The Masses

I couldn't get this to post for some reason on botqirl's blog, so I post here.

Botqirl has up one of those blogs that the little Plurk-Jerkers and malign and mendacious like Crap Mariner think is "nailing" it. It's a very overworked theme that one finds on the forums periodically, the realization that "OMG the masses don't read our blogs". It's usually said by people who secretly imagine that in fact *they* have the insight into the masses because they are so brilliant lol. The realization of the elites that they don't know what the rest of SL thinks scares and thrills them at the same time. Scares them, because it means they are irrelevant. Thrills them, because they might find the killer app to tap into these pet-loving Zyngo-playing masses.

My post, in response to his question about what the masses are thinking, and how they "don't know Prokofy from Gwyn from Dusan from Crap".

Spoken like a typical socialist elitist, out of touch with the masses, even the liberal masses, and of course, completely estranged from the conservative masses -- which are in SL, too.

I don't suffer from that problem because I have *customers*. Do you? I have constant interactions with hundreds of people all month, constantly changing and constantly refreshing my view. These people constantly IM me and say they like my blog; they tip me; they send me hugs.

Not all of my customers in fact read my blog or even know I have a blog, but a surprising number do, and your theory that "nobody knows Prokofy" is more wishful thinking on your part than reality.

When I look at the IP addresses of the referrers coming to my blog from thousands of visitors every day, I see most of them come from fashion blogs. Imagine that. Fashion blogs! And I don't even discuss fashion hardly at all.

Quite a few are plurk and twitter accounts -- but guess what, not the plurk accounts of the main Plurk Jerkers like you.

Most people could care less that the educators were "shafted" -- they feel *they* are the ones shafted when they pay a lot, or work hard in their little businesses, but get no breaks, and the educators, who only come on and spread socialism, copyleftism, and collectivist anti-commerce ideas, get a whopping 50 percent off -- or did. Now it's over. Good!

Every day, hundreds of people click on my inworld newsletter. People who aren't even my customers, never post on the forums, and don't post on blogs. Sometimes they IM me with a comment or help. I have way more visitors to my blog than ever comment.

"Blog culture" in SL thinks I'm crazy or "hateful" merely because I push back against the sectarians that themselves are malicious. You imagine that the elitist leftists and Sluniverse Sharia Court judges are "what's right" and "politically correct".

But the vast majority of people don't think that way.

The silent majority fills up the rentals, enjoys SL to the max, until they get bored and leave, even leaving to play a Facebook game, or starts a small business and works it, until it becomes too much work, or goes back to real life after a bad romance. But many stay and tend their gardens, shop, socialize, go to live music. They don't care about mesh. They don't whine because some tab is out of place on some menu and some JIRA didn't get voted for. They just have a good time.

For an amazing number of people, Second Life is about finding an absolutely perfect or at least very enjoyable mate, an experience many haven't had in real life. A mate who isn't lying about their gender.

Burning Life, open source scrums, Lindens pulling funding of the arts -- absolutely none of this matters to them. Changes to the Marketplace matter more than anything else because they shop their on their lunch hours especially.

It's precisely because I'm very much in touch with these "masses" that you fear and loathe that I write as critically and sharply as I do of elites like you. Move over, botgirl. Here Comes Everybody.

Comments

[Botgirl Questi]

Your comment actually posted twice. Here's my reply to your comment:

As a good card-carrying socialist, I have no paying customers. But I do have many hundreds of non-paying customers via my blog and social networking presence. But since I'm not an Elitest, I don't think I'm better than people in Second Life who don't have an active extra-world presence. That's why I pointed out that although it seems like those who actively participate in blogging and social networks represent the center of the world, we are in fact, a very small slice of the pie.

[Prokofy Neva]

You're welcome to erase my comment dear.

I'm not surprised you have no paying customers and thanks for the admission that you *are* a socialist even if you are being facetious. Always better to admit these things!

