::WARNING:: If you are looking for pictures of an event, this posting requires you to read instead, just click next.
And so I give up and open the floodgates…
Apparently murder is called for when you decide you don’t like when someone names their items after a viral video game that sort of detests you. I suppose the next time I decide to express my distaste for people profiting off of the Potter phenomenon I should be hung along side Constance as well. OAF, let me explain…
Since I started this blog eons ago, I’ve taken the approach of total transparency and honesty. Some people love me for that, and others hate me for it. I had no idea when I began this venture, what exactly this blog would cost me or the type of people I would encounter. After all, when I began I was just the average shopper, and the blog made me giggle. It’s amazing to me that people have devoted themselves to deceiving me and taking advantage of my generosity. But, it is second life and apparently I should have seen it coming.
For me, I value every dollar I earn, because in real life I majored in accounting and work with small businesses to help them succeed. I recognize that a majority of second life and my readers here at The Rumor are in the same boat. I respect you enough to realize your dollars are hard earned and you don’t deserve to be taken advantage of. Whether it’s overly photoshopped ads, poorly done textures, or overpriced nonsense… I respect you and it’s why I’m honest.
I’ve come to realize in the past few months just how catty, vindictive and dishonest people are in second life. I’ve seen it now over and over, and I shouldn’t be baffled, but every time I am. I just can’t help my nature of wanting to expect good out of people even when they’re forced in a corner. I haven’t written this post today to bite back, take my revenge or even call anyone out. But, I know that in real life, I will not spend my money at Wal-Mart because of the nature of how they operate. And, I assume other people have morals concerning where they spend their dollars too. As a regular second life shopper, I like to know who I am supporting with my hard earned revenue. I’ve been quiet the past few months thinking things would blow over, but it was pointed out to me that it is only making me look guilty and a part of this nonsense.
I’ve gotten to where I’m so tired of the drama I am just going to put it out there, recently one of my bloggers who is also a designer for Sauce, was kicked from the Collabor88 event because of this posting:
http://therumor.biz/2011/10/14/aw-snap-fifty-linden-friday/09-cheeky-pea/#comment-79605
I spoke with Drink on the matter (oh no, I didn’t resort to public flogging) and she let me know she planned to pull her ad. I thought that was pretty silly over something so stupid, and I asked her why she kicked Constance over a comment over a pouffe, but she kept James who proposed we go commit suicide. I, for the life of me, can’t understand how someone would get ejected without even so much as a explanation over a comment about an inanimate object… but threatening someone and telling them to commit suicide is completely legitimate?
Well, apparently I’m not allowed to know the explanation for that, because she proceeded to eject me from the group, remove me from their website, unfriend me even (seriously, wtf, 4th grade?)… and even though she repeatedly said it wasn’t personal now she’s gone to put her ad on Seraphim.
Yes, let’s talk about THAT. Seraphim started with my assistant and her second life sister….catty family rp ftw. These girls kissed my ass for months, leading me to believe they were my friends and proceeded while they knew I was with my sick father in the hospital to steal money from the rumor and whisper sim accounts. If that’s not enough, when I caught them and confronted them about it, they ran off with all of my bloggers to start seraphim by posting that I was going to give them the sims, and then changed my mind and took them back. Hello second life civilians, I’d like to point out the use of common sense here. Ask yourself why when reading their side of the story (to which they posted everywhere, even in their profiles, again, wtf 4th grade??), why would I willingly hand over two well running sims just to yank them back? “Hi, I’m giving you two sims worth shit tons of money, but even though I’ve been hideously consistent my entire carreer in second life, nowwwww I’m going to wig out and be weird and take them back just to hum… well no one really can explain why….” Yeah the story leaves a FEW gaps.
Honestly, since I took my break back in March, life has taken a few unexpected turns landing my father in and out of the hospital and me dealing with some super personal shit that I never expected. The day this drama unfolded I happened to have been up at the hospital helping to feed my father because his hands are so shaky, after having another new surgery to try to find what’s wrong with him… I come home thinking about how he gave everything for everyone around him, and he’s the last person to deserve something like this… and then I open my computer and check my email to find someone telling a good friend of mine that she should die for having an opinion. I closed my computer and went to make soup instead.
My dad tells me stories of being over in Vietnam and fighting for our country all the time. There were several occasions even where the enemies sent young children into their camp, like 5 or 6 year old kids… with bombs strapped to their backs. He can’t even finish those stories, and for a 6’8 man that never cries… well, I think you can get the picture. But, then you turn on the news and find people who “think” they are right, protesting soldier’s funerals. It scares me that these illegitimate douchebags might end up at his funeral. Now, I’m not myself trying to attest to whether war is right or wrong, whether we should have been in Vietnam or not… but I’m trying to point out that when you have idiots making death threats or picketing things because they think they are “right”… it usually pans out that they are just causing a lot of grief. That their ideas of what is “right, are usually a bunch of bullshit. It’s usually hiding a much bigger issue.
I admit, in my past I’ve been the one thinking I was “right”… and I clearly wasn’t. I’ve done a lot of apologizing and making amends for that, and in the end I found it was just nice to hold on to a feeling that I’m so called “leading the masses” into the “right” direction. Now, I find myself with a much bigger capacity in my heart, and wanting to just do what is right.
At first I thought maybe the masses are right, maybe I should throw Constance under the bus and make a public spectacle so everyone will think I’m doing the right thing and making The Rumor a better place. But the fact of the matter is… I’ve known Constance for a lot of years, and even though we hardly agree on anything we’ve managed to stay friends. People generally find her cute and funny… and she works her ass off to help at The Rumor. I absolutely love her sense of humor and find her style to be trend setting. People are constantly commenting how her avi is so cute and where she got what at… I don’t even get that! Lols. But, even more I think she is the kind of person that would stick her neck out for anyone. I’ve seen her do it on multiple occasions. I’ve also seen her make mistakes that brought some hard lessons… and I don’t think it’s my place or yours or James’s or Drink’s to teach her those lessons. They come naturally in life.
All of that said, I think the drama has very little to do with WHAT was said as it does with WHO it was said about. And well the timing and what not… but that’s all going to be released in the Conspiracy Theories of Second Life book I’m working on, coming in 2024.
I was meandering through blogs and I found this: http://shoppingcartdisco.com/digitallife/on-lynch-mobs/ and even though it’s completely saturated in hypocrisy because less then a month later he sent a lynch mob my way… I think the point is still valid. And I get being sucked into the lies and drama in second life, it’s overwhelming sometimes and hard to figure out who’s lying and who’s telling the truth. It’s just the point that even the people on the entirely opposite side as me, are saying the exact same shit about the community in second life.
I also found this on Rheds FTLO blog, and I think it resounds to me and hopefully everyone else as to the state of the second life community…
“Naydee McGettigan says: September 1, 2011 at 8:32 pm “but the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of “designers” in SL have absolutely no problem trashing and bashing one another on all possible fronts.” The fact of the matter is that this has been the environment between *designers* since designers began to sell their creations. Many, Many designers have left SL for the sake of sanity alone. I have never created clothing……but I have had handfuls of friends who do…… and the whole environment in SL between designers is just caustic… and always has been that way. Nothing that happens in SL though can change who you are.. and the best thing you can do is to take a step back, Grab a glass of wine.. and go watch a movie for the night…… take a 24 or 48 hour break ….. because when you come back… you will see that it’s just like any other soap opera……. you can catch up on the dirt in the first 5 minutes of the show …. and realize you didn’t miss a beat…….. but you can save your own sanity….. and your energy for what you do best…… creating from your hearts…….”
