Profiles: Your mirror

Maybe twice a month or so, I receive a notecard inviting me to an event. Normally I raise my eyebrow, because they're events completely unrelated to any of my activities, so I wonder what made them think that I would be a fit. Anyway, I make sure of reading everything (who knows?), and of course, I also check the profile of the person that sends me the notecard.

Profiles tell you a lot about people. Often you can safely decide that whatever you've read, "I'm this/that" is unlikely to be true (People often show an amazing blindness when it comes to evaluate themselves.) I don't mind at all when I find some personal tabs in merchants' profiles. It's like when you see your coworkers' photographs on their desks: husband, wife, kids and any other people they feel proud of having in their lives. (We could of course get cynical about this. I will not, this time.)

However, when I read a merchant's profile, I'm a little more critical with what I read. I ask myself "would I want to contact this person, if I have a problem?", when it comes to purchasing, and "would I want to be associated with this store/event?" in the case of being invited to events.

I'm not too picky when it comes to my being a customer. When I read a long list of "do not IM me, do not this, please notecards only, etc.", I'm reading their frustration, a frustration I can empathize with. I don't see it, as others do, like they're raising a wall not to talk to me, I don't see that they're pushing me away. I'm only reading they've had a lot of trouble in the past with not too nice customers, and are begging you to please understand they can't be there 24x7 exclusively for you, 5 seconds top right after you IMd them. Use the contact way they've told you to use, like you would do with any RL company. I understand that a long "no" list can throw other people away, and I'm trying to write and rewrite my own profile for that reason, but personally, I choose not to discard a merchant just because they have a long list of "no's". I know they may have very valid reasons for them. (Plus, people sure do try. If you list the ways to contact you and don't use any "no" list, to sound positive and kind, then they contact you in all the ways you have not listed. Ah, you never said not to contact you in all those unlisted ways!)

But, I do pay attention to how the profile is written, whether this is for the things they don't want you to do, or for the things they expect you to do. And I pay attention to any other side note. Yes, I read the second life tab, the first life tab, and all of your picks. I may read even more, if you have it available, like SL feed, blog and whatever else you add in there. I'm that curious.

We finally reach to what I actually wanted to talk about. I've received a notecard inviting me to an event, followed of an IM. I confess, lack of punctuation puts me off. I expect good writing skills from an event organizer. Call me elitist if you will, but I prefer to talk about business with people I can actually understand. Still, I read the notecard. No mention to "no resellers, no BIAB (Business in a box)", no mention to "no copyright infringements". I check the website, nothing about that either. Alarms ring. Well, that would be the very least to mention about an event. Of course where and how it's going to be advertised, etc., but a commitment in all items being legit should be among the first priorities, if not the first one.

Then I finally go back to reading their profile. What do I find? Among other personal stuff, a couple of quite interesting picks. In one of them, this merchant shows... no, brags, about how a badass they are when replying to people that have complained by calling them spammers. I click on the link... pathetic. I don't even remember who the person complaining was, all I know at this point is that I don't want to do business with this event organizer.

The thing goes on. Another pick is about their blog. They mix the personal part of SL with the business part of SL all in the same place, threatening with publishing conversations there if you "piss them off" and going all "nyah nyah, this is an external place to SL, you cannot throw the TOS at me."

I know that if I publish a conversation here, I am not breaking LL's TOS. But still... Really? You're not even going to do the work of at least not telling who the people involved, are? Well, I sure don't want to have trouble with you, and how do I avoid that? Yes, you got it: not being involved with you, nor your event. I wish you the best of luck. This is just not my style. At all.


Whenever I feel I want to write one of these rants, I feel divided. On one side, I want to talk about it, but on the other side, I can't avoid thinking "Why are you writing this? Do you think you are any better than the situation you are picturing here?" I haven't published many, many posts, because of that thought. So I will add, I know that my profile isn't perfect either. I know I make mistakes too. Feel free to point them out. I'm just talking about something that put me off, but if you want to be like this case I've described, go ahead, be yourself. I will likely not work with you, but that is fine, because likely, you wouldn't want me to work with you either.


