Unrepresentative

Here we go again, just as with the illegitimate SCOTUS-Among-Us launched by Justice Soothsayer, we now have Sun Microsystems and Clear Ink launching the U.S. House of Representatives in SL as if they pwned the place. This sort of thing always gets me agitating : ) Of course I wasn't on the special fun list for the feted 40 who can get on these special sims at historic occasions like this, but had I gotten a group-spam-notice I would likely have not opted to go. It's always best to study these things long after the shouting dies down so I took a trip out there later in the evening and did a write-up for the Herald. Not before responding a few times on the Times political blog -- as I thought about it more and more, the more illegitimate it became as a concept -- I think I'm absolutely on the money to question what people do when they grab giant symbols of power and plunk them down in the world.

The Business Communicators give them two thumbs up and compliment Clear Ink's sim management and organization. (BTW, in what year did these buzzy and misleading terms like "business communicators" start to be used all over for what we used to call "marketing" and "public relations" or "PR" -- all terms that had a patina of cynicism about hype when used, prompting this gang in the new media to try to reinvent themselves now as smart and brisk "all business" no-nonsense "communicators" and "facilitators" who aren't "selling" or "marketing" but "empowering" blah blah".) And it's a credit to Clear's good management that there were no winged wangs like at Anshe's CNET presser, but then what happened was actually worse in terms of precedent and discrediting the good cause -- they expelled a Valleywag reporter merely because he was flying around and getting into the frame (so he says). Bad stuff. The Valleywag dude as Nobody Fugazi discovered has this hilarious machinima up as a result. (Nobody was more sour about the event even than me, primarily because it was about America and not about him and his part of the world).

(For extra credit, Second Lifers will get a hoot from this machinima with a good look down Katt Kongo's blouse (I think that's she) and a look-see on to the chat she was typing about somebody's cute outfit ROFL.)

In any event, the Clear Ink people -- marketers to the man -- were all over me like white on rice, and it wasn't long before my content avatar Meridian Maginot had a notecard in his box. It's pasted below, with permission, even.

From Kiwini Oe, CSO of Clear Ink

Your comments on the NYT blog at http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/second-life-and-the-peoples-house/#comment-14124 are well taken, especially what's behind the tension between the platformers and the communitarians. This is a balancing act. The community has been able to evolve because of the platform. But the platform is filling a vacuum that has a natural draw. Second Life as platform: • allows a conversation from geographically disparate people at the same time at the same "place". The place part is so important in distinguishing Second Life as a platform • there is a unique combination of simultaneous conversation and creation, where those who are simultaneously meeting can rez and animate their ideas on the spot • the immersive envirionment leaves the participants with a richer and more persistent memory of having been there together, at the same time, and the same place. Because of the power of those three things, and their absence in other platforms, Second Life will attract many uses beyond the organic community that has grown within it. I understand the resistance of the community who feels a primary claim to the use of the platform as its own host. The reason that some of the most feted outsider builds are rarely visited is because they aren't really created with the ongoing community of Second Life in mind. I'm trying to find a balance here. The Capitol Hill build, as did others, started out as an experiment to see what benefits this platform could serve. It started out as a venue for a single event, using the platform to allow a simultaneous gathering. Yes, it's bringing in new avatars from beyond the organic community of Second Life. Maybe some of them will stay, create, become community. Some will, some won't - that's the usual pattern. We decided to open up Capitol Hill, not as a club, not as a moneymaking endeavor, but to make a place that can draw in new and maybe engaged avatars, provide an place where people can go to meet and converse in a specific context, and provide a place that is just pleasant for avatars to visit. It's not so Clear Ink can "own" the Capitol or the House of Representatives. We're not making money off of this. We're going to keep it non-partisan after the opening event, and will be happy to host discussions or information from all parties. We're not claiming the franchise on this, and would not have done this without real congressional interest in and support for the experiment. It is a representative bridge between Second Life and real life - it isn't wholly fabricated from the imagination like some venues in Second Life are. I think that's part of the evolution of Second Life. If we are appropriating the symbols that represent the American democracy, it really is to create a context to honor them, not just exploit them to some self-serving ends. Will it work? Will this platform vs. community dialetic lead to a better synthesis? That depends on how it's done, and time will tell. I realize we're touching two third rails simultaneously: the often vitriolic world of real life politics, and the seemingly more vitriolic world of Second Life politics. Second Thoughts has been an influence in my balancing act, so thanks again for your ideas. I'm happy for the conversation to continue. Kiwini