I think she may be on to something there…
The bloggers I pick are picked because they don’t have personal ties with designers and if they do I pick people who will be honest despite. I’ve had super big bloggers apply before that would have been great for our ratings… but I want The Rumor to relate to the average Shopper. To Miss McGettigan here. The aim of The Rumor is to provide a much needed service (when we started we were the only ones) while making people laugh a little. I never thought in my wildest dreams that people would take things so personally. The Rumor began as a joke between Constance and myself… back when we knew hardly anyone in second life and were just the average shopaholics doing fifty linden friday with the masses. We’d giggle about ridiculous items like gauges with pigs going through them, and tell each other the items that we knew the other would never like or items that just weren’t up to par. It was nice not to have to trudge my way through lag just to find something I didn’t even want. So was born the blog… who knew it would end up being a sounding board for an entire community of shoppers. I have designers and shoppers messaging me still to tell me how funny the rumor is and that we just say what everyone is thinking.
Now see… my thought is that designers would listen to what the average shopper says take the ideas and possibly work them out. IE a whole mass crowd of people don’t like that you name an item after a video game that only the elitist “cool” kids play… then maybe give it a different name next time. End of story. Instead, they find our comments SO outrageous that they would spend months plotting to boycott my sims, harass my tenants, protest stores for supporting the rumor, grief me, and well the latest actually infiltrate bloggers into the rumor to steal money and start a blog of their own.
WOW… can we please get ahold of ourselves here?
AND DOUBLE WOW for anyone jumping on this bandwagon. Do you ever feel ashamed of yourselves? We are just expressing the opinions of the average shopper. And we are the only voice for that outside of a few forums. If you’re a designer and doubting it, jump on an alt and go actually *gasp* talk to your shoppers.
It amazes me that we have a voice that represents the average shopper, who thinks the designer community has become this cliquish cult… and the designers will come and respond with death threats and griefing to anyone who disagrees with them. Doesn’t that just reinforce the already negative views that shoppers have?
It also SERIOUSLY amazes me that bloggers will follow in line just for free stuff. These designers are bashing you and acting like you are second rate citizens and you’re cool with that?
Gah, seriously someone needs to grow up and use their grown up voices. This shit is getting ridiculous and I’m tired of it. I’m half way tempted to just shut down The Rumor and move the fuck on. People act like this is highschool where they can bully their way to the top… but GUESS what, the cool kids have ALWAYS been outnumbered. These kids with the BIG voices… are shutting down their sims, closing their stores, leaving second life… because they have never made real money. The economy doesn’t suck in second life, it’s sucks for them!! Let’s get real here and stop pussy footing around. I’m tired of it all and am ready to start a new trend. It’s called working hard and being creative. It’s an amazing act of nature that actually truly fulfills oneself. All these self righteous piss ants that pretend that is what they are doing but then go plurk the hell out of all the latest drama… WTF? It’s time I’m calling all your asses out. Why not lay all the shit on the table… here we go.
<straight from Barb’s (ie the owner of FLF) plurk> <I’d like to point out that this was ALL over the one comment Constance made about the names of the items being ridiculous, nothing else negative was said this week really><comments in brackets added for extra comedic effect> other barb oh, the Rumor is back to being 100% douchebags. Mainit o.o Mr. Moonites yeah… this week was particularly cunty <hi, remember how you bitched about constance calling people cunts in the post? oh, we were supposed to forget about this? better yet, this plurk was privaaaate, we shouldn’t have seen this> other barb so fucking annoying. it isn’t even funny. Gidgensteinsays They are so eloquent <awe thanks> Isla Yeah, they couldn’t find much else to pick on so they chose names? Idk. <or that stupid video game you named them after is a viral phenomenon that makes us want to stick our heads in the toilet and close the lid REPEATEDLY> other barb if it were mean but funny, i might be more on their side. but please. it’s just like, cunty ramblings that no one wants to read. <again, you sighed at the cunt calling, but it’s okay when you do it? sure…?> other barb isla, i think they’re adorable and i love the names of course. <kiss asssss ftw!> Mr. Moonites yep, it’s like cunty for the sake of it and looking stupid in the process <hi no, it’s called having an opinion> Isla Oh I see there was more. Isla She was quite horrible to a few people. Nice. <well, yes, when people threaten to kill you, you don’t put on your party dress sit on a clucker and invite them for tea> Darkley when everyone forgets about them, and they aint getting attention, they do it again <actually, let me refer you to our stats… and the fact that none of my bloggers have any idea what they are> Isla other barb: <3 thank you <awe, this is precious> Darkley yeah. other barb plebes. <in case you didn’t know, this refers to “the common people”… please refer above to my statement about how the “designers” act like they are above the rest of second life> other barb i wonder if they know that word? <actually we do, but we generally refrain from attacking people personally, until well, you know… they threaten to kill us?> Darkley I dont think they are plebs, there are more bougeoius <hi you spelled your insult wrong> Gidgensteinsays Petit bourgeois <I hate to tell you, but it’s those middle class civilians that are buying your shit> Gidgensteinsays And they are who again? Oh yes , no one. Darkley I think, the way Pen burst into the blogs, she demands attention, and geniunely doesnt realise why <ahemm I hadn’t even commented on the post when this was plurked> Darkley people think shes a sour cuntface, in her head shes witty and cutting, but in reality shes a venomous nobody <hi darkly, I don’t really know who you are, and everyone else I’ve asked doesn’t either… so uhm I have no idea why you have such a vendetta against me personally??> Sanura Snowpaw seraphim – all the sales none of the bullshit! <the blog that stole over 20,000L from me> Isla Sanura Snowpaw: Oh that’s where I look normally Sanura. But I like to check and see what they say about me. <and I have an ad there and am fully aware they are thieves and super shady, but i decide to look the other way> Gidgensteinsays I quit looking to see what they say, rather now I look at the blogs of people who actually purchase products for valid critique of my work <but, you knew right off the bat what they were talking about?> <end of plurk>
YOU really think people are so stupid and actually see you all as so innocent?
90% of the creators in second life who I am friends with sit in their little skyboxes afraid to do anything or say anything because they will get griefed and copybotted by these so called “innocent” store owners. You know what? It’s time we stop being afraid.
I remember the pig gauges! HA! And I hate the word “pouffe” too. It sounds like something pretentious involving talcum powder and doilies. Well anyway, if I appear to have entirely missed the point of this post, I haven’t, but I thought I would just be myself because that’s what this place is all about.
I’m totally one of the 90% designers that sits in a skybox and staring into the wall.. Not because I’m scared to get copybotted, but because everytime I let someome get close to me, they stab me in the back.
