AmandaKeen

Normally that’s not a peeve unless they also resort to #2 when the uninitiated use the wrong name for the situation....

Not being snarky - but about 50% of the time when I DJ its to an all female dancefloor 🙂

01..Unreadable Fancy Fonts for Display names that are VERY different from the avatar's system name. 02..People who get angry when you call them by their system name, because their display name is unreadable. 03..People who include "Master" in their Display Name. 04..People who work in SL under one name, have a different Display Name and yet an even DIFFERENT System Name. Confuse much?

Well, the usual procedure for meeting Fem avatars in SL who are looking other Fem avatars usually goes like this; #1 - Log In #2 - TP to any club #3 - Announce “here I am”. I think there are venues like the EBar that might make for better social opportunities of that type.

I’ve learned the hard way that saying negative things about Social Media drops me right in the middle of a flame war 🙂. “You must be really OLD” being a common theme .. Thats cool. I am and I’m happy to have lived this long 🙂 I have a FB presence as my SL Avatar because several venues I frequent or work for communicate that way, beyond that and a few *dear* friends who share my sense of humor - FB is pretty uninteresting. Platform convergence should not be mandatory, especially as FB used to discourage “alternate” accounts that aren’t “real” people; like SL avatars.

Footnote 🙂 This thread caused me to realize something I hadn't thought about till now.... I have zero idea what the RL racial demographics of my circle of friends are. None. Zip. I can *guess* a bit based on slang; but unless someone just happens to voice-DJ (and even that can be no measure); I've never had occasion to ask. I KNOW I'm odd, but I think I just raised the bar on oddness. I'm Partnered to the same person on Amanda and on my Original since 2005 (her Main and her Alt); and I've never asked her either 🙂 This was a pleasing epiphany 🙂

I would opine that SL is different from RL when it comes to meeting people of "real" RL racial groups. "Reality" based systems like Facebook or Tinder might have an advantage in this instance. SL has a large component of Residents whose typists took "your world; your imagination" seriously and feel no real constraint to have their SL mirror their Real Life. A case in point would be those of us with medical issues in RL who can be perceived as "normal" (whatever that is) in SL. I once fielded a comment from a resident who was wondering where all the handicapped people were in SL 🙂 There actually ARE handicapped avatars; but does that reflect RL? Who knows? Avatars designed for participation in Roleplay sims (literary RP, not sexplay) can also skew the perceived demographics. When I was a moderator/Admin in a roleplay sim - one of my side jobs was to play whatever Non-Player-Characters were needed to advance the plotline. Result; an Inventory that has body-components of "a little bit of everything" I see absolutely nothing wrong with people wanting to associate along "real" racial/gender/other lines; but that can be complicated by the large contingent who see what SL offers as a chance to be who they *want* to be as opposed to whomever heredity or chance made them. ..and when we encounter people who appear in SL differently than they might in RL; that's not automatically a malicious attempt to deceive... ...its just Second Life since about 2004 🙂

This isn’t really a problem unique to SL; it’s an internet problem. They way I choose to deal with people who use avatars or body-shapes that fall outside what I find aesthetically-pleasing is to say nothing and let them happily do what gives them joy. When someone makes what appears to be an innocent mis-statement; I try to let it roll off or perhaps IM them with a gentle “not cool”. When I run foul of someone who makes the choice to be aggressively hateful; mute and de-render works wonders. So long as I have 100% control over who I allow into my Second Life; I can afford to be tolerant of people who are a little “different” in their social skills; I won’t have to hear from the mean ones twice 🙂

Speaking as 1/2 of a long-standing Couple; my daily activities are highly influenced by “we” and I’m very happy that way 🙂 I DJ a bit, so club work can take some of my time, as does prep for the actual event and *shopping* to prep for the event.....”spend money to make money” is very true here. My other big current hobby is SL photography and feeding my narcissistic Flickr Feed 🙂. SL is so transitory and so many interesting places come and go quickly, I try to document what I can amid the usualy hailstorm Of Selfies ..... My Partner and I go dancing quite a lot, especially when we can find clubs like the recently reinvigorated Blue Note and Fogbound (we both like a wide variety of music, but Blues is special for us). Velvet Thorn is also very special to us 🙂 My photo-safaris mean that I generally explore the grid and meet people a lot. I get a lot of photo-locale referrals from people I meet as well as my scrubbing through the “SL Photogenic Locations” on the inter webs. Lastly, I’m pretty chatty....I talk to people a LOT. Thats mainly my Second Life.

Taking time to take stock of the good things in life is not of itself a date, it is a philosophy. In North America, at least two countries celebrate a day of Thanksgiving, the USA just markets the one it celebrates more loudly 🙂 The official day for Thanksgiving is what you make of it; just like any other "national" holiday. My spirituality is decidedly not-Christian - but I'm not above taking a day off and reminding myself to be grateful for the good things I have managed to sneak into my life. "Many paths to the Truth"... On the flipside - our Political & Corporate Overlords are probably waiting for the day we become so polarized and fragmented that celebrating *any* holiday becomes a political and emotional dumpster-fire. Thats they day they can claim that having National Holidays is just too dangerous and corporations will be telling us that; "If you want a day off - take a vacation day." Until that day, I plan to enjoy my holiday dinner with family and then spend an uninterrupted evening with my Partner in Second Life; being thankful that I still can 🙂

I think *people* have gotten somewhat limited in their expectations within SL 🙂 More and more, I hear from people who expect to come to SL and be entertained by someone else; which is a shift from ten+ years ago when higher numbers of people came to create content. SL seems to be mirroring RL in many ways; this is one.

Marx went after the wrong people. He focused on Capitalists when the people really pulling the “keep them divided” strings are whatever Ruling Group holds and intends to retain power. Thats not politics or wealth; its a Power thing.

As a point of fact - Slavery *violates* modern-day American Principles. We concluded a bloody civil war to end it in 1865 and the vast majority of the people who won the war to abolish that intolerable practice were not themselves of African descent.

**Story told in the key of ".gif"** I started off in my family business, but quit and actually joined the military to avoid life as a mortician. Perhaps not the greatest choice. The military found something fun for me to so... After that, and STILL not wanting to hang around creepy things - I went back to school (Business Management/Organizational Development) I then began herding the cats. I work for a company that makes petfood. My job is to "develop talent"..... and "mentor the unwilling" I'm close to early-retirement now, and it can't happen fast enough. A lot of Real Life People are just evil...

Methinks he toots too much