Here's my reply:

Kiwini,

I completely object to the way you've framed the debate and the response. It's patronizing, and condescending to imagine that I'm some member of some pitchfork bearing crowd of indigenous villagers with FUD trying to fend off the new technology or the new practitioners of this technology. It's fashionable for people doing something bold and controversial to try to proclaim that their critics are somehow backward or unthinking or resistant to change. But turn it around and see that you are the one resistant to change and the future -- the future isn't about interest groups and cronies and Congressmen and the firms they buy and their patronage taking up a world's public space; it's about people using social software from the ground up to resist that very kind of cronyism and pork barrelling. See, you'd like to think you're the only netsrooter and empowerment-mongerer. But you aren't. You don't get to pwn the social software and its spaces due to the very social software itself.

I'm an outsider here always, and a major critic. I don't at all object to freeing the economy and freeing the politics from the tutelage and control of Linden Lab. I'm all for as many kinds of people and projects to come here. But I do raise objections when I see powerful people grabbing the media and eyeballs and political influence using this technology in such a blatant way. Basically, the take-home here is that Californians conceive of an amazing yacht trip to boost their cause of net neutrality and stem-cell research. I don't oppose either of these issues though I ask questions about them surely as I would any cause.

Saying that Sun Microsystems or Clear Ink doesn't make money from this doesn't sanitize it for me or boost you into some sort of public service hallowed ground. Of course it's a huge jewel in your crown to be able to put on your website for evermore that you built the Capitol in Second Life. Of course it's a huge resume-polishing exercise and no one can object to that. But it wasn't a People's House run by the People of this or any country. It was run by your companies -- and even with a Linden in the group (not surprising).

It's not conspiratorial to note that you all have a certain kind of politics and agenda; you are hoping to capture enthusiasm for the left wing of the Democrats on issues like net neutrality. I speak as a registered Democrat myself who even votes for Green Party in New York City. That's beside the point. I'm not willing to let the orthodox hard left take over spaces in SL -- nor the orthodox hard right for that matter or any with their own personal agendas.

I think it's also fallacious to raise some sort of "balancing act" issue when in fact you've hijacked a public institution and a space. Few people understand the consequences of this now -- they are still at the stage where they are amazed at their computer screen from the last century's technology and calling their wives over from their quilting from 2 centuries ago. By the time people catch up to the larger issues, you will have pwned the space, a la Snowcrash.

There isn't "real Congressional support" behind this project -- there is one member and his cronies in Silicon Valley. If you had 2 or 10 or even the Speaker -- great -- but that's not "Congressional support". It's a sect. It's not bi-partisan even if you invited some token Republican.

For the world of Second Life, it's also very upsetting as well to those who are from other countries, or those who hate having the politics of real life inflicted on this world. It's seen as a very aggressive and American stunt.

You imagine that this is a bridge between real life and imaginative life. I beg to differ. You and others around the Lindens and in California and on the tekkie circuit of "those who 'get it'" (as they say about themselves) ARE in a fantasy utopia where you imagine that just your take, your subjective desires and agendas, can be implemented in reality by taking powerful and emotional technology and grabbing people and media and institutions without any kind of due process. THAT really is a fantasy, and will have a horrible backlash.

I don't see any better synthesis coming out of you and your company hijacking the symbols. In fact, I hope some republican with deep pockets hires his own sherpas and builds a replica of the House or the Senate on another island to compete with you -- in fact let there be 20 such instances.

Re: "I understand the resistance of the community who feels a primary claim to the use of the platform as its own host. The reason that some of the most feted outsider builds are rarely visited is because they aren't really created with the ongoing community of Second Life in mind."

There is no "community" in Second Life. There can't be without a real genuine free mass media and a democracy with systems of representation. There is none of that. If by "community" you mean a gaggle of copyleftists, residents-turned-Lindens, workers at metaversal consulting agencies, etc. -- well they aren't the community either. If you mean old business owners like clubs and shops and top-selling content creators, they aren't what you imagine, either. I'm in none of these constituencies and I am not "resisting change" and "fearing technology" -- that's frankly ridiculous. I'm challenging your use of technology to advance your own agenda.