I have 1 close friends in SL, and I know her in RL aswell, and she’s the only person I trust completely.
Very good post, and very well written!
We have all felt the power of someones evil side, sadly.
You are an amazing writer and person! So many of the average SLers that you do this for read daily and appreciate it! No news is good news! The normal sane people often dont’ comment at all! You have so many followers who sit back in the shadows silently, value what you do, and feel sorry for the crazies who are so unhappy that SL has become their life and that little details like the ones the fuss over matter! I love Glitch, and I was not offended in the slightest! And you know? I a shopaholic to the utmost and buy stuff from some of those people weekly! And I’m sad to say that because of how they act (the elite-y attitudes) I’ve always and will always be intimidated by them! I am much more likely to IM a rumor blogger and say thank you for awesome blogging than I am a power and popularity driven designer to say thank you for awesome designs. Though, I’d IM one of those quiet skybox designers any day! I know it’s discouraging, but don’t give up! Normal people with busy normal real lives who like to play SL as the game it was meant to be played for stress relief and fun (not drama and a replacement for miserable unhappiness or a real life that isn’t perfect) LOVE YOU!
You’re right on the money here Molly. And having been in a few power positions in SL I can say, it’s very easy to feel the pressure of the few who are ruining your good time. I’ve gone from enjoying this blog to depending on it. I really do appreciate every minute of work put into it. Do I think the comment in question was out of line? Yeah. I think it’s low class to insult other people’s work. I LOVE that the Rumor has always stuck by honest criticism when an item is sub par, but that particular comment seemed mean spirited. That said, Drink(who I’ve dealt with now and then and has always been a fantastic person) massively overreacted. Consider that she’s under the same pressures and has all the same chickens clucking in her ear. Not all of us are able(or have the time to) discern who’s justified and who’s just causing problems. It’s clear a little steam needed to be let off, but Penn, don’t let the few ruin it for the many. Continue to have faith in people and gather good creative minds around you. Sure, you take the risk that you’ll get screwed over. But that’s always a risk any time we work with anyone in any capacity, SL, RL, etc. Thanks for voicing your side Penn!
jesse <3
I just wanted to say that I really, really appreciate everything you all do in this blog. Yes, things get catty at times, and people on all sides could probably take a chill pill at times, but the service rendered is absolutely wonderful. It has saved me time and money, and given me laughs.
I hope this doesn’t make you all close down the blog, as such a thing would make me very, very sad.
I read through the whole thing – quite a spill of words, but I think it was worth it. This stood out to me the most, though:
“I spoke with Drink on the matter (oh no, I didn’t resort to public flogging) and she let me know she planned to pull her ad. I thought that was pretty silly over something so stupid, and I asked her why she kicked Constance over a comment over a pouffe, but she kept James who proposed we go commit suicide. I, for the life of me, can’t understand how someone would get ejected without even so much as a explanation over a comment about an inanimate object… but threatening someone and telling them to commit suicide is completely legitimate?”
Pardon?
Ignoring that I don’t know the players involved (I know names of people, but it’s not like I’ve talked to anyone aside from Penn once to ask where a store went so I could put their slURL on my blog…in the interest of full disclosure), this comes off as particularly nasty to me.
Any time that Drink’s posted on here she’s seemed pretty into you guys and the overall message of this blog. She seemed reasonable.
But this doesn’t make logical sense. If you dislike what someone said in a blog, fine, but have some consistency. Saying that you hate the name of something, or even posting some offensive gifs in response to people calling you names, is a far cry from actually telling someone to kill themselves over the whole thing.
The inconsistency from all of these people is bugging me, actually.
If you can’t spell bourgeois, you can’t use it.
Plebeian, aka pleb, not plebe, isn’t that great of an insult to someone who champions the cause of the common people. They think that plebeians are great. Sure it might be an insult to you ivory tower types, but that really isn’t the point of calling someone else a pleb. I’m not even going to get into the semantics of how you can’t call yourself bourgeois and someone else a pleb because they are THE SAME THING. THEY BOTH REFER TO THE MIDDLE CLASS.
Next time try something like prole?
It’s really unfortunate that this blog had to get srs bsness over this – what should be a non-issue. I come here because I like to see the objects for sale before I use my limited SL time waiting for stuff to rez just to see an item is not my style. Or worse, that it’s misrepresented by the vendor ad, and now I’ve spent lindens that I can’t get back, on something that I’ll just be deleting from my inventory.
I’ve commented before, and sometimes wondered if that comment would get me banned from a store like they’ve banned bloggers from here. But I’ve never found it better to be silent when something horrible or something wonderful is going on – they both need to be shared. Luckily I’m too small a fish to matter, methinks.
Anyway. This is getting a bit long, but I did want to say that I for one appreciate what you do here at the Rumor. I might not always find your jokes funny, or agree with the tastes of some bloggers, but I get the spirit of the blog and hope it continues.
Wow.
Wait…are we supposed to believe that designers in SL (or anyone else, for that matter) are ‘elite’? That they’re better than ‘we’ are, just because they make stuff we like to buy? I never knew that.
I always laughed at the idea of SL celebs. IMHO, everyone is the same..nothing more than pixels on my screen battling the same head up the ass glitch, bad fitting prims, blingtards etc as me and my friends who SL.
Read the entire post and I have to say, thank you for all that you and the blog do. I, Ms. Commoner, appreciate the lack of ass kissing. I love the crassness. Sure at times I’ve found things a bit over the top but who the fuck cares? It’s words on a screen about pixels. To wish death upon someone for that is a bit umm yeah someone needs to see their dr and get their meds upped. Anyway, thanks, again.
Well written, Penn. This post makes me proud to be a blogger for The Rumor.
Lucia
TLDR.
Just get over it or kill yourself.
I’m not a creator in sl, but I have plenty of design knowledge. Only thing stopping me is my lack of being able to make clothes look how I have them in mind. That said though, as a designer you have to grow a spine and take the punches. If you sit there and get your ego stroked every day of the week by bloggers who will say things like “I love this” or “This top is so cute” when in reality the designer should be hearing “The top is blurry and the prim skirt is a pain to fit”. Well that’s just gonna keep making those designers feel they are making amazing products instead of crap.
You know the first thing I learned as a graphic designer when I went to school? Take critism! Just because it’s SL doesn’t mean you get to act like you’re some elite top of the line designer that can bitch and complain when someone doesn’t like something about your product. If that’s anyone out there I would rather you step off sl and get over your self. Because don’t get it twisted, when it comes to SL their are designers and shoppers, that’s it. Their are no elite designers that deserve to be bowed down to. Their are no elite shoppers just because they blog.
Anyway I’m not even sure any of what I said really pertains to this post. What I will say is that while the bloggers here are no different then me, and I may not always agree with what is said. I respect all the work everyone here does. I personally check this blog at least once a day but usually multiple times because guess what? Not many people take the time out to go around to all the sales and hunts that the great people at the rumor do. And in the end SL and SL shopping is supposed to be fun, not some bitchfest where everyone is jumping down each others throats.
i thought:”….really? there are people… real people, outside of movies, books etc. who are idiotic enouph to refer to someoneelse as plebs/peasants/burgeois whatever (i don’t care) meaning that to sound degrading but only show to what extent they themselve have serious “personality”-issues?”
nice attitude and such sophisticated language use…honestly….feces-langauge and swearwords are something for children who don’t know better yet, not adults. most of the time it’s tasteless and annoying and utterly uneccessary.
