LL Doesn't Have a Sense of Humour

In the old days, Linden Lab at least had its own in-group sense of humour that occasionally extended to the outside -- remember that time they started putting a recruitment notice on the splash screen and said that programmers had to know C++ and FIC? Those were the days. Philip Linden seemed to be devoid of any sense of irony with his mega-wattage sincerity, but he still made jokes, no? Or sometimes you realized that he wasn't making jokes, i.e. on occasions like the time he made a walkabout to the welcome area to greet newbies, and said "Welcome, Griefer!" to some goon that made a day-old alt with the first name "Griefer". Classic!

But April Fool's is not something the Lindens have ever played -- as far as I recall -- or maybe they did only once or twice? I don't think so. April Fool's is very much of a tekkie's domain -- most big IT play it, along with the tech blogs -- and that's how you know Foreign Policy is a tech blog, as they are the only serious publication that played it (in fact, quite lamely).

It didn't occur to me -- given all the dutiful "viral" coverage of Google's 8-bit NES gag -- that LL would scrub April Fool's jokes from their forums.

But of course they did -- the Lindens are nothing but not hugely serious about their forums. Well, except for certain FIC, I guess.

I put up a link to my April Fool's post which tied to the Google 8-bit thing on the "Viewer" forums which is in the "technology" section. Probably should have put it under "general discussion," because geeks never have a sense of humour about anything they didn't initiate.

I noticed some people clicked on it for an hour or two and then when I happened to look for it again -- it was gone -- and when I clicked on the link backs I was led to a "you are not authorized to view this page".

Meanwhile, I noticed that Madelaine McMasters -- is she FIC royalty? -- was able to get her April Fool's to remain, even though it had the trademark SL hand of Fatima symbol converted into a "fuck you" with the middle finger extended. It was about how Philip Linden now has a Third Life crowd-sourcing site.

Meanwhile, the obnoxious Draxtor Despres, machinima king, has been banned for spamming links to his machinima. Says Draxtor on Facebook:

My SecondLife account is suspended for "spamming" residents with Flufee related messages. Thank you for 5 years of fun & goodbye my beloved world......

Oh, wait, that must be an April Fool's joke itself.

Is Flufee some kind of European cartoon? or an American cartoon I just haven't heard of? (I don't have a TV). Or is he made up? (The beginning shows some kids looking at a comic book in a store with the character, which is why I ask.) Draxtor's latest seems to flog that character mainly because he's meshable. There's even a site called "Meshinima" yuck-yuck where you can see it.

 

Comments

[Ann Otoole InSL]

So he got suspended. Not permabanned. Poor Drax. Maybe he should conduct a thorough investigation into the actual provenance of all mesh avatars he decides to showcase. As well as do a bing image search on the names of his favorite mesh characters before assuming it is ok to use the names.

[c3]

looks like a greenies meets lain meets sackboy mixup;)

figured LL would want to use the little fella for free PR ..but i guess this week its only barbie doll fashions that markets SL.

zzzzz.

[GreenLantern Excelsior]

Draxtor never sent me more than one or two notifications a month about his projects. I wouldn't call that a bannable offense.