NBC GOES GOR?

Call Fox News! After a less-than-fulfilling morning trying to listen to the Nintendo dude amidst all the bantering from a full platoon of v-5 regulars on brand-new alts, I was more than ready to visit the new NBC build, evidently begun a few months ago but not yet announced.

Admiring the Rockefeller Plaza similitude, and panning around admiring the fastidiously real build by Jimmy Thompson of Bedazzled, I was just composing a self-important memo as an indigenous virtualtor to NBC execs about the importance of buying their builds from the architects, when something made me see if I could fly down 5th Avenue to E. 34th St.

There comes those moments in your immersiveness when you want to poke at the snowglobe walls and see if anybody is waiting behind the Trumansville blue sky. I was given pause when I saw what looked like a police sawhorse waiting at what should have been my exit down Fifth Avenue, but I was able to keep flying...and suddenly saw a wierd combo of pancaked, confectioner-sugar white island land, and then a wintry scene and something like a Russian Orthodox Church Arabian minaret. I began to feel seriously freaked at the thought of NBC filming movies in this real-life Hollywood set when suddenly....

....I saw a Gorean build! I knew Second Life made for strange bedfellows, but here's NBC parked right smack dab next to Vosk, a Gorean RP sim. Gor, as you can learn from an excellent two-part series by Artemis Fate in the Herald this week, embraces slavery and subjugation of women and endorses coercion and violence.

Gaping at the strange landscape, I kept clicking on the ground. How could NBC have its private island hooked up with Gor??? Second Life does make for some strange bedfellows, but this? Had the cult penetrated this deep?

Answer, with a little bit of looking under the hood at "about land": they are both in Dreamland. And Dreamland is a contiguous continent. Like the mainland, only zoned against blight and idiocy. Did NBC not realize what they were getting into? Or did they consciously embrace it?

I don't know whether this was Anshe Chung's little inside joke about the cult-like activities of major U.S. broadcasting corporations, but I can just see the soccer moms having a whack at this one.

Well, we always said these private islands out in the endless Linden-protected blue sea were too cut off "from the community". And now, here they are, deeply embedded in the community. Perhaps when they bought their dream, NBC didn't realize that Gor was coming in next door, or maybe they just saw pretty buildings and didn't look further, to realize they had something virtual that was worse than the equivalent of the old red-light district of W. 42nd St.

The scene is emblematic of the whole larger issue of how middle America -- or middle Europe or Asia for that matter -- is going to view Second Life when they see this cult activity celebrating slavery, violence, multiple sex partners and public executions.

People in Second Life are so used to the view of nearly bare-breasted women in swaying silks kneeling at their master's feet and being jerked around by his chained collar, that they don't realize how this is going to look. They'll be finding out soon enough. People always get porky and self-justifying trying to defend "lifestyles" in SL, but as more and more millions of people come into it, it's going to get very interesting to see how much the cults like Gor convert the average mass Internet man, and how much they are finally subjected to some ordinary, common-sense criticism and rejection from the average Joe.

Other than the Gor shock, the build is a treat with all its Christmas bows. To be sure the Christmas tree looks kind of forlorn, and way too short. Perhaps they couldn't find or make a taller one. The skating rink is either foreshortened or missing, can't quite tell.

Standing there was a very strange feeling. They are able to make versimilitude. But to what end? Are they going to have us watch news? Are they going to get free t-shirts or even free land or something? Will it be regular TV streamed into SL or just some sample clips?

P.S. Reuters has now started the resistance against the Soviet Cement-Workers' Union revolution, which was busy imposing cement stadium seating, on all the new corporate islands.

They've summoned Barnesworth back for a re-do, and this time the chairs are warm and comfy, in what I imagine are supposed to be the kind of natural hues you see in men's wear at the Gap.

True, the only place I've ever seen quite that shade of green in nature is on a lizard in Venezuela -- was he called a ginko? But the creamy French vanilla walls and other detailing like Barnes' trademark ferns and vases just make it a nicer, friendlier place to be. Funny how these things matter.

Herald Editrix Pixeleen Mistral pre-anticipates competitors sniping at her shoes by making sure she appears her best for the Reuters show.

UPDATE: Although he was given a backstage tour by Sheep PR flaks, the normally vigilant Tony Walsh of Clickable Culture missed the Gor stuff uptown if you keep flying up Fifth Avenue. He now has a story up that helps explain why NBC has this curious virtual neighbour of Gor. It seems due to the land shortage, the Sheep, who are predictably handling the event (sigh), were in a land crunch right before the big day, and had to go to the "secondary land market" as it was blandly termed -- Anshe's Dreamland.

