Molasses Uphill In June
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
Right so, that whole being gone a long time stuff, it happened. If you know me, you’re used to it, if you don’t, that’s likely not going to be the last time I go underground and recharge for a bit. For now, sit back and grab a cushion, it’s going to be a long entry.
I’m going to start by telling you a story about how easy it is to lose sight of the motivation to write about the things we love because we forget to play.
A long time ago, in an SL far, far away, two friends started a blog. They were a pair of sarcastic girly girls who had played corporate big-league ball way too early in life and discovered that after reinventing their professional lives to accommodate telecommuting, messing around with make-believe paper dolls was shamefully fun. They quickly realized that there was going to be an avalanche of other women who would tap into the addictiveness of their wicked new delight. Being writers, they started a blog, because, well, that’s what they knew they were good at.
The blog became popular: it was fun, it was light-hearted and even when they licked off the sarcastic side of the lollypop, the grown-up techogeek girly girls they were writing for knew it was all in sport and no one went mental. Not at first. Like all those who happen to find themselves in an elevated status due to something frivolous and popular, they were a little oblivious to the seething egos lurking in the shadows around them. Jesters who were biding their time to invent make-believe crowns and rule over virtual realms. It was a few months when the first rumble reached them, and although they brushed it off, the smarter of the two said in a rare moment of seriousness, “This will not end well, you know. Eventually it’s all going to pants.”
When Sabrina said that to me what is now, I’m shocked to say, years ago, I thought she was being a worrywart. After all, we were writing about make-believe shoes and dresses, and so long as we didn’t take ourselves seriously, what possible harm could come from or to anyone. Yes, I was just that stupidly naive. I still am from time to time because there is part of me that will never stop being five years old.
In retrospect, if Sabrina or I had less integrity or self-confidence, or simply been capable of maintaining the ruthless business sense we’d previously abandoned, the roller coaster of Linden Lifestyles would have been far more enjoyable and would have lasted longer. Being writers, however, and successful bloggers, we’d figured that we’d simply write about what we loved and then hire people to handle the icky things that came with success. “Those are problems we want to have,” we told ourselves. This was a plan that had served both of us well in the past, except we forgot the fatal flaw of the formula: if the subject sours for any reason, it’s no longer something you love and writing about it morphs into gruesome work on the good days and Cheney-level torture on the bad days.
Both Sabrina and I came of age at the start of the internet revolution and both of us are throwbacks in many ways when it comes to online etiquette. I say this knowing well that it makes me sound like the crankiest granny smith apple that ever fell off the tree. But I still remember when AOL ruined the interwebs and that was before 4chan /b/ was so much as a twinkle in the Sesame Street-watchin’ eye of a kid named moot. In fact when it comes to griefing I have a very “lay back and think of England” attitude about it: just get it over with and don’t get anything sticky in my hair.
Rudeness is rarely funny to me. It’s not that I don’t get the jokes, I just think they’re funnier when they’re not actually being rubbed in someone’s face. I have what can only be described as a phobia about seeing people humiliated – even fictional characters. I spent the entire running time of Never Been Kissed bargaining with my friend to leave the theater with me. I cannot watch anything that stars Sacha Baron Cohen unless he’s using a mock Italian accent and standing in the vicinity of Johnny Depp. During episodes of Extras I beg out loud for Maggie to stop talking. In the season finale of The Office I had to fast-forward through Michael and Holly’s skits because it became physically painful to watch. I could go on. This is a personal idiosyncrasy that cracks most of my friends up and inspires them to send me emails with titles like “watch this” simply because they know I’ll be twitching two seconds into the clips. And when it comes to real-world examples like gotcha journalism or segments where idiots are put on camera on The Daily Show, all of it just feels like a really mean-spirited episode of Candid Camera under the pretense of important social commentary. It’s like Bob Saget and Quentin Tarantino went rogue and took America’s Funniest Home Videos out on a date with Reservoir Dogs. I know real life can be gory, but do I really want to watch it, no matter how snappy the dialog is?
I’m aware that the attitude of mainstream society has advanced beyond me in this context. The things I was raised to think of as proper behaviors and good manners are outdated — and I’m introspective enough to see that in many ways this is a good thing. A generation that does not go though the motions of niceties for niceties sake or tip toe around sacred cows of any stripe has sincere advantages in cutting through much of the BS that calls itself “tradition.” But, that doesn’t mean I’m ever going to be able to watch Ricky Gervais without curling into a fetal position and scrambling for the remote. Yes, he’s brilliant and I laugh my ass off, but he also makes me monumentally and sometimes unbearably uncomfortable.