I immediatly felt like searching to which shops they belong so i don’t accidently buy anything from there….ouch…. just ridiculous …feeling great for knowing words like small children who just learned them and now excitedly use them all the time….
I allways feel sorry for anyone who has to deal with people of the kind you described above. they’re even worse because they usually happen to be totally convinced that they are not only right but that their every tantrum/rant/insultflood/despicable act, lies and backstabbing is absolutly justfied…makes me wanna shake and scream at them until the lonebraincell falls out of their hypocital ears.
i wonder what exactly ” valid critique” is. I know constructive critique, but apparently that’s not what he/she meant….and also if you have enouph experience as a shopper in SL than the ad-picture is often(not allways ofcourse) enouph to judge the work of a designer and it’s their own fault if they don’t offer a free (yes free not 1L but free!)demo (which is certainly enouph to give “valid” critique or see if i like something or not)which is usually the reason why their work would be judged by the ad-picture alone and they can’t expect ANYONE to buy their stuff just to see if it’s any good or give them critique they accept as valid or whatever(like: “noooo your critique isn’t valid you didn’t even wear/attach/rezz my creation. Now be a nice pushover and go buy my stuff and THEN you can tell me again how horrible my stuff is and I’ll accept your critique as valid and console myself with your money.”…….one reason why i think 1L demos are insolent)….i don’t know if it’s just the past year, or if i just started to noticed during the past year, but the number of (especially) designers with awful attitudes seems to have increased like a new kind of plague…
also since I’m at it anyway, regarding overpriced items…a lot people and especially designers who use their hardwork as an argument for their high prices, tend to forget that they make an item once(yes that takes if honestly done; time,creativity,love,care, and hardhard work, but after it’s done they) upload it and then they can sell infinite free copies of it forever or until sl decides to kill their inventories and their harddrive dies alongside…so things like 1200L$ sl shoes or 1000-58000(yes no joke)L$ sl clothing etc.is something I’ll never understand…
Wow, this post left a bad taste in my mouth. The stand out fact that some designers I really like think they are better then anyone else. Well, I for one will not give my poor pathetic middle to lower class linden to you. Sorry, we can’t all be born with a silver linden spoon in our stuck up mouths. I really can’t imagine myself as a designer every saying I was elite because I created. I love admiring others work and always wish that mine was better. I run a small shop and make VERY modest sells (maybe 200L a week, and thats fabulous sells). I bend over backwards for my customers. If they don’t receive and double purchase an item even if it’s 5L (most of it’s cheap) but I still will send a gift of the same value (I don’t do refunds) and will be very kind to them. I’ve never had a bad experience with my customers and strive to please them. It sickens me that some that have had wonderful success get away with this kind of behavior and (unknown to me)elitist attitude.
About the other blog, I’ve heard the other story. There’s so many sides to every story. I personally wasn’t there so I’ll never fully know what went down. I prefer your blog still because of the commentary and the layout. IMO, it’s much easier to click the pictures in a post and navigate from one to another. This blog can get catty and all those unsavory things but it can make me laugh everything and the rest I try to ignore.
Just the knowledge that some designers act like that will really make me steer clear of their designs no matter how cute. Even if I only bought their stuff on sale. Still money is money. I refuse to buy from one store because of a comment they made on a blog. I’ve seen some things I’d really liked but their behavior was just not nice.
The name thing was sooo petty. Idk the game it’s from. I think it should have just been ah ok and move on. Constance comments didn’t make sense to me. Vomit and punch a baby? Ermm ok. Was really just a weird and kinda hipster-ish comment to me? If I don’t like a word, I’ll just be like bleh move on. Instead of saying it makes me want to kick a dolphin in the face. The cunt comment was hella harsh but she did apologize.
I do think confronting the truth can cause more drama but if you don’t stuff just builds. People complain about people being awful in sl but really people are awful in real life too. I feel at school a couple weeks ago and this guy just walked right by me. I feel so hard I skinned my knee and dropped my books and limped a bit after. People can be EXTRA cruel on the net because there isn’t direct confrontation like irl. You call a girl a bitch to her face then she will be in your face. You call a girl a bitch on the net and you get into a virtual fight. You both get pissed off and virtual scream etc but if you want the fight to be over just block or close the page. IRL you can’t block or close the page.
So all in all, people are still awful irl. The net just gives the room to be bigger dicks.
Edits:
This blog can get catty and all those unsavory things but it can make me laugh sometimes and the rest I try to ignore.
Fell*
the net just gives them room to be bigger dicks
You ALL have WAY too much time on your hands.
I read the whole post and I just wanted to say that I think this is ridiculous.
Designers, I’m going to simplify this for you: life sucks, then you die.
Just because one person has a negative opinion about your product, that is no reason to jump on their backs about it. Personally, I found the “pouffe” wonderful and would have purchased it if I wasn’t a day late on being able to purchase Linden. I’m sure you had plenty of sales on said “pouffe”, did you not?
I find it sort of comical how everyone says, “Don’t talk about me behind my back, say it to my face!” Yet, when you are privy to those words, you get pissed and jump all over the one who said it? Sort of a catch-22 here, don’t you think?
I think it’s time for a massive Midol, folks.
Again, I’ll repeat this for /everyone/: life sucks and then you die. Why waste what life you do have getting upset over petty BS?
PS: Thanks for the blog posts! You make sitting in class, wanting to be shopping in SL, so much more bearable!
wow. I’ve read all of this and do’t really know where to start, other than to say I’ve had first hand experience of sl drama during my itme in SL and it sucks majorly, and its big reason why I don’t do SL socialising anymore, I have a close circle of friends I care about and thats it. I really think the anonymity of SL brings the worst out in some people and makes them think they can talk this kind of shit about others and not expect any consequence. I was brought up in RL to respect others and their opinions, and that is what I value from this blog, the honesty of the bloggers here to call a spade a spade. You do’t get that anywhere else. I may not always agree with the comments the bloggers make, I may think that was a bit harsh, or a bit too far, but I just grit my teeth and carry on reading. wtf is the point in getting mad and ranting all over a blog cus someone you don’t know said they don’t like something? Everyone has a different taste and has a right to their own opinions, and if you don’t like it stfu and move on.
I love this blog and all the hard work that goes into it, saves me a ton of time with my weekly shopping rounds.
*cries from confusion*
Penny, as always, I love your face…you have been through a lot. To me alllllll this crap comes down to ethics and loyalty. In the grand scheme of things, people should learn to trust SOMEONE…I tend to trust the someones that help me, are there for me when they stand nothing to gain from it, and those that have had my back and been supportive and lovely when I needed it most. You’ve been all three and I love you for it. I’m proud of you for finally speaking out. <3
James Schwarz is the true devil on earth.
