Frustration
I'm not sleeping well. in fairness, I'm sleeping a lot, but not in decent amounts. I'm awake for a few hours, then back to bed for a few, then awake for a few, etc.
the Second Life 5th birthday celebration has been going for 5 days. I'm an exhibitor there. The build I made, was a sculpture. a testament to the way "Children" were being treated in Second Life. Children.. in this case, being adults, whose avatars.. aka "characters" are children. See, there's been some political/press flak over the last couple of years, as some of usenet's finest had decided that "Your World, Your Imagination" (Second Life's motto) implied that they had free reign of fantasy, in a world full of adults.
Generally speaking, I agree with them. I think that fantasy, even dark fantasy, is healthy and normal. But there are people, religious puritanical people, who feel that "thinking evil" is the same as "doing evil". These people feel that the slightest piece of Adult-Child sexual fiction, is tantamount to child rape.
That said.
My build wasn't about that. My build was about the continued closeting and shunning of "child avatars" within Second Life. The painting of "all child avatars" as perverts and evil" the unwelcoming attitude towards simple, joyful play.
It was a rusted, abandonned playground. rusty slide, broken swings.. and a grafittied "Safe Space" sign. It was a powerful piece by itself.. but I added a billboard with the message:
Imagine a world without wonder.
imagine a world without play.
imagine a world without joy.
Your World. Your Imagination.
When I selected my space for the exhibit, I selected a relatively open space. Next to me to the south, was a pile of yellow stars. To the north, an empty lot.Behind me, a nice open-art artist's build, and diagonally from me, a build by "The Latex Dolls". In front of me, a build protesting the thousands of unaddressed bug reports filed by users. As my build came together, the lot to the north became an L-shaped art gallery with a nice park space next to my lot, and the plot to the left became an exhibit about Gor (complete with nudity).
Gor, for those who don't know.. is a series of books by an author named John Norman. Whatever the books THEMSELVES may contain, I can't say, but the so-called "Goreans" are a mysogynist lot, where all women are slaves, and all men are masters. Lots of shirtlessness and nudity, in a pseudo-medieval world of constant Domination and Submission.
So, the Goreans moved in to the south. I groused a little about it to friends, but nothing official. Diagonal to me, the Latex group was quietly removed overnight, and their build was replaced by "park space". The Goreans got warned about the nudit y in their build (not that I complained, mind you).
And so the event began. The goreans buiolt a little protest fire, out of the images they had been told to remove. I put in my time at my build, sitting there available to answer any questions.
Today, I dialed up my build, to do some time, when I found THIS next to my build.
Sometime, in the last couple of days, someone had snuck in and installed a craptastic "club" next to by sculpture. Glowing like a thing on fire, this "awning" was part of a large open-air "night club" build, complete with fullbright trees hanging off their plot, a cash-giveaway 'sploder, DJ booth, and dance balls.
At first, I really felt like maybe the damage could be mitigated. I contacted the owner of the awning and tried to explain to him that his awning was glowing. He apologized and came out and REDUCED the glow, but didn't eliminate it. There was a tree hanging over my build. He moved a second tree to hang over my build.. and at that point, I realized that there was a much bigger issue at stake.
The message of my sculpture, was being destroyed by the environment. Goreans on one side, shitty, tacky clubs on the other side. Pressing in from both sides destroying the message of the kids in the middle.
The problem, in microcosm.
I tried getting the event staff involved.. but so far, nothing has come from it. The clubbers have pulled back their trees, and I tried building a wall to hold back the blight.. but it was no use. The insanely glowing prims and the glow-in-the-dark palm trees, The cheap clubbers and the gorean sex cults have won.
the Second Life 5th birthday celebration has been going for 5 days. I'm an exhibitor there. The build I made, was a sculpture. a testament to the way "Children" were being treated in Second Life. Children.. in this case, being adults, whose avatars.. aka "characters" are children. See, there's been some political/press flak over the last couple of years, as some of usenet's finest had decided that "Your World, Your Imagination" (Second Life's motto) implied that they had free reign of fantasy, in a world full of adults.
Generally speaking, I agree with them. I think that fantasy, even dark fantasy, is healthy and normal. But there are people, religious puritanical people, who feel that "thinking evil" is the same as "doing evil". These people feel that the slightest piece of Adult-Child sexual fiction, is tantamount to child rape.
That said.
My build wasn't about that. My build was about the continued closeting and shunning of "child avatars" within Second Life. The painting of "all child avatars" as perverts and evil" the unwelcoming attitude towards simple, joyful play.
It was a rusted, abandonned playground. rusty slide, broken swings.. and a grafittied "Safe Space" sign. It was a powerful piece by itself.. but I added a billboard with the message:
Imagine a world without wonder.
imagine a world without play.
imagine a world without joy.
Your World. Your Imagination.
When I selected my space for the exhibit, I selected a relatively open space. Next to me to the south, was a pile of yellow stars. To the north, an empty lot.Behind me, a nice open-art artist's build, and diagonally from me, a build by "The Latex Dolls". In front of me, a build protesting the thousands of unaddressed bug reports filed by users. As my build came together, the lot to the north became an L-shaped art gallery with a nice park space next to my lot, and the plot to the left became an exhibit about Gor (complete with nudity).
Gor, for those who don't know.. is a series of books by an author named John Norman. Whatever the books THEMSELVES may contain, I can't say, but the so-called "Goreans" are a mysogynist lot, where all women are slaves, and all men are masters. Lots of shirtlessness and nudity, in a pseudo-medieval world of constant Domination and Submission.
So, the Goreans moved in to the south. I groused a little about it to friends, but nothing official. Diagonal to me, the Latex group was quietly removed overnight, and their build was replaced by "park space". The Goreans got warned about the nudit y in their build (not that I complained, mind you).
And so the event began. The goreans buiolt a little protest fire, out of the images they had been told to remove. I put in my time at my build, sitting there available to answer any questions.
Today, I dialed up my build, to do some time, when I found THIS next to my build.
Sometime, in the last couple of days, someone had snuck in and installed a craptastic "club" next to by sculpture. Glowing like a thing on fire, this "awning" was part of a large open-air "night club" build, complete with fullbright trees hanging off their plot, a cash-giveaway 'sploder, DJ booth, and dance balls.
At first, I really felt like maybe the damage could be mitigated. I contacted the owner of the awning and tried to explain to him that his awning was glowing. He apologized and came out and REDUCED the glow, but didn't eliminate it. There was a tree hanging over my build. He moved a second tree to hang over my build.. and at that point, I realized that there was a much bigger issue at stake.
The message of my sculpture, was being destroyed by the environment. Goreans on one side, shitty, tacky clubs on the other side. Pressing in from both sides destroying the message of the kids in the middle.
The problem, in microcosm.
I tried getting the event staff involved.. but so far, nothing has come from it. The clubbers have pulled back their trees, and I tried building a wall to hold back the blight.. but it was no use. The insanely glowing prims and the glow-in-the-dark palm trees, The cheap clubbers and the gorean sex cults have won.