All of which is just a long-winded way of explaining that even after years of flame wars and drama-lama extravaganzas in the virtual world, I am never prepared for things that I consider to be bad manners. Sure, there are the obvious things that are just flat-out, where-do-you-grow-that-kind-of-gall rude like, say, griefing someone with goatse prims or behaving like a social parasite and making a name for yourself by acting as vile as you can dream up. However, there are many other things I consider rude that don’t exist in terms of grand gesture. IMing someone you don’t really know on a social level without employing “Pardon me, may I ask a moment of your time?” as your opening line is rude in my book. Wagging your ass and pulling little attention-getting antics during someone else’s musical performance is rude in my book. This list could go on, but let’s stop there, because no matter the items on the list, the thing they all have in common is the fact that I am never prepared for them and often, I’ll find myself in ill sorts and do not even realize why I’m miffed until the exchange is over.
In this always plugged-in age of hyper-connectivity my time is my most valuable possession and wasting it or imposing upon it is a type of theft that cannot really be explained without getting into complex theories of social debt. We all only have so many hours in the day and only so much of ourselves to distribute amongst our various duties, obligations, loved ones, and recreations.
So, there were dozens of things that led to the end of Linden Lifestyles. Certainly, Sabrina and I were always guilty of mismanaging our time and certainly our principles got in the way of our business sense (then again, if you can’t hold to your principles when you’re dealing with make-believe clothes, where can you hold them?). That we attempted to apply real-world board room ethics to a virtual world over-populated by college students and bored housewives was our oops. However, if I’m to tell the truth about why I think Linden Lifestyles ended, then I have to say that I believe it’s mostly attributable to the (often innocent, occasionally deliberate) rudeness and amateurism of people who had more ambition than decorum. Not a single one of those people could have broken the dike; it happened one pebble at a time, one hysterical designer at a time, one Paris Hilton wannabe at a time. Each of them took their fifteen minutes (some repeatedly). And for every angry notecard, bitchy blog comment, or behind-the-scenes dramafest, there was a cost. Because even if you’re going to ignore such things (and, believe me, we ignored 99.99% of those things that were ignorable) you have to make the choice to ignore it. You have to say “…wait, what was that…?” and figure out what the hell is going on and then weigh the options. All of that is before you’ve even outwardly responded.
I’ve been told by the people who have the balls to say it to my face that they believe Sabrina and I fiddled while Rome burned. To which I can only shrug and smile and try to explain that when the fire is bigger than you, all’s that left is to get comfortable with the notion that Rome is fucked. So you might as well fiddle. Sabrina fled the city; like I said, she was always the smart one. I stayed and threw buckets of water on cinders. We each make our own choices.
Whatever brief bitterness, exhaustion or negativity I have regarding Linden Lifestyles is settled, and it is a drop in an ocean of memories of the fun and overwhelming positive response we received and continue to receive. It is a part of me that I carry with me every day in my virtual identity; I have no choice in this. Every day I log into SL there are samples from designers, comments from readers, and a gust of other reminders of how much Linden Lifestyles was loved and continues to be missed. I could no more ignore it or pretend it didn’t happen than I could cut off my right ear and pretend I never had an ear in that spot. But, I’ve come to believe it’s human nature to pay more attention to the one jeer in the crowd of a hundred cheers. With a bigger crowd, the louder the cheers, but the louder the boos as well. Having the energy to navigate that in such an intimate social environment as SL is tricky, but for a writer who holds themselves to any level of quality, it can go beyond taxing to become mentally exhausting.
And before we go any further, let me be clear: I’m not saying poor me. I wouldn’t trade the experience of being Salome or being part of Linden Lifestyles for all the pearls in all the oysters of the sea. Salome and Linden Lifestyles both led me to people and places in my personal life that you’d have to wring from my cold, dead fingers to get away from me. It’s just that if you’ve already been shot in the head, there are those people (and many of them love you) who ask you why the hell you’re still keeping guns in the house.
So why am I doing this to myself again? What the fuck am I thinking? And why am I only asking these questions now? Well, mostly because the bats in my belfry came back to nest before I went AWOL and I knew I had to address them before I moved on.
Sorry, let me explain that again in English.