PS: After reading older entries from this merchant's blog, I found an item using copyrighted material. Well. I'm not the copyright police, so I will only say, that alone is enough for me to silently reject the invite. Thanks but... No, thanks.

Maturity

Rambling alert! This is a long post. You acknowledge that I cannot be held responsible of your falling sleep over the keyboard and neck damages caused by that if you decide to continue reading. This is a fair warning, placed at the top of the post :o)

When I started writing Relationships i̶n̶ ̶S̶L̶, I promised a "next post" that never came. Instead I published two consecutive posts that had nothing to do. I hadn't realized that the deadlines for all the winter events were so close in time, I needed some time to develop the "next post", and the time had to be used for the new releases.

There was a discussion about that thread in my feed, and I enjoyed it. I'm terribly curious about human behaviour, and people participating added interesting comments, and also jokes. I'm quite glad the discussion happened. It made me think about my own reasons to prefer a not so much public display of myself. Despite of what you've heard around, thinking is always a good thing :-)

Still, some replies in my feed made me wonder if I had made my point across clearly.

I never said I'm against partnerships nor against making it public. The word "hypocrite" wouldn't be good enough to fit me if I said. I also never said I'm against public displays of love and affection. Indeed I said, "I like to see people in love."

What I said was:

Each time we say that this time, this is our love forever, and each time it is not. Each time, forever lasts an average of three weeks, six months for the lucky ones.

Then why make it public each time? What's the purpose? Why do we need to repeat publicly "I love you"? Shouldn't those words be saved only for the one deserving them? Do we want to make everybody else jealous because, this time, we've found "the love of our life"?

Of course, when the bubble bursts, the situation turns ugly. There's the break up, and that alone hurts. There are all the photos that now are telling people "we failed", which adds to the injury. And there will be future photos from your ex, this time with someone else. More pain and resentment.

I would like to understand, why, if we all know this, we continue to expose ourselves constantly, voluntarily, to all the extra pain that could be easily avoided. I, for one, don't get it. I would like to understand. Please feel free to add your comments about.

I realized that two separate things were confused at that point. Probably the confusion came from here, "Why do we need to repeat publicly "I love you"? Shouldn't those words be saved only for the one deserving them?"

Although it may seem that I'm complaining about public displays of love, I'm not. Remember that I said, clearly and openly, "I like to see people in love." The key word here is "context". Those questions came right after I said "Each time we say that this time, this is our love forever, and each time it is not. Each time, forever lasts an average of three weeks, six months for the lucky ones." and so were related to that. Perhaps I should have rewritten my questions to something like this:

You have proven once and again, that every time you've said "I will love you forever", "this time this is my true love forever" (and variants)... You don't really mean it. Shouldn't you be a little more careful when you publicly say something absolute like that? What makes you feel wanting to repeat the routine of publicly exposing your next relationship, again under the "my true love forever" promise, when the odds are against you?

You'll have to trust me in this: despite of my "ice queen" ultra-rational facade, I also feel, and fall in love. I'm human, like you (whether you like it or not), and so I empathize with your feelings, with your need of saying sweet nothings. I understand why it happens. I say those things too. With perhaps one exception. I don't use the word "forever". I don't feel it's appropriate to promise eternity to each and every stranger. But that is my choice.

I feel that the way I've rewritten my questions sounds more like what I had in mind. And still, whether you believe it or not, I have absolutely no issues with your public displays of love. Real love, fake love, RP love, SL love, and many others. Whichever your choice. I'm fine with it. When I have time, I look at it (you make it public!), and when I don't have time, I just use the scroll wheel of my mouse, or simply, don't check the "Trending" tab. I just can't help myself wondering about what motivates repeated behaviours that prove to be harmful.


Anyway, none of this is actually the point of what I wanted to write next, nor my own feelings and situation are. I just felt that since I wasn't clear at that point, I should try again and clarify now.