Prok's Seafood and Coney Island of the Mind and Ravenglass Hall and a thousand other properties I have all have more traffic than a single one of these feted builds. The feted builds aren't really serious about virtuality with RL-SL bridges any more than they are serious about appealing to some putative virtual community inworld in SL itself. Eventually, they will be, however, and I want to make sure that the Snowcrash vision of a world of franchulates and elites and grey avatars isn't our reality.

I asked Keystone if he'd be willing to covene a discussion co-sponsored by the Society for Virtual Architecture and his own group of RL Architects in SL or Clear Ink or whatever. He's not willing to because he's unwilling to engage in political controversy, he says he wants to stick to architecture, which of course is profoundly political as anybody who has seen the follow-up to the replacement of the World Trade Center knows.

I'm going to have this discussion anyway on Monday Jan. 8 at 6 pm. SLT.

Also, I'm going to publish excerpts of my response to you in my blog, so if you want your own original letter to be provided, let me know.

Meridian Maginot AKA Prokofy Neva

There were several more rounds but the reader can ponder for himself or herself what their response is to this concept of plunking down big-ass power builds in SL.

What I continue to marvel at is this morphing role of the "marketing firm". Not content to behave like, I dunno, Dick van Dyke and Derwood (Darren?) in "Bewitched" and Larry -- feverishing crafting pitches on flipcharts in their offices and thinking only of pleasing their clients -- these new "communicators" want all over you.

You blog some little comment on the Times -- they have a notecard to you within Second Life within the 24/7 news cycle -- and they have big dreams of proving Big Open Spaces for the People -- not just selling a widget.

It's not an accident that these days, the game companies and new technology and media companies use the term "evangelist" for this staff person who sells the image and does the PR. There's a religious fervour here and a zealotry about these things that really becomes unsettling at times.

It's as if the old social movements that grew up out of churches or universities or factories 100 or 50 years ago and no longer exist for all kinds of bowling-alone reasons now appears in the form of these little crystallizers -- what would have been called marketing firms in another era.

I remember how I turned the Crayon people's webpage and avatars and new stories over and under and couldn't figure out what sort of widget they made. I thought they were some kind of software company at first or related to Crayola.

In time I came to realize they were the hypesters for the New Era (Urizenus calls them fucktards for all their fake firsts). These born-agains are essentially pwning the old media and the new media. There aren't journalists working independently anymore but only "embedded" journalists -- the concept of advertising doesn't work so well on web pages as it used to on television and in newspapers so not the car and cigarette companies pay for stuff now, it's the marketing companies themselves. I guess they're making so much money that they can underwrite this stuff now, but really, blogs and such just become an arm of their marketing hype.

I find it very disconcerting because you can't penetrate the blue sheen of the computer screen to get at the truth of something like this Congressional caper. How much did Nancy Pelosi really understand what she was endorsing? Why did the Times blogster fumble and not confirm the story and get nearly giddy like a school girl over the event?

In this world of hypestering, what I notice is that the pre-release and the embargoed press release gaining the coverage before the event is often all there is about a story. It almost doesn't matter if there are wing-wangs because the story already got covered and the actual event as it rolls out won't be covered. I've seen this now time and again with Second Life, haven't you? The Blingsider is especially guilty of this -- events are always coming, or slated, or scheduled -- and they don't even have to come back and see if they didn't happen lol. You'll get curtain-raisers like Adam Reuters feting of the Congressional hypervent, and silence the next morning (and here Nobody and I agree) about what really went down, and its significance.

Comments

[Boss Melnitz]

On the subject of the Valleywag reporter, it looks to me like he was trying to be a nuisance. At least two people asked him to move or sit down, and you can hear him laughing at his own antics on the video.

You wouldn't go to a play and then run around all over the stage during the performance. People need to follow the same rules of etiquette in SL as they do in RL. They don't, but they should.

[Prokofy Neva]

Far, far worse things happen in SL and people accept it.

having an event and expecting people not to fly around and look at stuff is absurd in this avian world.

Turn off "fly" if you feel you can't handle flying.

These concepts of "stage" and "seating" and "proscenium arch" all break down in SL -- and that's the idea.

[Storm Thunders]

Who would have expected the Dems to take the House so literally?