Not long after writing this entry (a store review) I got a notecard from the owner/designer. My rebuttals (long overdue) to her complaints are below. The delay is in no small part because I thought long and hard before addressing it at all. Certainly our policy at Linden Lifestyles was to simply respond as politely and briefly as possible to such circumstances, if we replied at all. When you have a partner, you have the benefit of taking turns being the politician and the shrew.
A product or store review is not a cake walk. First you have to find items that give you a reason to blog. Then buying or getting the items form the store owner. Then you shoot the items (using store displays is just…why the fuck bother to write a review?), edit the photos for publishing, upload them and link them. Then you write what you hope is entertaining and balanced commentary. At the end of the entire process you end up with an investment of time (and often L$) that benefits no one in particular.
The reward for this can be anything from a gushing designer that wants to heap their entire inventory upon you and talk about how brilliant you think they are for hours on end to a vindicitive soulless badger that will ignore anything positive you mentioned and personally attack you with puffer fish spines and lemon juice in your paper cuts until you confess to war crimes…erm, fashion crimes. Most fall somewhere in the middle. The rare diamond in the rough is simply gracious or humorous and leaves you to your trade. Often, these are people too busy to bother with bile and there aren’t enough of them to suit me.
So why am I doing this again? Because SL is still a large part of my life. Because shopping in SL and writing about playing virtual paper dolls is still something I love. Because I don’t want to allow the rudeness and amateurism of others to make me grow any older than I already am. Because I don’t want to forget how to play. Because I’m a consumer and I have a right to my voice, and the thousands of other people who think like me but cannot articulate their thoughts have the right to have someone who speaks for them. Because I don’t want to forget how to play. Because, at its best, its fun. Because I want to and no one can make me stop except me. Because I do not want to forget how to play.
However, I’m adding a caveat from this point on — my own personal “here, there be dragons” if you will. If you take up my time, then I will no longer default to affording you the kindness of silence. Drop a passive-aggressive notecard on me full of forth grade logic and I may or may not post it and respond to it — depends on the day of the week, how funny the previous night’s episode of Big Bang Theory was and what phase I’m in of my menstrual cycle.
And, if you think this sounds like a great way to start promotional drama with me in comments, please know that I’ve put in my time dealing with idiots and free speech in comment sections; I gave at the office. Here, you get as much free speech as I’m willing to deal with. Period.
*****
Below are excerpts from a notecard sent to me by the content creator of the store I reviewed here. The designer dropped their notecard on me a few days later. I’m responding to it now because I finally have the time and inclination to do so. The creator’s comments appear in italics with my responses below. I have broken the note into seven basic sections and edited for brevity where possible without disrupting the author’s intent.
1. “Ignoring the fact that my style doesn’t seem to really appeal to you, and that there is not much “constructive” in your recent criticism of my work…”
This may seem pedantic, but by stating the fact, you’re not ignoring it. Welcome to passive-aggression 101. Had your style not appealed to me, I wouldn’t have dropped L$5k on 15 items. I also wouldn’t have paid the compliments I did in the review. As for whether or not the review was constructive, I’ll leave that to readers and fellow consumers.
2. “I have a good reason for the hair to be no mod, but I have specifically stated in the notecard that comes with the demo, and on recent blog entries, that you can contact me if you want a mod version. There is the potential to ruin your style with a script reset, hence the no moddness.
This will seem cold, but the bottom line about this issue is that, as a consumer, I don’t care. Honestly and truly — I don’t care what your reasons are for trying to sell no-mod hair. Hair has been sold mod for years in SL. I’m sure you think you’ve built a better mousetrap but you haven’t. All the major designers have sold mod hair for as long as most SLers can remember. If you’re going to go against the grain, then you have to be ready for the grain to wonder what the fuck is going on. Moreover, if you’re going to deny a consumer something they’re familiar with, then it’s your job to sell them on the change and go above the bar in making the change appealing.
Saying that you’re making hair no mod to keep people from ruining their hair is just…lame. It’s no copy/no transfer. If you’re worried about people messing it up, include a back-up boxed version in the folder that they can rez over and over to pull fresh new copies from.
It’s also meaningless to say consumers can contact you if they’re not happy with a product. Obviously, a consumer can contact any content creator for any reason. However, as anyone who works in product development or customer service will tell you, the test of a good product is having the fewest amount of consumers contact you as possible.