I wrote Relationships i̶n̶ ̶S̶L̶ with a clear intention in my mind. I wanted to analyze some aspects that I find to be relevant about an incident happening in the SL feed a few weeks ago. I know that some will shake and foam, spitting words of "can't you let it go" and "witch hunt", but I know that a smart reader will realize, I'm not talking about the specific situation even though I will point to details of what happened. Just because things happen too fast on Internet, that doesn't mean I will not be taking my time to think about. I like to develop my own conclusions once I've finished with my thought process, not when the people that want to cover the truth with lies say that I should "let it go".

None of us is born being wise. Even more: when we are born, we are quite vulnerable. Neither our body nor our mind is ready to live in this world. Adults around us, normally our parents, help us grow. They are responsible for our security and our development into adults ourselves. This growing up doesn't happen suddenly. Each one of us develops body and mind at different paces, and differently from anybody else. For example, physically, I was fully developed when I was 10 years old. My mind, I tell you, wasn't as mature as my body looked like. I was still playing with my brother's construction games, and all of sudden I realize that in the event of a violent act, I could be pregnant and have a baby that would tie me forever to a life I didn't want. I can't explain how that thought shook me. I still remember the chill. I felt incredibly small and vulnerable in a world that suddenly started to show quite more dangerous than what I ever thought before my body fully developed. My parents were there. They took right decisions and they also took wrong decisions, but they never gave up their responsibility of making an adult from me.

I can recall that my mind started to also grow up when I was 15 years old. Adolescence is sure a moment of your life where the only certain you have is uncertainty about everything. When I was 15 years old, I was completely aware that even though I could start behaving as an adult, should there were consequences, my parents were legally responsible of my misbehaving. My parents had already taught me that I should always be responsible of what I do, and so I did my best not to cause them trouble. If I burned a public bench, my parents should be the ones paying for it. In my mind, that was unfair. But I understand that law can't be written to cover all the gray areas that exist in the development of a person into their adult state, and so the law needs clear lines to say "adult" and "underage". In many countries, this line is at the age of 18.

I know, it makes no sense that if the week before to be 18, I break something, my parents have to pay for it. There's not that much difference in the person I am from one week to the next. But in what comes to law, that would be a slippery slope to follow. What would be the week that "tells the difference"? So the line is clear. 18. No matter you're a more mature person since you're 16, or you're an eternal immature person even though you're now 50. From the age of 18 (in many countries), if you do something, you pay for it. You're on your own. If you do before, your parents are held responsible. (There are specific felonies where you are held responsible, though. If you think your parents will pay for your killing another, and you'll get away with it because you're 16, think twice.)

Adults should help us to grow up. This means that when we deserve to be scolded, we should be. When we deserve to learn the lesson, we should learn it. My parents never gave me an inch saying "please pity of the poor girl, she's still young, she will learn" when somebody else complained about me. They listened carefully. They never said "my daughter could never [insert whatever you want]" to the person complaining. They looked at me, stern, asking "is this true?", and since I was taught not to lie, I had to nod. They apologized to the person I caused trouble and assured it will never happen again. And oh yes. I was punished for what I did. But nowadays I thank them for those lessons.

The specific lesson they taught me is that ill deeds are ill deeds no matter how old you are, and you deserve no sympathy if you commit them. You deserve the consequences.

The fact that they never rejected somebody else's testimony with a "my daughter would never" also taught me a very valuable lesson. Nobody is sacred, specially when it comes to ill deeds.


Now, on to the SL feed. About three weeks ago, Laurin Sorbet writes in her blog that she doesn't want to interact with underage people in SL. It is a position I share, and I'm sure that many others. Unless I am in PG regions, I assume that people interacting with me are adults. Underage people shouldn't be in mature nor adult sims. I'm not talking about kid avatars, I'm talking about the real person behind the avatar. I don't go to an adult sim to have to bite my tongue and babysit others' offspring: I get employed in a kindergarten for that. My parents already taught me that each one is responsible of their own kids and nobody else's, and that nobody else should do your parenting job. They would have never allowed another adult to give me any advice. While I was growing up, they wanted me with people of my same age.