Hey gurl, hey!
lolirl
It’s really easy for ANYONE to take INTERNET “facts” and twist them to their liking and arranging the light how they want so people will feel sorry for them. What baffles me the most is why you even care what is said on plurk or any other place about your blog or what ever the hell this shit is when you’ve got all the ratings you brag of. You’re quoting personal plurks on private timelines which are more or less like private IM’s. That seems like Shady business to me. But that’s what you’re really about isn’t it? Taking the light and adjusting it to make your shade seem like justice.
You should really be ashamed of yourself and for whoever your insider is for invading privacy and broadcasting it in a public forum. I don’t know who you think you are but all this finger pointing makes YOU look like the one that deserves whatever is said about you. All you do is perpetuate stuff that could die if you would just shut up about it. And then you whine about it looking for sympathy…It’s kind of pathetic. The only difference between what you say and what all the people that dislike you say is when and where it’s said! You put your opinions up publicly, and they share among themselves as friends. YES, designers are friendly…Imagine that! They tend to band together because of idiots like you and as you know to share knowledge on skills. The actual “average” people you speak of are wonderful, but the people that speak for them without being asked to be represented by (YOU) are the fools. Get a grip.
The facts aren’t being argued here, maybe you should re read the post, it wasn’t at all about hanging anyone out to dry… it was about the general idiots that make up the sl designer community… you can’t actually be this naive. There was no asking for sympathy here… just awareness.
Actually buddy, people do ask me to speak for them, and tons of people have already messaged me to thank me for this post.
Maybe you should start listening. Just maybe, people can take view of their actions and make some changes… I know I already have.
<3<3<3<3
Couldn't have said better.
Complaining about being criticized when you reproach to designers to complain when you criticize them is quite schizophrenic, Penn… Did you take your meds?
Sanity, Ever hear that little saying that goes something like this:
“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
Your argument sounds good in theory but it is full of holes. You are insinuating that because they say horrible things in private that they can not be held accountable for those words. Load of bullocks. If I kill in the night, I’ll be trialed by day. They have no authoritative ground to throw stones at the Rumor because they also have committed the same sins they accuse the Rumor of having committed. Doing it in private doesn’t make you immune
If a tree falls in a forest, yes it makes sound.
Here are some sayings for you. JUST SAYING.
“And whether you’re an honest man, or whether you’re a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.”
-Benjamin Franklin
“It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.”
-Winston Churchill
Just dug those up out of no where. Hope you like. kbaipoopcheese
You make no sense.
It’s like you reply to the things in your head instead of what’s actually in front of you.
right can obviously be relative…
Here’s the thing…
“What baffles me the most is why you even care what is said on plurk or any other place about your blog or what ever the hell this shit is when you’ve got all the ratings you brag of. ”
What I think is right, is not worrying about my rating or what the hell people think of me… but worrying that I’m spending money and promoting stores for other people to spend their money at… who are looking down their noses at us and calling us lower class.
Sorry but I think that’s wrong.
I’ll gladly be honest with you about an item, tear it to shreds sometimes even… but put a live person in front of me, living, breathing, even if it’s on the other end of a keyboard… and I will always have compassion. Always.
The only reason I point out the stats on the blog is that there is an obvious group of people in second life who agree with what I have to say, and just because they are not as loud, does not make them less valid.
Sue me for thinking that I could post this, and people would see how stupid they are being, and decide to grow up. Instead you pick apart my words, and make yourself look like you have no common sense.
If any of these people calling me plebes, harassing me, boycotting my sims, threatening me… had ever actually attempted to talk to me… they may be seriously surprised at the respect and maturity that could happen.
TLDR
Ok ya, I can’t discuss things with people who have already made up their mind.
Have fun
playing dirty
Dear Sea Hole Update members!
I just wanted to perk your interest in a really sweet-hearted blog called Seraphim
Alot of the other blogs that cover events and sales have resorted to some really hurtful tactics in order to gain interest.
Im Choosing to Sponsor Seraphim because they have wonderful coverage, their bloggers use windlights and wait for things to rezz, and they Leave the hurtful tactics at the wayside-
I highly recommend making the CHOICE to make Seraphim your goto fashion coverage blog, and by doing so making a choice for Kindness,
and to back up this sentiment, Im offering 4 FREE DRESSES (The sea hole Chinatown Dresses in all 4 colors, reg $211 each to those of you who go down to their HQ, and join the Seraphim update group
Er… fuck off.
I am referring to Sea Hole, natch
I like clothes.
Tori says: “Wow, this post left a bad taste in my mouth. The stand out fact that some designers I really like think they are better then anyone else. Well, I for one will not give my poor pathetic middle to lower class linden to you”
And this is why I have been in love with the rumor from the beginning. Because it is completely transparent with everybody. Nothing is hidden. You see exactly what goes through the mind of the common shopper. Ugly or not. Take a look around at the people who hate this blog. It is never us “middle class folk” it is always the same clique of self-proclaimed “designers” and the people who want so badly to be a part of their “gold”
Believe me, it is so easy to browse through Plurk and when you see the “designers” talking shit about the rumor the middle class folk (heh) auto-co-sign with it based on the assumed legitimacy of the person writing the plurk. You give up the realization it’s all a bunch of bloody hearsay and you spread someone elses view-points around like wild-fire. Nobody looks at situations with an opened mind anymore? With clear eyes? With an unbiased attitude? (And this mindset, my friends, is why we have religious nutcases encamping young girls and women for sexual bait.)
When the drapes come down from the “designers” private plurks we see who the true evil ones are. Common folk- Do you like what they hide from you? Too bad you can’t see their skype conversations. Those are worse.
I had a question about Drinkinstein as well. She was the one who came on the blog and called some ladies house ugly and kept going on about it. I was confused as to why someone who did that, could also kick someone from an event because they clowned an item’s name (pot meet kettle?) Now she has proceeded to bribe people to join a knock-off rumor blog run by people who have solen $20K from the rumor sims. So basically she kicks someone from her event because she claims she can’t co-sign with someone who has an opinion against one of her ‘clients’ item name choice, but then she co-signs with a gal who has stolen $100 USD from the rumor?! And worse yet, encourages and bribes mass amounts of people to hop on board? Absolute bollocks. Come on Drink, you have got to be smarter than that..
Want to know why the Rumor is one of SL’s most popular blogs? Sugar-coated shit is no longer trending.
Want to know why “the cool kids” keep running back to the rumor? They’re proper paranoid and obsessively check in to make sure they’re hidden secrets are kept hidden for just one more day.
Listen, I have nothing against the “middle class/common folk,” the “designers,” Constance, or Drink. I can not take sides. My problem is at the heart of the issue, at the extreme hypocrisy, hate/vendetta-driven, actions, and more importantly the sheep customers who are co-signing with the very people who laugh and ridicule them behind the “Check here to make private” box. Enough already.
Somebody once told me that when you realize how evil and dirty you yourself are, it makes it really fucking hard to sit around and point fingers at someone else. That realization has shaped my personality for the better. Perhaps some of you should adopt it.
