LaskyaClaren

Hmmm. So, like this . . .? @Perrie Juran Oh. Oh wow! @Madelaine McMasters @Treasure Ballinger @Phil Deakins

Look! Here I am! Being sweet, and stuff!! Have a cuppa, do! Biscuit? /me skips gaily through the thread, strewing sunshine and flowers to the left and right. ()

Madelaine McMasters wrote: How are ya? Oh, you know. Working hard. Checking in on the forums on occasion. Resisting the temptation to respond to posts about degrading images of women in SL advertising. The usual stuff. What's up with you? Immolate anyone interesting in your fireplace recently?

About six months or so after I first joined Second Life, I found myself involved in a relationship with a man here. It was entirely unlooked for, unexpected, and indeed, initially unwanted -- but what can I tell you? The guy sang to me on his guitar, and would read me poems by Neruda. I suppose I never really had a chance . . . Anyway, it was all rather temptuous and only lasted maybe 4 months or so. It ended very badly, with me hurt, but over the course of the next year or so there was a rapprochement of a sort. He was articulate, and bright, and funny, and frankly I just liked him, a lot. Then, about a year and a half or maybe two after our breakup, a woman -- a noobie -- began to appear at many of the places I hung out. She was a lesbian, and partnered to another woman I had known through my ex-boyfriend. She approached me, explained she'd heard about me and wanted to be friends. She was articulate, and bright, and funny, and I quite liked her, so we became friends, although not close ones. When, after some time, she took me aside to explain that she was, in fact, the new avatar of my ex-boyfriend, I was taken a bit by surprise, When she went on to assert that she, my ex-boyfriend, was, in fact, a woman in RL, I was stunned. She was very concerned about how I'd take it. Surprising even myself, I took it reasonably well. I think maybe I was so shocked that there was no room for any other reaction. (I should probably note that I was also a bit sceptical, and still perhaps am. If she was truly a RL woman posing as a man -- who had voiced with me very often -- it was an incredibly sophisticated and elaborate ruse. My scepticism aside, however, I did have to contend with at least the strong possibility that the man I'd had a brief but very intense relationship was not actually a man.) My former boyfriend/new girlfriend and I continued to socialize for a while, but eventually she informed me that she was planning to leave Second Life for good. The last message I ever received from her was brief: "I don't regret a thing." Reflecting upon all that had passed between us, I was inclined to agree. Neither did I.

KarenMichelle Lane wrote: LaskyaClaren wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Ardvinna wrote: Camus is the most underestimated philosopher of the 20th century. Though he could do some pretty fine philosophizing himself, Richard Feynman might have argued that it's not possible to underestimate philosophers. ;-). Hmmm . . . a rather odd point to make, in the context of a virtual world, perhaps? Is that prim steak really there? Or are you going to remain hungry? ;-) On more than one occasion, the discussion of food stuffs in our Virtual Hallways [and back alleyways] has created the yearning for this Avatar Jockey to consume said stuffs in real life, replete with the pangs of hunger usually associated with such [word-based] imagery. Oh yes, absolutely. Threads with food pics drive me . . . well, let's just not go there. Oddly, though, the "food" I've seen in-world does absolutely nothing for me. Maybe that'll be an extension for Oculus Rift, whenever it finally gets here . . .

Madelaine McMasters wrote: You are sooooo easy. Funny. I hear that a lot . . . ;-)

Perrie Juran wrote: It is possible that Magdalena could do a better job than previous incarnations. Could be! I'd be delighted if she did, truly! And may even succeed in monetizing it. More doubtful, pehaps, but she says she can make it work, and who am I to argue? Could we use another Alphaville Herald? *splutter gag choke* My personal favorite SL-zine is Rez Magazine. They do an excelent job. Oh, I don't know that one! I'll give it a look! Thanks!

Madelaine McMasters wrote: LaskyaClaren wrote: Is that prim steak really there? Or are you going to remain hungry? ;-) Was the warmth I hope you felt in my fireplace real? My hope is. I'm always hungry for something. Oh Maddy. The warmth I feel when I'm around you doesn't come from your fireplace. :matte-motes-smile: [insert chorus of "Awwwwws!" and smileys here]

Madelaine McMasters wrote: Ardvinna wrote: Camus is the most underestimated philosopher of the 20th century. Though he could do some pretty fine philosophizing himself, Richard Feynman might have argued that it's not possible to underestimate philosophers. ;-). Hmmm . . . a rather odd point to make, in the context of a virtual world, perhaps? Is that prim steak really there? Or are you going to remain hungry? ;-)