This means that when an underage person is in an adult sim, we have to think of one between two possibilities. One is that the parents know what the teen is doing, and they let them do. However, because of the nature of adult sims, I'm more inclined to the second possibility: the parents have no idea of what the teen is doing. Which by its own nature, is talking badly about what the teen does. Perhaps the teen is mature enough. I will not discuss that. It's possible. But I don't see that as mature when the act of being in an adult sim is, by definition, breaking LL's TOS if you're underage. When it comes to breaking LL's TOS and performing sexual acts with adults... It doesn't matter how mature the teen is. The law may come into play, and the law will look at the line: under, or above 18?

Some of us didn't know why Laurin was writing what it is common sense, and so asked. In her feed, the situation was clarified.

There was a girl I followed, that used to post nice pictures. She had a previous affair, and she was starting to air the new one, in a fashion like what motivated me to write Relationships i̶n̶ ̶S̶L̶ (Finally! The connection!)

Then, the couple broke up, and the girl received some "hate mail". When said like this, it doesn't look any different than any other of the many breakups you witness in the SL feed, and we quickly think "sheesh the guy" (although I'd like to see the "hate mail", for I've grown bored of the delicate skins that some have). So people sided with the "poor girl" that was "receiving hate", one of her "best friends" published the following:

(I know the person doing this doesn't deserve my consideration, but I have as an habit not to point fingers because it allows to better focus in the issue. BFF means "Best Friend Forever".)

Well. Now this makes everything different than a normal SL-breakup. Keeping aside the fact that this "best friend forever" broke the community standards when publishing the RL age of the girl within the realms of LL (so, a TOS infraction), the situation we have now is that an underage person had been performing (virtual) sexual acts with adults. Two different adults, to my knowledge.

It's none of my business who you decide to be in bed with or how often. But when you're in SL disguised as an adult, even thinking of meeting in RL... That sends chills to my spine. Perhaps you're mature enough to have sex. I will not discuss that. But if your parents/guardian find out, they may think otherwise. And I have the feeling, they are going to disagree about your maturity. But which is worse, they may go against the guy. Perhaps by then you would have confessed the age. Perhaps not. That will not save him from the consequences.

The girl finally cracked and told him the truth about her age before meeting. Honestly, I can understand if the guy was upset. I can understand if he was angry. Probably, that "hate mail" was a mere "what the hell were you thinking of?" Because if they had met, the consequences could have been very ugly for him. He has all the right to be angry, and this "best friend forever" seemed to try to take importance from that. Likely, she didn't expect that some people would react saying "wait, what... did you say... a MINOR?"

This "best friend forever" did what my parents would have never done: "Pity her! She's young! She'll learn!" This minor deserved a lesson. Like not coming back to SL and developing the kind of life a teenager should have. All the "cuddling" and "oh poor you, all the world is against you" will only teach the following lesson to this teenager: lie all you want, for you'll find somebody stupid enough to forgive you and help you get away with your lies. That's the lesson this adult teaches to a teenager. Very mature.

But the history doesn't finish here. Oh no. Once we enter into the realms of absurdity, be ready for Henry the horse dancing the waltz.

The "best friends" had setup another account so the underage person could continue in SL, and gifted it to her. Of course, they didn't seem to read section 4 of TOS, where it says:

You may not sell, transfer or assign your Account or its contractual rights, licenses and obligations, to any third party without the prior written consent of Linden Lab.

Because if they had read that, then the minor wouldn't have been seen again posting photos in the SL feed from... drumroll... ADULT SIMS.

The response of the "best friends" was to teach the teenager how to better hide. This gifted account was also suspended, as the first one was, and in the third account, the teenager says that she's a teen, under her RL tab. However, the "best friends" she hangs out with, live in an ADULT sim. The "best friend forever" says she takes care of the babysitting. The thing here is, the underage person is AGAIN breaking TOS, and you, "bestie", are doing a job that doesn't belong to you, for you are not her mother. Her mother will not be delighted if she ever finds out, although after all the teaching how to better hide coming from you, irresponsible person, I doubt the poor mother learns about this. I don't want to be in her shoes when that happens.