I'm not a small slice of the pie. Speak for yourself, big guy. You *are* an elitist. All of you in your little plurkers' FIC think you are all that, that your progressive sensibilities represent "the best" and "what's right," and it's frankly disgusting.

[Darien Caldwell]

yes, I have customers. And I understand their feelings about matters, as they relate them to me.

I've always made it a point to try to keep my customers informed about the important things going on in SL (display names, Emerald, etc) simply because most don't read the blog, forums, or anything else.

Of course the truth is, having customers many times still means you only see a sliver of the pie, people in the genre or socio-economic category you cater to. But it's still better than the blogtards with no frame of reference. :)

[brinda allen]

You know...I just started yesterday to wonder if all the doom and gloom are really important....and that just perhaps I was happier 3 years ago when i read or posted nothing =^..^=

[Extropia DaSilva]

So I thought I would read Botgirl's post to see what kind of insight she had on 'the masses'. This is it:

"What does the silent majority think? I have no freaking clue".

This conclusion, and the body of text that precedes it, does not read to me like something written by someone who thinks 'I have the insight into the masses, ain't I brilliant'?. It reads more like someone exercising Socratic wisdom ('to know that you do not know').

Oh, but wait. This, aparrently is what Botgirl *secretly* thinks. I guess that means her public personae may be one that admits ignorance but in actual fact she thinks she can read 'the masses' like an open book. How did Prok come to be such an astonishing psychologist, able to know what Botgirl (or anyone, presumably) 'secretly thinks'? I guess it must have been all those interactions with his customers that sharpened his analytic mind.

>Second Life is about finding an absolutely perfect or at least very enjoyable mate, an experience many haven't had in real life. A mate who isn't lying about their gender.<

Uh-oh. This again. In Prok's world the only sin more unpardonable than having an avvie whose gender differs from the RL person is having an avvie called 'Crap Mariner'. This angst is a peculiarly 'online' phenomenon. Do you suppose anyone ever said 'I am comfortable with the Cathy character because she is the same gender as the person who created her. But Heathcliff is the opposite gender! Oooo I need to lie down I am so disturbed'? Was it ever considered a disgrace that Juliet never admitted to Romeo she was 'a man in RL' (remember that in Shakespeare's day only men were actors)? Uhhh no, because it is understood that a character need not be of the same race, age, gender, nationality, religious outlook etc etc as its creator. Nor is the creator obliged to stick to his or her 'true' identity. Mary Evans did not do anything wrong when she wrote under a male name, now did she? But in SL if a guy roleplays a female and does not go around telling everyone 'I am a man, really!' it is considered a crime or something. Like I said, peculiar.

[Crap Mariner]

Extropia -

What makes the derangement even more curious is that Catherine's av seems to suffer from the same opposite-gender syndrome.

The crackpot is calling the kettle black.

-ls/cm

[Botgirl Questi]

Extropia: You bring up an interesting point. Is it inherently unethical to create and project a pseudonymous online identity that is of a different gender than the underlying human? If so, wouldn't the same apply to any factor that differed such as age, weight, attractiveness, apparent socio-economic status, nationality, etc.

[Extropia DaSilva]

Uhuh. Of course Prok's 'true gender' is no secret so maybe that makes it OK?

I would like to know why Prok is a male avvie (at least, I assume it is, been a while since we met inworld or I checked the profile pic) given his primary's expressed distaste of gender-roleplay, it does seem hypocritical. At risk of putting words in his mouth, I suspect Prok would say 'well I am not roleplaying, I am just being myself' but if that is true, why not a female avvie? You know what, at the end of the day whatever gender Prok chooses to be inworld, that is his concern and noone else's so it is quite alright if Prok tells me to piss off and mind my own business. But...well I cannot help being curious about this choice.

[Prokofy Neva]

Extropia, you're totally full of shit.

"Lying about gender" isn't the act of transgendering itself. Duh! That's certainly a legitimate practice, so don't go down your well-trod hobby-horse path blathering on and on about about that. Your self-righteous stench is offensive.