Magdalena Siemens wrote: Laskya, what is wrong with that business model? The entire media industry works like that. There is absolutly nothing wrong with it. And yes I do care about the content, because quality and engaging content is what gets the visitors and keeps them. What made you feel I would not care? Just because I make an income from that? No, Magdalena, there is nothing whatsoever wrong in earning income from what you create and offer for consumption in a blog, or inworld. And yes, there is no question that the model you describe is the prevalent one in the media industry. My sigh derives from the fact that you (and the media industry) are putting the cart before the horse, in a sense. The form and quality of the content you produce is not actually judged by its "excellence" but rather by its profitability. And what we know all too well from a century or more of experience with the media industry is that that almost inevitably means a dumbing-down of the content. You cited the example of "People" magazine in your OP, which is an excellent case in point. It is a publication that produces, in a very limited and somewhat superficial sense, "excellent" quality content: it is slick, attractive, and engaging. And it is also appallingly inane. It is inane precisely because the principle behind its creation is profit rather than quality of thought: inanity sells, while intellectual content can frighten people away. It is possible to produce high-quality work, in both intellectual and aesthetic senses of that term, that is also profitable, but mindless and formulaic dreck has a wider potential audience and is more cost-efficient to produce. I sincerely wish you the best in your endeavour. And, should you end up producing material that is not merely professionally packaged and "engaging," but also informative, well-written, and thought-provoking, I shall be the very first to cheer. But when the content is secondary in consideration and importance to the revenue-producing advertisements that are the true raison d'être of your publication, I hold out little hope of that. I very genuinely hope that you can prove me wrong.

Magdalena Siemens wrote: Radium we did some successful puplications and some which failed to get audience, happens in the media business. The Gorean one was actually one of the very first years ago and was closed when the interest for Gorean RP dropped significantly in SL and became a very small niche. The most succesful one is (no surprises here) an adult one. Now we want to produce something more "clean" to run adsense adverts (which is not possible on adult content). @all Thanks for all the input, nice list to get started with. Anyone else is a fan of somebody and would like to get that person more audience (which comes with free publicity for their work as well)? Ah. The penny drops. So the "content" of this blog is really just bait to draw people to a site where they will be exposed to advertising. And, in fact, you don't care about what you are writing about so long as it fulfills that function. Well, I'm sure that's a sound enough business plan, but you can pretty much ignore anything I said above (as I'm sure you already have), as it was premised on the assumption that you actually cared about the quality of said content. *sigh*

"Celebrity" is an odd construct in the context of Second Life. Where one can aver with some confidence that the vast majority of people in the developed (and often in the much less developed) portions of the world know who Kanye West, or Taylor Swift, or George Clooney are, the same cannot be said of SL celebrities. These tend, instead to be well-known within relatively small and often isolated communities. The list given by Rhonda, above, is an instance: the people she mentions (some of whom I knew quite well) are most of them former "forum" celebrities, here or on other forums. In that sense, "fame" in SL is distributed rather than centralized. As "famous" as Torley might be in some circles, I'd guess that not more than 10% or so of those you meet in-world have ever heard of him. This is probably because, oddly enough, there is no real "mass media" in Second Life. So, any attempt to speak about "SLelebrity" is going to seem, by definition almost, exclusionary and elitist (as indeed perhaps the concept always is) in that it privileges certain communities over others. Now, if you're talking about "accomplished," or "noteworthy," or even "important," that's a different thing. I'm not as active in SL as I once was, and many of the "celebrities" I once knew have now gone, or seen their "fame" (such as it was) wane, but here are a few people still of note and interest, I think, although the focus is more upon accomplishment than mere recognizability: Bryn Oh (Artist) Whiskey Monday (Artist) Hamlet Au (Blogger/Journalist) Draxtor Despres (Blogger/Journalist/SL Cheerleader) Honour McMillan (Blogger) Saffia Widdershins (Merchant/Creator/Activist) This is a VERY partial list of people whom I think have both a reasonably "high profile" in SL, and who are active "doing things" that I find impressive, or that are having an impact. Were I you, I'd focus on that, rather than on the questionable and nebulous notion of "celebrity."

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: LaskyaClaren wrote: Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: Is that two full months or just 8 fridays? Shouldn't you peasants be working on fridays?  Error of form.... technicality...(or whatever the term is in anglish) Dismissal.... It clearly is contempt of virtual dialectics... VIrtual Hegel (who gloried in the possession of FOUR names, and hence outranks you) would disagree. Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: Plus Ravenglas is offline, I made sure of that It willl always be online in my heart.