They were concerned about space for avatars -- and that's a good thing, as most of these hyper-vents have made the mistake of occuring on only one sim. With some 25 or something to chose from, there should be greater visibility. But in their haste, they picked land right next to the Gors -- maybe that was all there was available on short notice (possibly because most Gors don't deal with Anshe, they run their own simulators -- she was just consciously marketing to some of the big builders and spenders in SL and created a themed area).

Note also that for the first time, we're seeing John Swords, AKA Johnny Ming, appearing as an ESC spokesmen. I was reluctantly tolerating Second Cast's grab of the Town Hall broadcast management because he has more or less performed it as an independent podcasting agency. Now that he is listed as an employee of a marketing and consulting company, I'm certainly going to challenge this branding of our SL public airways again, just as I did when they originally conceived of having Cristiano and Torrid anchor the meetings.

Comments

[Petey]

"ordinary, common-sense criticism and rejection from the average Joe."

Will never happen, because the average Joe, using common-sense criticism, will reject Second Life.

[Cocoanut]

Petey has a point.

And that is SOME GORGEOUS Rockefeller Center!

coco

[Prokofy Neva]

Actually, I think a goodly percentage of the average Joe will get SL more than you imagine.

They may not get it as a world they'd like to move into and live in. They'll say, "but it's not real". That's the reaction I get from most relatives, friends, co-workers. And they are right. Reality has it beat, any day of the week!

But, they will eventually come to terms with it in its other manifestations which will include shopping on line, talking to candidates in elections, making books come to life, etc. etc.

Some people take to going on line; others don't. Some use the Internet exactly the same way they'd use a library. They find recipes or look up crossword or Scrabble words and maybe browse a news site or answer email. They don't delve into extensively reading or writing blogs or visiting elaborate shopping sites or playing MMORPEGs.

[Desmond Shang]

I have been told this very day by someone who conducts first life business on the grid, that they dare not expose the usual wildness of the main grid to their first life clients.

Look not to NBC, but to NBC's advertisers for the reaction.

Oddly though, I suspect that reaction will be positive enough. What better for publicity than some controver$y?

Society at large loves focusing on, analysing, and dissecting subcultures.

So long as it is on the other side of the fence, it's something to report on as news, rather than be held accountable for.

[Prokofy Neva]

The bigger story might be that the grid isn't going to get up in time to do the virtual tree.

And I imagine most people at the many duplicated locations will stay corralled on the faux Rockefeller Plaza, and not stray off into Gor-land.

On the other hand, we might have legions of kids now logging on to see the Gor thing as that's gotten more interesting than the tame Christmas tree stuff.

Are they going to have Moopf skates, I wonder?

[Scout Detritus]

Why does everything have to be black and white with you?...You need to learn to coexist.

I also look forward to reading the latest from NBC as you have apparently run out of material.

Bottle Rockets

[Tony Walsh]

Hi Prok,
I didn't get a tour of the NBC build--I haven't visited it at all. Sorry for the confusion, I should have worded my post differently. I wrote "John Swords gave me a glimpse 'backstage,'" meaning that he explained to me what went on behind the scenes of the event. I should have just said that instead.

[Prokofy Neva]

No, I understand that you meant that he gave you a glimpse backstage in the sense of "the inner workings of the event". My question to him about his backstage would be how yet another
so-called independent entity got co-opted into the Sheep.

You can't be expected to go to each of 19 sims and peek next door to see if there is something striking or scandalous next door.

And you don't have to apologize, or seek to clarify, or offer to change wording. You run a public blog. You will be criticized sometimes, especially by me. You are probably the most independent outside critic of SL, and that's valuable. But at times, you are as breathless as the next tekkie just because you see it as big and spectacular.

You're not the type to see if there is another more critical angle to cover the NBC thing just because it looks to you like a story that requires straight reporting with maybe a little more technical detail -- and you got that.

Me, I'm done with big and spectacular now on about round 100, where if Jesus Christ Himself organized the Second Coming into Second Life, I might find myself going AFK and wondering if it was a publicity stunt.

There's been an AWFUL lot of this stuff, more than even you see.

And my point in this post was more to illustrate how even on islands (this wasn't the mainland), the "strange bedfellows" issue will crop up, and the issue of how mainstream media and middle America types are going to see Gor, which many have become insured to and even blase about.

[Tony Walsh]

Prok, I accept that I'm open to criticism (as I should be, what with dishing it out so often).

I'm not sure I need to say this (but I will anyway)--I see more than you gave me credit for above. I just don't necessarily write about it. Sometimes I don't blog about an aspect of an issue because I'm just interested in surface details, despite being aware of other angles. Sometimes I don't blog about an aspect of an issue because I don't have the time to research or write a story that includes those details. Sometimes it's easier just to keep it simple, even thought I'm aware of further depth. I often just don't have the spare hours for in-depth pieces, it's a symptom of having too many interests and obligations.