"Lying about your gender" in this context I'm talking about, and which I *do* condemn, is *lying about your gender in an intimate relationship with another person who doesn't realize who you are*.

That's wrong, and carrying on that fiction is unethical and wrong and cruel. If you're going to go on and on arguing the case for being able to deceive another person in an intimate relationship as part of your "rights" blah blah, you're not going to find any acceptance from me.

You're so obviously an alt, and so obviously a male, Extropia. So it becomes doubly offensive for you to rant on and on about this.

There isn't any "derangement" in this position, and Crap knows it. He would likely hold to the same ethics.

And botqirl's big "revelation" (which likely didn't come as a surprise to many) is one of those banal and manipulative acts itself. It's typical of what some males feel they have to do. They start out a female character, then they can't sustain it. They get tired of it. They feel guilty. They feel ambivalent. So then they have to destroy their character by outing it themselves -- just another act of manipulation, in fact. I have a lot more respect for people who sustain their female characters but don't use them to have intimate relations with others by fooling them, or pretending that everyone should be so sophisticated that it "doesn't matter". Of course it matters.

As for botqirl's blog, of course he's acting superior by telling everyone he has this "insight" that "the bloggers aren't in touch with the masses". I find this a total load of bullshit as well. I don't claim "to speak for" the masses as someone has idiotically accused me in the comments. But I do claim to be in touch with ordinary people a lot more than botqirl simply by having a business with customers!!!

As for Crap Mariner's constant malicious attacks on me, I can only conclude that as with other manginas, it comes from a deeply conflicted psyche, as I've said many times before, and his own deep ambivalence about having a female character in SL. The people who attack me the most in SL tend to be transgendered males. They like to be the manipulators in the game, and they hate it when a female appears as a male avatar, it really drives them to a terrible frenzy, a phenomenon I've seen time and again. It drives them crazy and they make the most vicious attacks as a result.

[Toxic Menges]

Pretty much everyone offends you Prok, regardless of their gender on SL, or in real life. That is the base of the matter.

Does it really matter who is a male and who is a female? It seems odd that you have what appears to be such a deep seated issue with gender in SL, when your actions (ie your avatar representation) are exactly that which throw you into apoplexy regarding others.

It's ok for you to do it but not for everyone else?

As for the Botgirl post, I think the majority SL'ers hear and know whats going on, but they aren't obsessed with the minutiae of the goings on as some of us. WOM is very powerful in SL - look how Emerald caught on. When something is relevant and useful to the population they pay attention.

(I'm a girlie in both worlds btw)

<3 Tox

[Crap Mariner]

"There isn't any "derangement" in this position, and Crap knows it."

*shrug* Except one thing: These things don't bother me.

They sure bother the hell out of you, you never miss an opportunity to shriek MANGINA in a crowded movie theater, and that's where your DERANGEMENT flag goes up.

Poor crackpot, calling the kettles black, and never once taking a deep long look in the mirror without saying "It's the mirror that's cracked, not me!"

-ls/cm

[Prokofy Neva]

Um, no, I don't miss an opportunity, I target precisely. I call out the few assholes who keep bullying me, as being marked by this particular affliction. I hadn't realize immediately you were one of them. I think it explains a lot.

There are a handful of people who hate me -- as I often say, they would fit in a hippie Volkswagen van with Crap Mariner at the wheel raging that he wasn't walking and working off the cheeseburger he just ate, and Dale Innis whining to go stop so he could go to the bathroom every half hour.

Because I push back against this little click of wannabees in SL, they portray me as "against everybody" etc. blah blah. But anyone with any sense gets it.

If I've called someone a mangina who isn't (I believe I erred on Toxic Menges but of course I have no validation of this error), then wow, shoot me. Most of the time I've gotten it right.

Um, I don't have a deepseated issue with gender. I have a very much on-the-surface and very targeted and precise issue with asshole males who have female avatars who lash out at me and bully me for reasons that are strange, but obvious -- their insecurity.