Qie Niangao wrote: (But in light of the Friday Drama for Sunday Ever So Clever Revolutionaries thread, or whatever it's momentarily called, one may suspect our OP of a "special' appreciation for responses. Or perhaps not, as that would be very nearly as witty as a bucket of lukewarm spit.) The OP is not nearly sufficiently "ever so clever" or "revolutionary" to feel at home there, I'm afraid. Moreover, as he seems pretty blandly sincere in his confuddlement and desire for advice, he is also much too much to the point and relevant. Your parenthetical aside, however . . .

Taeem wrote: LaskyaClaren wrote: Carried on the expansive mesh shoulders of the Seven Brave Virtual Tractor Drivers, it will endure for a Thousand Years,* The corrupt and iniquitous mechanisms of the State shall whither away -- the Lindens, the Land Barons, the forum moderators -- leaving in their wake a Gloriously Free Social Order from which second names are BANNED, and forum posters with more than . . . oh, say, 750 posts, shall be sent to the Cornfield Gulag (or Ahern) to labour for the masses. Of course, there will need to be a transitional period, as Society is gently guided by a steady hand into the New Utopian Dawn of Socialist Liberty and Equality, I have heard the Call, and am ready to serve! * About two months, SL time. *resists to fake the quote and exchange 'expensive' for 'expansive' and make DRAMA out of it, for lack of time, but will keep an eye on the thread for a new unnamed name to appear* Under the New World Order, mesh shoulders will be provided FREE for all who can demonstrate their ideological purity to my the State's satisfaction.

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: Is that two full months or just 8 fridays? Shouldn't you peasants be working on fridays? 

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: LaskyaClaren wrote: Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: LaskyaClaren wrote: Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: For god's sake... it's saturday! Drama: Not just for Fridays anymore! Typical response for someone without a surname, there are rules you know. Let me explain how it works... You don't have any authority over here, let the grownups determine when to post, okay? Get a new shiny colour or crank up your post count by at least 500% (preferably on fridays), maybe then we will allow you to contribute to this thread more days of the week. You need koodoes too, lots of koodoes. I understand this post doesn't fit the current drama format, call me a maverick. See you next week. I see that you, Pamela, and KarenMichelle have at last caught at the subtle subtext at work in my thread. Yes, this is all about Class Warfare. And come the day of the Revolution, you can be sure that I, in my capacity as First Consul of the Republic, will be taking careful stock of all of those old-time two-namers who were unsympathetic to the Cause. Now, where did I put my knitting . . .  Hopefully your republic will last longer than some others, that way you peasants might make it to next friday.  Carried on the expansive mesh shoulders of the Seven Brave Virtual Tractor Drivers, it will endure for a Thousand Years,* The corrupt and iniquitous mechanisms of the State shall whither away -- the Lindens, the Land Barons, the forum moderators -- leaving in their wake a Gloriously Free Social Order from which second names are BANNED, and forum posters with more than . . . oh, say, 750 posts, shall be sent to the Cornfield Gulag (or Ahern) to labour for the masses. Of course, there will need to be a transitional period, as Society is gently guided by a steady hand into the New Utopian Dawn of Socialist Liberty and Equality, I have heard the Call, and am ready to serve! * About two months, SL time.

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: LaskyaClaren wrote: Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: For god's sake... it's saturday! Drama: Not just for Fridays anymore! Typical response for someone without a surname, there are rules you know. Let me explain how it works... You don't have any authority over here, let the grownups determine when to post, okay? Get a new shiny colour or crank up your post count by at least 500% (preferably on fridays), maybe then we will allow you to contribute to this thread more days of the week. You need koodoes too, lots of koodoes. I understand this post doesn't fit the current drama format, call me a maverick. See you next week. I see that you, Pamela, and KarenMichelle have at last caught at the subtle subtext at work in my thread. Yes, this is all about Class Warfare. And come the day of the Revolution, you can be sure that I, in my capacity as First Consul of the Republic, will be taking careful stock of all of those old-time two-namers who were unsympathetic to the Cause. Now, where did I put my knitting . . . 

KarenMichelle Lane wrote: Now about anyone using the word "coherence" & "Obama" in the same sentence, that is just tolerable. I tell ya, these surnameless people have just got to be dealt with. They think they are soooooooo Special. Oooh! Politics! NOW we're talking drama! There you go, my pretties! Feast yourselves!

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: For god's sake... it's saturday! Drama: Not just for Fridays anymore!