If given the change to read a sucking up , kiss the designers ass to get free stuff , i’ll even perk up the pcitures to make their stuff look really good for them post or and honest one with real picutres and no designer ass kissin, if pick the real and honest one every time. Whats funny to me a lot of times, its something ive tho0guht when i see the same item, so it makes me chcukle, sometimes i dont agree, but it still make me chuckle, in NO WAY do the comments sway me from buying somethuing i like ever. So whats the big deal. i dont get it either Penn. Except taht it goes back to my theory that sl has taught me the last 7 years, That no matter what you do in sl, your gonna piss off someone . I really think all the people like that have ruined how fun sL is. its not just in blogs, i mean everything…..they guy with the gambling problem taht got gaming banned here, Anshe and her take over all the land thing, that forever changed that way land is done , you can’t wear pretty clothes or dance or breath or talk at big events now becasue they all cause lag, the shit head partners that forever ruin love in sl. I just wish people spent as much time and energey having FUN as they do griping and pointing fingers and sucking the fun out of things. Sl is supposed to be a fun place to escape the crap of real life, if it’s not fun or you cant laugh at yourself or your too scared to get out and live your sl experience and let others have some fun, maybe sl isnt for you.I don;t often read the comments here, but this one caught my attention. What i do love about this site is it was teh cooolest fucking idea ever and a total time saver for me…i love looking at all the pics and only having to go where i want to , to find them , period… i mean if ppl hate the comments, dont read them.. its still a kick ass and useful site for us shopaho0lics and i dont understand why we neeed another one with the same feeds , thats another crazy sl thing…..instead of everyone using one site, someone always has to steal the idea and make another, and whats taht do for us readers, it wastes our time, with duplicate posts ughhhhhhhhhhhh. thats about allllllllllllll i can see it does….if i made something and 500 people bought it and one said the name makes her vomit, i wouldnt be too worried abaout the vomit. it was just her opinion of the NAME, not even the pouf as she did say they were super cute. and honestly all this attention probably made the pouf sell bettter then it would have. I have a warped sense of humour sometimes and i say things that some people just think are horrendous and others love. and sometime after i even think why the hell did i say that, but last time i cheack none of us is perfect. and all of us have a god given right to our own thoughts and opinions. and last time i cheked there’s still free speech in this country (however that may be slippping away). My adive to everyone, just chill take 10 deep breaths, a big hit off a one hitter and smile, because life is short and every single person is special and unique and thats what makes the world such a damn interesting place.
I just logged in and saw this message. It’s too bad, really. It’s possible to promote a blog or store or whatever without denigrating another. This was obvious backlash against The Rumor and disappoints me as I have always loved shopping at The Sea Hole. What it all comes down to, however, is voting with your lindens. I spend my hard-earned lindens at stores with good quality, decent prices and – most importantly – good customer service. We can debate all we want and post our opinions, but it comes down to who we choose to support.
I’m referring to the message from the Sea Hole asking people to subscribe to the Seraphim blog.
and the dresses that’s she’ bribing people with aren’t really that nice. and i’m not saying that because i don’t like what is going on. i just think it’s disgusting to bribe people. i’m sure 90% don’t even know what is going on and will just do it for the free dresses, but keep coming here.
I always find posts like this interesting. Having been in SL for several years now, I’ve had the great misfortune to run into tons of SL drama…even to the extent that it’s overflowed into RL. Several times. It’s not fun, and the cause is always those jerks who think they are somehow more important/more cunning than everyone else. Liars, conniving bitches, and greed is what I see at every turn. And yes, it’s in RL too, but as someone else said, the internet (and it seems SL in general) allows those lowlifes to abuse and attack anyone they want.
It really is a shame that the SL designer community seems to be so stuck up. If I were a part of it I would want to HELP and befriend those who had something in common with me. That includes bloggers, and this is one of the best I’ve come across. I check it all the time for the commentary and the convenience. It’s refreshing to see someone from SL who says things straight. If one has a problem with someone, the adult thing to do is talk to that person privately. That’s what got me. It sounds like you tried to talk to the people involved, the result was a lot more bitching and retaliation from them. THAT is what sucks; the problem wasn’t that there was no miscommunication, just people being petty, as so many are on SL.
I think this is my first post on this blog, so just let me say that I’m throwing my name into the masses that are usually silent but hoping you won’t let this idiocy get to you.
Long live sarcasm and straight talk.
(+ support for designers who sell great stuff AND are still down to earth).
lols @ your website
and thank you for putting your name behind your words! I sincerely appreciate it.
I love this blog, I love the honesty. If the honesty is, in a bad way, geared toward one of my products, I try to make it better. Getting a pissed off and nasty? Why? You aren’t saying that you don’t like me as a person, you just don’t like my product. Now, I’m never happy to see a bad comment on one of my products, but I don’t mind too much – we all have very unique, personal tastes, after all.
But to the designers who have a stick up their ass and think that they make the best products in SL – get over yourselves. I KNOW I don’t make the best skins in SL. And I’m okay with that; I do my best, and that’s that. Only each individual person can decide who has the best item in SL – because it all comes down to personal opinion and taste.
Keep up the good work, and please, please, please, PLEASE don’t stop blogging!!!!!!!!!
Second Life shoppers need an honest blog!
This is a case of waaaaay too much drama from some overly sensitive people with clearly too much time on their hands and nothing else worthwhile going on in their lives!! I stopped reading blogs like Strawberry Singh’s because of her sycophantic ravings about her *friends* items (all given as freebies so she could review them positively no doubt). You may not be perfect, Rumor, but I love your honesty and humour. Yeah baby! (…and no, Whoopsie is not my SL avi’s name. Do you think I’m dumb enough to include that after daring to criticise SS?) xxx
…
Jealous much?
Gabe, it’s not a matter of being jealous, envious or resentful but rather just me stating my opinion. I don’t like SS’s blog so I don’t read it…simple.
Your reply and subsequent posts, however, demonstrate exactly what the Rumor crew is suggesting is the problem: an *over-reaction* to somebody else’s view which is not the same as yours.
If you choose to respond again for the sake of having the “last word”, that’s fine, but I’m not about to be part of a tit-for-tat exchange. That too is what The Rumor post was all about.
Isn’t it acceptable for you to allow others to come to an educated decision about things they do not approve of?
In my perception, Strawberry seems quite sweet and her guides like her WL presets and the Newbie help area or the social media guides are great resources to refer to and I love a lot of her pictures.
But that doesn’t change the fact that at least half the items in the credits are listed as promotional copies or – more important to me – come from stores I personally don’t care for. Where’s the jealousy in facts?
You said “I stopped reading blogs like Strawberry Singh’s because of her sycophantic ravings about her *friends* items (all given as freebies so she could review them positively no doubt).” That is WAY different than “I don’t like her blog” “Half the items are promotional copies” and “stores I don’t like”. One is a personal attack, and the other an opinion.
Saying that someone has “sycophantic ravings” in one breath and “they seem quite sweet” in another is perilously close to either backtracking when confronted with truth or just some unfortunate personality disorder. Not sure which. Either way, this post and its comments has nothing to do with Berry or her blog. Bringing her name into it says something about *you*, not her.
Just to clarify, Whoopsie mentioned ‘sycophantic ravings’. Chililly said she was quite sweet. Two different people made the comments
You are correct, apologies to chililly.