Emerald never "caught on" to the extent claimed. We have no impartial third party telling this, only Emerald itself, and Linden not talking.

[Toxic Menges]

Because you never used a viewer that showed the extent of take up for Emerald (ie viewer tags), you simply didn't see the take up numbers.

[Extropia DaSilva]

I can guess why you think I am male. It is because of the stereotype that says women are not interested in transhumanism. Oh, and the stereotype that says all female avvies are male until proven otherwise. But why on Earth would anyone think I'm an alt!?

Let me make it clear that I, Extropia, am FEMALE. That is the gender I have chosen; that is the gender I *am*. As for my primary, feel free to ascribe any gender you like. I am under no obligation to say if your guess is correct or not. Nor would I be under any such obligation in the unlikely circumstances of us dating each other.

As for this 'lying' business, if we take the famous 'case of the electronic lover' as an example, I do believe Alex did a wicked thing in making people believe 'Joan' was a person who existed in RL. If he had made it clear that 'Joan' was a fictional character who only existed in online worlds, I don't think he could've been accused of any wrongdoing. I myself make it very clear that I am a fictional character who does not exist in RL, and take particular care to make sure anyone who dates me understands they are dating ME and not my primary, who they will never meet and whose identity is none of their business. Anyone who does not accept these conditions is free to walk away (quite a few have).

[Extropia DaSilva]

@Botgirl.

I think the thing to consider is that all avatars are transgendered, regardless of whether they are male/female and regardless of whether the RL gender matches or opposes it.

An avatar is intrinsically of NO GENDER AT ALL. It becomes engendered only through CHOICE or rather a series of choices (choice of name, of bodyshape, of hairstyle, of clothes, of accessories...)Since a transgender is the gender you choose rather than the gender you are born with, I submit that all avatars are transgendered.

Regarding Botgirl's 'revelation'...

I think psuedonymity is given up because of misdirected adulation.

A person creates a character in SL, and as that character they become a content creator or blogger or something. They become quite well known. Some of them become kind of famous.

But here's the thing: All the praise, all the accolades, go to the CHARACTER. The person who does all the work remains unknown, hidden behind the veil of psuedonymity. Perhaps it is not surprising if, sooner or later, they start thinking 'this is wrong. I do all the work and someone else is getting the credit'. At which point they step into the limelight waving their hands about going 'it was me all along me me me'.

[Extropia DaSilva]

@ Crap.

If you want to highlight an example of Prok being the proverbial pot calling the kettle black, surely the best example is when he accuses someone of 'ranting'?

..Another way in which online worlds differ from more traditional outlets for narrative and roleplay has to do with the reasons why a gender is chosen. Why did Thomas Hardy choose to create the character 'Tess'? Frankly there could be any number of reasons, and everyone realises this.

But if Tess had been an AVATAR for some reason people would assume there was but one explanation: Thomas is a closet transexual who rejects his birth gender. It makes him feel insecure and the avatar is a projection of his wish-fulfillment.

I would argue that, in actual fact, the reasons for creating an online character whose gender opposes that of its creator is at least as many and as varied as are the choices governing the gender of literary characters.

[Skylar Smythe]

...I'm starting to think that somewhere in this sorted histoire de Mangina is a traumatic incident where Prok was "mangina'd".

Prok... did you fall in love with a man who turned out to be a girl? Or a girl that turned out to be a man...

I'm detecting hints of PTSD in the ongoing mangina monologues...

*shrug*

Skylar

[Prokofy Neva]

Um, did your eyebrows grow back in yet? What a horror!

I don't suffer from any "PTSD". I *report on* the fact that among the main people who bully and harass me are men who have female avatars. It turns out even Dale Innis Dale Chess has that characteristic. Something just makes them furious about females having male avatars, especially if they are unafraid and outspoken. Maggie Darwin is another big one.