It is not a witch hunt to point all this, as it has been mendaciously said. It is the responsible thing to do. As adults, we cannot teach a teenager that the right thing to do is learn to hide better in places where she shouldn't be in the first place, and that saying "I'm sorry" will be enough to get away.

It is highly irresponsible, it shows no moral decency or standards at all, and personally, it makes me highly doubt about the maturity that said "adults" have, because if they've followed all this path of lies and breaking TOS, expecting also that an innocent guy was pointed like "the bad guy", they sure have no moral grounds.

As a fun detail, the "best friends" have muted some of us in a response to this (imaginary) "witch hunt". Mute away, I say! I've never talked to you in the first place, "bestie", and given what I've seen, I don't feel like talking to you anyway. Interestingly, the teenager has NOT muted us. Shouldn't have been the teenager the one muting us, if she perceived any harassment? The answer is obvious to me. As any reader can see, there's no harassment in merely exposing our opinions and our publicly say that we do not encourage the behaviour of the teenager nor of the "adults" that taught her to better lie. And only the adults felt offended by that. In that regard, the teenager did show more maturity. I think it's funny.


I will finish with one more comment. There are reasons, important reasons, why we cannot teach that "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oops I lied again" is something to forgive to "poor teenagers". You know, teenagers are underage, but they are not stupid. They can do a lot of harm. That's why I want that remains clear, after all this story, that what these "adult besties" are doing, is to plead forgiveness for this teenager who break TOS repeatedly (and so they have done too!), stepping over the uncomfortable fact that if there are RL consequences, those will be for the guy she played with.

Cheese is my shiny and a good reason for divorce

Although it's true I love cheese, and I really think that an unfair distribution of cheese in the plates is reason enough for divorce, the motivation behind my writing this, has nothing to do with cheese, or divorce, but with words and ownership. At the moment of writing this post, the following search string:

Cheese is my shiny and a good reason for divorce

when looked up literally, this is, written this way in Google:

"Cheese is my shiny and a good reason for divorce"

produces exactly ZERO results. That will change as soon as this post and my SL profile picks are part of the search database, of course. I know, it's not that I've found a cure for cancer and so I should feel proud for that line, nor my pride is the point of this.

My point is, those are my words. While we don't own each word separately, as we don't own colors, we own what we create with them, as an oils artist owns the image on the painted canvas. It matters not if it's one unique line or a whole book. Length is not what matters. What matters is that you've created it.

I did my best not to leave a reply when Whiskey Monday wrote about a person that, say, took without permission her profile's words and "creatively used" them, because I've had my own share of having been "ripped" in that regard (tutorials, profile words, class materials by, allegedly, "friends"... you name it), and I wouldn't have been nice, specially, after someone said in the comments:

how many people in history do you think have arranged those words together? do you think that you are the first person to do it? have you copyright that arrangement of words? if not, than nothing has been stolen, anyone can arrange those words together in the same order and they don't have to pay royalties to you.
[...]
what do you want to copyright next and claim you arrange them first, the words "how are you" with a question mark at the end?

The search in Google seems to be on Whiskey's side (I suggest to read all the comments in that post). But then again, are we talking about length? A creation isn't yours if it doesn't fit within a minimum of words? You shouldn't complain after being ripped unless you've written a whole essay? How long the essay should be? Can anybody enlighten me?

I remember, when I was at school, that our teachers always insisted in this: "explain, using your own words". That has been one of the most important things they've ever taught me. The importance of being able to produce your own words. If you feel that taking someone else's words isn't a big deal, if you think "come on, it's just one/two lines, why such a fuss over this", then don't complain when it happens to you... assuming you can ever tell how dull, how much of a boring nothing it makes of you to need copying, without even having the decency of giving credit, what someone else says as if it was yours. Trying to make excuses only makes you look even worse.

PS: Even when you copy/paste to then change words, the original author can tell. Specially if you're so dumb of leaving exact quotes inserted in the middle of phrases in a way that makes no sense.