I love how you completely stopped your review on the nbc build to bash another sim which has absolutely no connection to NBC in any way and then decided to spew nonsense about a lifestyle/rp you seem to not know anything about and for the records all gorean sims are labeled as Masture and are not for children goreans do not frag people to thier sims and force them into slavery, and the other stuff you so readily mentioned in a negative light are all rp meaning ROLEPLAY not REAL LIFE! these people go to the sims of thier own free will....might wanna stick to one topic in your posts and learn a bit more before you go about bashing people thier choices and sims that have absolutely nothing to do with your article...have a nice day!

[Prokofy Neva]

1. NBC *was* related to the Gorean sim -- it was RIGHT NEXT to it! And that's the point -- that any company coming into Second Life has to be think about such proximity problems and address them. In this case, they largely unwittingly wound up in this odd juxtaposition because the Electric Sheep, in a hurry to rent as many islands as possible short-term for the NBC Christmas party -- and in their haste renting from Anshe, I guess they just didn't notice this neighbour.

2. Thanks for illustrating the CLASSIC problem with Goreans -- they don't respect boundaries with their barbarous role-play. The first thing they try to do to another person is humiliate them -- try to throw them off balance, try to assume a controlling position regarding them, and try to make it seem like they are never going to be "in the know".

3. The ritualistic, controlling knows-no-boundaries BDSM that bleeds into all VW culture unless you push back hard is also vividly illustrated here -- you have to "study up" on Gor because you are "always ignorant" and can "never know enough". But we all know plenty about Gor *from the testimonies of those who fled it*. It's like communism. You can't keep lying when you have all those formers fleeing the scene and giving accounts.

4. Gor *does to* have a terrible effect on real life because people get into very bad relationships where masters are controlling aspects of their real lives, too. Marriages are broken up; people are harmed, especially kids. This isn't trivial. BDSM is really nasty stuff. And it's more than fine to keep repudiating its wicked ideology, and pushing back against its efforts to take over the public space. It is one thing to concede that BDSM, like any lifestyle, has its freedom of expression and its space within the world. It's quite another to cede to it encroachment on the liberal public space and society, where it immediately a) puts everyone in the wrong as they can never "know enough" about BDSM; b) forces people into indoctrination of its arcane rituaals; c) seeks veto power over criticism of itself and its practioners.

Fuck, no!

People who "chose of their own free will" something profoundly broken, as broken beings, ought not to be celebrated but instead pitied.

[mika]

It is obvious by your comments that you know nothing of Gor. I have RP'd Gor for a few years now on SL and I am a woman. Not all women on Gor are slaves...in fact only about 4% of women are in the novels. The rest are proud free women who are respected for their intelligence. Before you only note the slave aspect of the culture in the RP you really should review it as a whole. not to mention the girls who are slaves in Gor SL choose that place...they are not forced into it. After all, what is so wrong with someone wanting to give all of themselves to the person they love? Not to mention this is America, supposedly home of the free...not home of the free to do what you wish as long as it doesn't offend closeminded individuals.

[Prokofy Neva]

Oh, I know a very great deal about Gor. One of the hallmarks of Gor is that they love to put people in the wrong immediately, always, and everywhere by telling them that they can never, ever understand *enough* about all the arcane rituals of Gor.

The other shill and cultic staple of Gor lore is that the women are consenting to this mistreatment and slavery, or that there are these free women who in fact aren't slaves blah blah. of course, their propping of the women who *are* slaves in this awful system as a moral quandary never gets admitted; and the profound psychological distress in life that prompts otherwise intelligent women to go be RP slaves is never admitted. Because...we can never understand ENOUGH about Gor.

No, I've rejected all this in probably hundreds of pages of my writings on 3 different worlds and games in the last 10 years lol. And it's simply a basic principle of domestic and international law: slavery is, and always was, a crime against humanity. No notion of "consent" attaches to it. It is a crime regardless of "consent". That's all. That's the law.

In the SL and other settings I also saw huge amounts of evidence that the consent was far, far less than meets the eye. In America, you couldn't hold a person in the Gorean-like conditions of slavery and brutality of BDSM and invoke "consent" and have that stick because "this is America" --actual real cases that have developed have already established this (look at the polygamy cases, for starters, but there are also actual BDSM cases too).

No, it's about being open-minded, and refusing to intellectually, morally, or legally accept the close-mindedness of totalitarian RP worlds that embrace slavery.

That's the end of my discussion on this.