Apparently you suffered from abuse as a child, because you don't understand boundaries. You keep writing grossly personal remarks as if they will be seen as "funny" or "make someone mad". Instead, they merely reveal you to be a loser.

[Prokofy Neva]

Why would I believe the *Emerald viewer itself* about its "uptake". It could be reporting as false positives other non-official SL viewers or anything at all. The Emerald people were very cunning and duplicitious, so nothing can be trusted. I had various customers come and go who used Emerald, and BTW, some of them very unhappily, so I know it had some uptake, but not as much as claimed. Certainly not "half of" or even "one third of" the concurrency.

[Saffia Widdershins]

Actually, other TPVs (such as Imprudence) give the data on which viewer other people are using. Clearly, it wouldn't have been in their interest to show everyone else at a party as using Emerald when they would want people to go for their browser.

I must admit I was stunned when I used Imprudence and it showed me just how many people were using Emerald, and in different types of gatherings too. That, more than anything, made me feel the whole thing was getting out of Linden Lab's hands.

I thought it was going to be tough for the Lab to ditch something that had taken such a deep hold on the grid. But I wasn't expecting Emerald to shoot itself quite so spectacularly in the foot, take out both knees and then continue upwards ...

[cube inada]

The masses eventually "dont do well" with the "do as i say, not as i do" methods that companies like LL and many of these web2.0 user gen biz built organizations use.....

[Prokofy Neva]

Saffia,

All that may be so. I don't have direct knowledge of it. I have no reason NOT to believe that Emerald lied about their numbers, as they lied about everything else.

If it was embedded as much as you say, you have to wonder a) why was there hardly any protest when Emerald was banned b) why everybody simply moved over to Imprudence or back to SL's viewer if it was so great.

[Sean Williams]

Catherine, if you bothered to actually research the client programs and the various data bits that they store on your PC and transmit out over a connection, you'd know that it is quite difficult to fake a positive detection of a TPV within another TPV.

Client Detection for nearly all TPVs that have it is a combination of the announced "channel" message that all clients broadcast (and which cannot be shut off, by design) and detecting what other data is being gathered, sent or hidden by other clients.

While there are some TPV standards, each and every one of them has a unique feature or method of handling and broadcasting different data points.

I can tell you from personal experience using several TPVs that if an unknown client is detected, it simply shows up as "?". The only time a client is wrongly IDed as another client type is when there is an issue with the data being broadcast and it looks similar enough to some other client for the systems to tag it as such.

A prime example of this is LGG's own Emergence, which flags as Viewer 2.

Another example of a client that is either mis-flagged or fails to match a current client's data types is when LL releases or updates Viewer 2 (or when someone is using the old 1.23 client). They will show up as "?".

A little bit of research goes a very long way to understanding how these systems work. It also saves people from making statements based solely on opinion.

[cube inada]

true, no one knows the real numbers.... but the reasons why it would go without much "protest" or why others would simply move to another older browser or 2.0 or imprudence are simple.... they want to "keep what they got" and the only way to do that in the SL plantation, is to agree to some form of servatude for his massa.

im on 1.23 untill it ends... then ill be out...unless im making a buck.... but then again, this month had the least sales in 3-4 years of my scifiey-jetsonsy stuff;)

Just a fact, the "station building modules" i sell were always a best seller--- many bought them to build out skybox/stores/ etc..spacestations...

i couldnt give them away last month for 10$l vs the 1000 1500 they sell for usually..

just like the US building industry/ sign of the times....

simple lab simulations work that way;0

[cube inada]

http://bikescanwork.com/2010/10/29/4-year-old-sued-for-negligence/

why HOW WE LIVE IN VITUALITY --WILL-- Seep inot HOW WE LIVE IN REALITY....

lots of "SL is for everybody" sillyness in this story....

NYC "was" the urban human model for dense self centered living....a virtuality of reality...

look were our addition wired virtuality culture has lead us....

how much to bet this judge plays FARMVILLE?? or worse..is in SL? lol