have had to resort to extreme measures just to keep someone playing “the Heavy” so that plot lines have an easily identifiable Bad Guy. I was actually working as a sim manager one place where we took turns playing Bad Guy on our alts - just so the majority of people who wanted Action had Something To Do.
If it’s roleplay, then someone has to play the negative stereotyped role.....and, as most people involved were not Bad Guys at heart - their presentation of gang bangers, thugs and prostitutes probably seemed a little formulaic or hokey.
Lack of people willing to do this has been slowing killing RP in SL, as has the judgemental stance of many outside the RP community towards Players who undertake to play the In Character Heavy so others have a Bad Guy To Provide the Action of the story.
Are there people in Non-Roleplay situation acting out badly about race or gender? Sure. My experience in RP sims however, has been that most of what people see there is part of Story - but to really see that, you have to understand the nature if freeform SL Roleplay....
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On A Hollywood mogul’s libido
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And spewing grease globs hysterically
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Generally, no one forces anyone to participate in a role play sim, to spend money building an avatar that fits “character” or so spend time developing a character in RP. Participation is voluntary and Story is what the players are there to create (except the ones looking for sex).
Most people get their perception of other parts of the world from Hollywood and most RP sims are evolved from those same sources.
You can blame the sim, or you can blame Diverse and Tolerant Hollywood for perpetuating negative stereotypes......
Why else is it big news when a movie or TV show presents a “strong woman”, an upwardly mobile minority character or an LGBT character who isn’t emotionally damaged or a sexual predator ?
RL has plenty of positive examples of those people, it’s only -news- in Hollywood - when they present one; which is the shaper of how many perceive the world.
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Wearing an orange sports bra
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because the hairless rabbit griefers
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It occurs to me that this really isn’t limited to Race. I have been missing out on a whole, entire thing to be Offended about......-sarscasm-
By birth, I come from the Southwestern USA and have lived much of my life in the South. If I were to believe the way Sotherners and Southern Women are portrayed by people in many role play sims and on the grid in general; that would be as follows;
“Racist, homophobic, baby-on-my-hip, get-in-the-kitchen, uneducated “white trash”, very likely to marry my cousin, consider possum a culinary delight and be the victim of spousal abuse”
Since I come from the south-WEST I also qualify for cowgirl memes....
Reality is that I hear crap about southerners in SL that -might- have been appropriate a century ago; and I largely just let it go by. If someone wants to put them self at a disadvantage by under-estimating me......too bad for them :-) If someone is so narrow as to buy into that stuff, I’m better off without them in my social circle :-)
So I’ve been missing out on tons of butt-hurt; and I have no plans to start catching up.
SL is the realm of imagination, there are plenty of Imaginings I can pick from - so I choose not to fixate on the negative ones.
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8 minutes ago, anna2358 said:
If we going to get up-tight about people playing an avi with a skin-color more or less melanin-challenged than their RL corpse, we are in big trouble with old men playing pretty young ladies.
Oh, there is plenty of up-tightness about THAT too :-) Just look at all the “voice verified” blurbs in people’s profile info.....
You’d think this was Second FaceBook or something....
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I once encountered someone who was trying to shame people whose avatars did not match their RL racial demographic; they called it Racial Play-Acting and cultural appropriation and were quite indignant about it.
I tried to politely educate them that they were shaming people who were filling Non-Player-Character roles in our RP sim, because we had no one PLAYING a Chinese scientist or a Colombian Politician.....but they were pretty invested in the notion that SL should always match RL.
People like that confuse me....
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and Colonel Sanders wept bitterly
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Erupt with flaming, furry chickens
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Weekend celebrations at the Keen household.....
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When you try to walk through a door, and something prevents you.......you have been blocked :-)
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4 hours ago, Hunter Stern said:
I'm sorry but I couldn't resist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohU38WJV45c
I know what you're saying. I have had my rl name come up and had people google my location, but I have given them fair warning that they are free to try and stalk me but that they will have to get through my rednecks first (i live in a town of about 9k where everyone knows eachother), and deploying drones for a flyover would prove futile whereas the crows and racoon would make quick work of them
It was pretty freaky, especially as I was working at the kind of place where we were expected to be "normal and upstanding" people :-)
I can FAKE that in RL pretty well, but its not me.........
He finally realized that I didn't need or WANT saving from my strange lifestyle, but it was a hard sell because I look so damn NORMAL :-) -
I try to keep my RL firewalled from SL.
I do have other social media related to my SL avatar, but that doesn’t overlap to RL.
Once, when a (clueless) friend from both RL and SL accidentally leaked my identity to someone in SL - they promptly went “RL Stalker” on me and flowers started showing up at my RL workplace from someone I barely knew in SL.
Ever since then, I have been leery.
I’m always at work in RL unless I’m home and either asleep or in SL - so you might say I prefer my partner of 12+ years and friends here to RL anyway :-)
I can’t log out of RL when people get tedious :-D
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Where are all my friends? Come on in and lets get comfy by the fire!
in Make Friends
Posted · Edited by AmandaKeen
Happy Tuesday Hippie!