One-liners aside, the use of symbols like that and the Washington Monument strike me as tacky. If it was a build about the history of the buildings, or an educational walkthru of the legislative process in the USA I'd be much happier with it. With the claim that it is "designed to be non-partisan" and for "information exchange about the 110th Congress" I'd have expected at least both major parties to have been involved in its unveiling. From Adam's article, Steve Nelson/Kiwini Oe said that they haven't even brought up the idea to people in other parties yet. Sure sounds like a non-partisan space to me.

It is the dishonesty that offends me the most. There's no need for it. I doubt anyone would have blinked if they'd said "We've decided to build this, our longterm hope is that we can use it as a non-partisan space to educate, debate, etc..."

As an aside, the use and repurposing of symbols in SL and other shared 3D environments fascinates me. From a verbal stance, this really isn't any different that getting a flyer from your local rep with a picture of one of those structures on it. 3D just happens to leave a much stronger imprint on most minds.

[Nobody Fugazi]

Prok, again you don't know what you're talking about. I vote in the U.S, so U.S. politics does affect me - probably more than you. ;-)

[Joshua Nightshade]

I thought you were taking a much needed blog-hiatus Prokchop?

[Prokofy Neva]

That's a silly concept, Nobody, that you are "special" and "affected more" by U.S. politics than me, whom you imagine as some rich white North American or whatever your cliche is. Baloney. You were scornful of the exercise because the Dems could never be left enough for you.

[JuJutsu]

"Few people understand the consequences of this now -- they are still at the stage where they are amazed at their computer screen from the last century's technology and calling their wives over from their quilting from 2 centuries ago."

Do you have some sort of grudge against quilting or are you just uninformed? My wife just picked up some new quilting software [EQ6] over Christmas. If she's not hogging the computer with that, she's on one of her online groups. I know from first hand experience that it's not 'from 2 centuries ago'. Pull your head out and catch up with the times.

[Eddy Stryker]

I will get to work on a Washington monument right away and get ESC help with it so this story can come around full circle!

[Linda Zimmer]

Hi, Prokofy.

Since you've mentioned it more than once, the term "business communicators" is a general term for professionals working in various areas of communications specialties. It does encompass those involved in external communications (like PR, marketing, investor relations) as well as those specializing in internal communications. For more info check out the International Association of Business Communicators at www.iabc.com.

[Prokofy Neva]

"I want this post to burn in really hard and make people think again and again what Second Life has been used for, and what real criminals have been able to amplify their evil and cause real harm to other people. It's not a game."

It's hard to describe the feeling I get from reading one of your posts. It's like my brain gets stuck in this neverending loop of "What? No... What? No..." and finally ends on "You're retarded."

Lest you sue me for libel, however, you are not actually retarded. You just have no idea how the internet works. That is a statement I am willing to swear to if you ever prove to the subject of a sanity hearing.

[Alk Schwartzman]

Erm...
Well I'm not from the USA, but that dosn't mean you should label me as a hater of this wonderful country... I'm aware of politics in my country, and even a bit further than its limits... But that's for RL, and maybe sometimes I might like to talk about politics in SL, but be sure I didn't get into SL wishing I'll find such institutions. I really hope that there will be a space dedicated to all controversial now that this all stared.. tss... Couldn't they leave SL to "real people from all around he world" to be able to gather without their "political permission"?!?
Well, I don't really feel as much at ease as before...
Keep on having fun in SL, take care in RL..
Cheers,
-Alk

[Prokofy Neva]

>Since you've mentioned it more than once, the term "business communicators" is a general term for professionals working in various areas of communications specialties. It does encompass those involved in external communications (like PR, marketing, investor relations) as well as those specializing in internal communications. For more info check out the International Association of Business Communicators at www.iabc.com.

Like I said, it's the new way to airbrush the old bad connotations of the words "PR" and "marketing" and make them seem brisk and cybernetic, that's all.

Internal communications of a business are all about marketing, too, Linda. You seem to think that you've now cleansed the word of any tint of manipulation and Orwellian NewSpeak.

The business of business communicators is business, not news, and not serving the public's right to know. Let's keep our communication and media terms straight, please, and try to gain all the good credibility that comes from real media media that reports on news, with marketing and branding that reports on what companies do with an aim to sell.