I have seen SL rise and fall and bumble along over 6 years, so perhaps I have seen much, perhaps not. Somethings that stand out for me:
1. all designers I have met have been overwhelmingly kind, generous and eager to assist their customers
2. Many blogs have come and gone, and there is room in the metaverse for all. We all have a choice on what we choose to read
3. People come from all walks of life with varying income levels. I have never considered it my business to ask people the details
4. My taste is not the same as everyone else, so I expect to see a wide variety of styles
5. All designers/creators have to begin somewhere, and it is quite a thrill to see some amazing skill development over time
6. And lastly, I’ve never found anyone to be ‘stuck up’ or unapproachable, least of all designers/creators.
I do not create, I am a consumer – my part is just as vital in the broader SL economy. My experiences I have raised here are mine – your may indeed be different.
That’s nice to hear, Evan
I really appreciated this reply
There are some awfully catty horrible people on both sides of this fence… but there are far more amazing, talented designers and bloggers. The good far outweighs the bad, and sometimes it’s hard to keep sight of that.
Make art not drama.
Ok, so I wasn’t going to chime in here because Penn always says to ignore the drama whores but after watching this post all evening, I feel like I have to. As most of you know, I’m one of the newer bloggers who jumped right into the mix of things. I chose to blog for The Rumor because after following the blog silently for a few weeks, I grew to appreciate the honesty that The Rumor does its readers. I have never encountered a blog on SL that speaks so truthfully and liked the idea of being able to speak my mind about a creation. After about two weeks of blogging for the site, I was severely harassed by a reader for stating something wasn’t my style. This reader told me that I should be raped and murdered for my negative comments. When I vented to Penn about it, she told me to just ignore them because there were a lot of “butthurt designers” (May not be the exact words!) who didn’t care for the site so I did. She chose to erase these comments for me since I was newer to the site.
As Penn mentioned, she chooses bloggers who have no ties to the designer’s of SL and I admit I am one of these people. Basically I just surf the feeds and look at things on other blogs to find what I like. Imagine my surprise to find a similar blog to The Rumor stating that they cared. Lol! Now for those of us who aren’t idiots, I googled those avatars names (Yes, I like to snoop around!) and found two things: 1) Those so called caring bloggers used to blog for The Rumor and 2) one of them had a public blog post bashing Penn. I was sickened instantly by the hypocrisy of this all (I mean if you care enough not to bash on your shopping event blog that’s concept was stolen from The Rumor then why stoop so low as to bash on your main blog and umm, hello you used to bash the designers for The Rumor. I even saw a post featuring what could be seen as a racial slur by one of them. Guess that is forgotten though unless you are in a private plurk!) and asked Penn herself about it. She told me her side of the story and it made sense to me so I remained with The Rumor. I noticed instantly that certain fake accounts start whining as soon as one of their clique (both the designer’s and other blog) got a negative review by one of our blogger’s and that just made me believe everything Penn told me even more but I stayed out of it because it’s really not my business. I admit I do giggle at some of the remarks when we are at our blogger’s meeting but hey I’m honest!
As I got to know some of the blogger’s better, I picked up on their senses of humor and knew that when Constance said that pouffe was an ugly name (which I agree with!) and she wanted to go kill some babies that she was joking because that’s what Constance does. I think it’s sad that she was told to kill herself by some unknown to me and found it harsh that a designer who showed so much support for the site and poked fun herself, Drink, would react in such a negative manner when I’m sure she knows Constance’s personality as well as I do. When Constance told me she was kicked from Collabor88, I was truly sad for her but again not my business so I stayed out of it. Plus, I’m just a middling blogger with no pull so what could I do. After this post, I find out death threat boy wasn’t reprimanded for his actions and that just pisses me off. *Shrugs* Who knows maybe when it comes down to it, Drink is afraid of her own new friends! Add that to her immature actions posted above and all I can say to Penn is good riddance on losing a backstabbing friend. Everyone shows their true colors after awhile.
We Rumor girls may not be the best photographers or dress the way you want us to but we are friendly, loyal, and above all not hypocrites. (Btw, I do know what WL is and wait for my pics to rez unless I’m experiencing major lag which in that case I will apologize to the designer.) We will continue to speak our minds and inform our readers if a prim is misaligned or a texture is off. We are not here to cater to designers or their blogger friends. We are here for the “petit bourgeois” because they are your customers and they deserve your best. You know I don’t design because I’d suck at it and you know what, some designers shouldn’t too. I’m sorry I wouldn’t push someone to buy something unless it was decent in my opinion. Yes, we may be crass bitches but I’d rather be one of those than a backstabbing bitch.
As for all this drama, it’s petty on both sides in my opinion and yes, I’m probably adding to it a bit but The Rumor is my home and I’m fiercely loyal to it and my co-bloggers. I just wish those who didn’t want to read the blog stayed away and made the world a better place but I know that’s not gonna happen especially when it’s so easy to be a cyber bully hiding behind a screen. Well, I rambled enough. Yes, I know I can seem incoherent or out of it to some readers so if you’re gonna reply with that, don’t waste your time. <3 to our readers and supporters, you are what I am here for.
Oh, and furthermore, I don’t think every designer on SL is mean or rude, just certain ones. There are many I love, think are sweet and thank for supporting me as a noob blogger. I also don’t condemn those designers who choose not to support my personal blog because I know I need work in the photography department and realize they have the right to choose who they want to review their items. If I did, I’d be as hypocritical as those mentioned above….
KISTMET, NO!
I wanna punch babies, not fatally wound them!
My bad, Constance! Let it state for the record that she only wants to punch them.
Very well written, lady. What you wrote didn’t seem incoherent at all.
“we may be crass bitches but I’d rather be one of those than a backstabbing bitch.”
Love.
Gracias! I just felt the need to speak for us “bad” bloggers.
Well writen, and i could not agree more
As someone who reads your blog and rather enjoys how quickly you post items from events. I find this whole “We are just being honest” thing kinda BS. Some post you say nothing and I mean NOTHING negative about any thing. There are some really shit items that you just go “I grey shirt form blah blah”. And then FLF comes along or some other event with bigger name stores comes along and ALL OF A SUDDEN you are honest, catty and snarky. It may be the style of who ever is covering the event. But you can’t blame people that feel like you ( as a blog) is being bitchy for no reasons when the honesty and feed back doesn’t happen during Moody Monday.. or other events.
Gabe, it’s the blogger’s choice on whether or not to say something. Not all of them leave commentary. I’ll admit I don’t say things sometimes because 1) it’s four AM when I’m posting or 2) I’m just being lazy. I only have a grudge against one designer on SL and it’s for a good reason so when I choose to leave my opinion, it’s just because I feel like it and nothing personal towards anyone. The designer I hold a grunge towards gets skipped at every event I cover because as was mentioned before bad publicity is still publicity and I choose to give her none.
Also well written….
I’m pretty sure you are well aware that we have been equally snarky in the past, and realize that is something new.
I needed bloggers when the girls left for seraphim, so I took on who I could and some of them aren’t comfortable being so blatant.