More importantly, don’t try and make up excuses to me about the problems consumers have with mod hair in SL. I literally wrote the book on how to fit, re-texture, and otherwise modify prim hair. You’re wrestling outside your weight class when you try and sell me this song and dance. You made the hair no-mod because it was easier for you and fit what you wanted as a seller of a product. That’s your right as a creator. As a consumer I can, and did, cry foul.
You’d have been smarter from a business perspective to add a comment on the blog saying “hey – fyi, I know this is an issue for some people and I’m trying to address it…” But then you don’t get the snarky notecard satisfaction.
3. Nevertheless, I am developing a system which will allow the scripting for texture change, and still allow the hair to be moddable with fewer potential issues. However, as it is just me in this business, with a part-time scripter, and I only have so many hours in the day, this will come when I can do it…”
So… you know it’s a problem and you’re working on it. Given you acknowledge it’s an issue enough to have ear-marked future time to spend fixing it, it’s silly for you to get all hissy about someone pointing out the concern when evaluating your product line. Until you fix it, it’s something the consumer should be aware of — how is that even controversial enough to drop a notecard over?
And if you’re so time-depressed since it’s just you in the business with a part-time scripter, then it really puts that whole “anyone that needs a custom change can contact me” claim under the microscope.
4. Also, I am not a “they”, I am just a “she”. And not a M->F transgender “she” as you seem to be implying.
I don’t consider transgender to be an insult, and even if I did, I never said you were transgendered. Admittedly, I was using snarky humor while pointing out that some of the store’s femme clothing is set, by default, to near man-friendly sizes. I generally tend to use “they” when referring to a store or a line of clothing for the simple fact that I don’t know who is behind the content. Again, this warrants a notecard…why?
5. “I am tall IRL, and my avvie height is 6’1 and in proportion. I would *never* expect something to fit me out of the box and if your avatar is petite, I’m not sure why you would either.”
I’m short IRL and my avatar is 5’8″. If you know your avatar is unusually tall, then certainly you should be aware that your default sizes are, too. My avatar is average-sized for SL because I don’t like refitting everything I buy. I developed my avatar shape to be shopping friendly (something I know a little bit about). My girlie doesn’t have bimbo breasts that make textures play silly putty games, nor is she age-play short; by the SL avatar standard the rest of us use, she’s just an average girl in piggy buns. Simone’s clothes are made for gals a bit more hippy with way more junk in the trunk than I have and I can still resize them in my sleep because they scale down to the waif look so many of us go for.
The vast majority of avatars I encounter in SL are within my range. While most things do fit my avatar out of the box, I never expect anything to fit perfectly and I have an SL black-belt in fitting that dates back before most SL labels existed. I don’t have any problem in fitting something to my shape if it warrants the time. However, when I’ve shrunk an item to the smallest possible setting (dictated by the smallest prim in the linked items) and it still makes me look like Baked Alaska trying to masquerade as a pudding cup, I consider that a serious sizing issue. I shouldn’t have to hunt down the smallest prim, unlink, reconstruct, and re-link to wear something — which I did to make one of your items wearable.
6. Anyone else with “serious sizing issues” has contacted me for a custom fitting. This option is always available to anyone who needs it.
For every person that contacts a designer about a concern, there are a dozen others who simply move problem items into the trash folder and decide not to shop there again. I don’t have time to chase after designers who can’t be bothered to tailor their items to the market. Neither do most of the people who shop in SL. And, frankly, there’s too much variety in SL these days to expect people to go out of their way to accommodate problem products. While there are a few elite labels that can make shoppers jump through hoops, it’s important to know when you’re not one of them.
7. Anyway that’s really all I want to say on this. I appreciate your time and effort in writing about my creations, even if you didn’t like them.
If you had appreciated my time and effort you wouldn’t have wasted my time with a notecard that was both thankless and meaningless. Should I ever write up an item of yours again, please feel free to demonstrate your appreciation by remembering that:
a) I spent L$ in your store and while I’m entitled to my opinion no matter what, I actually put my money where my mouth was where your products were concerned;
b) I led with your strongest and most original item;
c) I left out the worst examples I could have shown;
d) I actually said several good things about your items.
If all of the above fail to jar a seed of genuine thanks from you, then just content yourself that all publicity is good publicity and try to resent me in private like the rest of the not-ready-for-prime-time designers do.
Although in this case I do thank you for providing me a perfect example of why everyone thinks the SL fashion market is populated by spoiled children and trailer trash housewives.