Taeem wrote: LaskyaClaren wrote: [You're good, btw. Very good.] [Hey hey hey hey, one moment. What do you mean with that, I´m very good. With that italic very. I see what you did there, implying I´m too good, as in I´m one of those people, using your thread to divert the attention from the truth with the truth. Don´t complain if you suddenly find your Italic-button greyed out, if you´re throwing around with italics so irresponsibly on your thread.] Also, it´s not Friday anymore. The TOS of this thread, not the part you wrote down in your OP, but the ones implicitly fixed in the title, clearly state that this a Friday-thread. Don´t think nobody notices, that it´s still being posted on. If the thread dissappears it will probably not be because of barely whispered names, but because there still are a few upright people on this forum, who´ll flag your thread and get it suspended by the Mods until next Friday. But while it´s still here and we´re talking about moderators. You know how generation after generation of innocent newbies get fooled into thinking the M next to our names means 'Moderator' as in appointed by the powers that be, and expect exemplary behaviour and good tips of us, and it´s understandable too, one can hardly expect people to read the next line on tthe badge too and combine the 'M' and the 'Member' into an educated guess on the meaning of said 'M', much less to search, and find, the admittedly random ranking info...where was I getting with this...ah right, it´s being rumoured that that´s on purpose, the 'M', I can´t say more obviously, but you know. You seem to know rather a suspiciously large amount about how this forum was designed, and how it runs. It's almost as though you have inside information. /me narrows her eyes. I also can't help but notice that your name . . . "Taeem" . . . is a virtual anagram for, you know "Team." And what Team exactly would that be, hmmmmm? Should this thread suddenly find itself zapped between now and next Friday, I have a pretty good idea where I'll be casting accusing glances, Mr. "Taeem." IF THAT IS REALLY YOUR NAME.

Radium Soup wrote: Who needs fiction? Wasn't there a paranoid lunatic posting here recently, bestowing such titles upon him or herself as; "A Second Life Living Legend" "A Secondlife Creating Legend" "... a legendary content Creator within the realm of SecondLife" as well as drawing attention to sad little graphics advising of the same role-played imaginary qualifications? I fear any Friday thread creative writing may struggle to compete in the face of such hilarious factual material currently emerging on a near-daily basis as the SL freakshow pond dries up. Perhaps! But perhaps it is you who have now made your subject "a living legend" by enshrining her here! She is now a part of the narrative of the GD forum, and a bona fide subject of a drama, generated by you! Congratulations to . . . er, whatever her name is. We'll be in touch soon to arrange the photo session and unveiling of the sidewalk star!

Hoshi Kenin wrote: Yawnzzzzzz.. Seriously? Get back into SL.....the virtual world. Pu-lenty of dramas there happenin' everywheres....all da time.....no need to drag old memories from when you last visited SL. Stuffs is happening right now. Go see. Go participate. Free youselves from the shackles of being a 'forumite' where a select clique give a damm about what you say. Go DO something inworld. You know, it's really quite adorable, this thing that you do here, sounding all sort of Fierce and Stern and Righteous like an Old Testament Prophet, demanding that we denounce our False Idols (or Idles in this case?) and return to the One True Faith. You do it very well! I imagine you must practice in front of a mirror sometimes? Of course, I'm also pretty sure that really this fiery denunciation thing is just a facade, hiding a lonely and deeply wounded soul. My pet theory -- and I like it too much to be persuaded from it -- is that you haunt this place like some ghostly revenant because your heart was broken here, and you return to the forums compulsively in search of Lost Love, and to gain Revenge upon the Place that that buried your Heart. That's very adorable too. You know that it helps to talk about it, right? And that we're all here to listen? Sit down and have a nice cup of tea, do, and tell us all about it. /me pats the chair next to her.

Well, it sounds exciting, anyway. "Bots" generally don't look like robots, so it probably wasn't. Also, no one can use a notecard or "invitation" (I assume that you are talking about just text?) to trace or track you, so I don't think you need to worry about that. Nothing actually happened, except for a brief intrusion/interruption, so this is almost certainly nothing more than someone accidentally TPing to your location -- probably by clicking on the map where she/he/they/it saw some green dots indicating the presence of people -- and then TPing away again quickly when she/he realized she/he/they/it were intruding. Or perhaps it looked like a really dull party? In any case, a 15 second "invasion" by one robot avatar is nothing to get too excited about. :-)

mikka Luik wrote: OK So Toronto has too Many Pseudo Whattnot Whatevers - Discuss Unquestionably. You can't swing a cat here without hitting one.