Part of the great aspects of the rumor is that each of our bloggers is very different. Constance is a bit snarkier than most, but she is also one of the most reliable and been here the longest… so she gets the better events. It has nothing to do with who we like and don’t like. Honestly I’d think we would be more rude to moody monday since kat alderson works with seraphim. I don’t know Barb from a toothpick and as she stated, she’s too good to associate with commoners like me… so oh well.
And I get that. All I am saying is I guess I see where the attacks are coming from. I guess. But hey. You keep posting the event pictures and I will come back and see which ones I like on my man body
You bring up an interesting point. Maybe the ‘attackers’ were feeling personally attacked and lashed out in “protection” of themselves and their friends. Maybe the ‘attackers’ had a bad taste in their mouth from the blog to begin with and were more sensitive to the commentary. Whatever the reason, I just don’t feel it a good idea to send bullying committees out after people and try to take them down via boycotts. Wouldn’t you say that is pretty childish and just plain distasteful? Besides, you can’t flush out darkness with darkness. Even if they felt threatened, the saying says you show your true colors in how you treat those who did you wrong as opposed to those who did you well. I think this blog is honest, perhaps not for everyone, but in the end I feel if people loosened up we would not be in this predicament again. Until people let go of the mis-belief that the ‘snarky comments’ are made for shock value because “the viewer # is low” (hey alexa.com hey!), they, I would assume, will continue to feel personally attacked as opposed to seeing the comments for what they really are. Wouldn’t you think so?
I usually blog Moody Mondays and, no, I don’t usually add personal comments for a couple reasons. I’m still fairly new and still getting the hang of things. Also, it’s partially a personality thing. I may think that something is hella ugly, but I’m not likely to write it. There are items that I really like that others think are hideous; it’s just a matter of taste.
That being said, one of the best things about The Rumor is that it allows bloggers to be themselves and add commentary as they like. So, some posts will have personal comments and others won’t.
Lucia
I can tell you why I don’t say anything sometimes!
I don’t feel like it or I’m in a hurry. This takes longer than you think and sometimes I just want to get it done. I will try and take my time in the future so I can make sure to call everything ugly though, if it would make you feel better. <3 hehe
lol
“Honest” is equal to “catty and snarky” nowadays? Or is it only the perception of hurt ego that automatically registers various levels of dislike statements as a fatal attack on their inner core?
“Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.” Robertson Davies
I remember meeting you before you started down this road and I was impressed with you then. I still am, Penn.
Don’t stop swinging. <3
If you’re making enough lindens off your creations that you’re using them to buy actual dollars, consider yourself a professional graphic artist and behave appropriately, then the only complaints anyone will have is that you’re taking too long to release new stuff.
brb, working my middle class job in rl because i can’t afford to stay at home on second life all day hiding behind dramalama plurk bullshit crying over non-matching seams on my pixelated clothing and what TERRIBLE HORRIBLE OH MY GOD I CANT BELIEVE ITS NOT BUTTER thing that was said about said items posted on the rumor. ALSO BRB, QUITTING EVERY EVENT IM IN BECAUSE THOSE CUNTS AT THE RUMOR BLOG THAT EVENT AND I CANT BE SEEN IN A NEGATIVE LIGHT. Oh and btw, without us “middle class” & the rumor, your events would be less popular, your sales would be even less, your pixelated existence would mean even less than it already does and your store wouldn’t really matter anyways because no one cares about it.
To all the designers who don’t have these “elitist” events to gain popularity in their store just remember this, if you make good stuff the few people that shop at your store appreciate everything you do. You make things because you ENJOY to make things not because you have to stay up by a certain time for whatever event you have to make it for. When SL starts becoming a job, what fun is it anyways? It’s a game, it’s supposed to be an escape. It’s not supposed to be another headache on top of another headache created from RL (actual and meaningful) stress. Let these people cry and whine about how terrible their life is, how shitty their husband is because he didn’t bring them flowers, how their kids are horrible(but yet they have time for their fake ones who are really 27+ years old pretending to be a 3-6 year old…go figure that one out?)
The only question I ask, when will they realize that this isn’t real and their husband or wife and their children are behind them wanting to spend time with them. It sucks growing up lonely. Stop taking SL so seriously and go attend to the things that MATTER in life.
Well said.
It’s the neurotic conniving insecure immature scumbags on this game, that makes us actual normal people not want to even log on to this game. Personally, if it wasn’t because I have obligations on this game I wouldn’t even log on. I agree with how certain designers feel elitist however certain bloggers are the sameway. People need to realize they are just pixels when it comes down to it. However, certain people make their second lifes their first which is pretty pathetic in itself. Drinkstein, makes shitty clothes anyways so who ever considers receiving four dress for free just by joining the Seraphim group as an amazing gift is just preposterous. I’ve never boughten anything from her and never will since I don’t buy shit. I’m not saying it because I blog occasionally for The Rumor. I just preffer buying quality items.
I’ve always been a Rumor reader and appreciate all the hardwork each fellow blogger puts in to each post covered. Penn you are one of the realest and one of the nicest person I met on this game which is rare in this game. Like I’ve always said most of these people need to get off the internet and grow up. Hiding behind a screen doesn’t solve any issues just makes them worse
Hello out there in cyberworld!
I own the store Boof. I’m not some ‘elitist’ designer, heck I work for Social Services irl. Everything I’ve learned on Second Life designing has been self taught. That being said, my items aren’t the best quality or textures, but I do put a lot of thought, effort, and work into the designs. I price them fairly and try to get a smile out of someone who stops by to try me out. I can usually be found in my store meeting, greeting, and goofing off with my customers. I am an honest person. I am someone who likes to smile and attempts to have fun on this game.
My mainstore is located on the Whisper sim. I’m friends with many of the designers there and Pennelope. I don’t know all the details of this situation but I can say this. I am one of those ‘skybox’ designers she’s mentioned. (Although I’m usually in the store itself to network with my customers). I don’t speak out against other people because my mother taught me manners, yes my morals actually carry over into my online life. This situation is just sad for all involved so I’ll throw in my two cents.
I don’t think Constance’s Harry Potter comment should be an life-changing event. I’ve designed two items that are Harry Potter themed for my store. I don’t take offense if someone else doesn’t like them. Blog away, hate me, you can even come riot in my store. I’d just laugh and shoot off pictures to add to my Flickr account. Why? Because I design for fun. I even depend on the money SL brings me for an income to help with bills irl. I know what it’s like to depend on the generosity of others to help buy bread to eat. (I was still in college when I started Boof and was prettyyyyy broke for awhile. Hooray diploma!) I’m thankful for every customer that chooses to shop with me. Every customer that has ever said thank you, or I like your stuff, or oh that’s funny. Because they will make up for every snarky comment that will ever be thrown my way. Does it hurt when someone makes a negative comment about your builds? Yes. But that’s the chance you take when you put your work out there for others to critique. Throw on your big boy or girl panties and shovel on through it. Critque of your work makes you want to be better, to throw your head back and think.. What can I do next to really blow their lids off and show them I got what it takes?
Maybe I’m just used to being cursed out due to my real life job or I’ve seen things that would make most people’s skins crawl, but I don’t mind if someone makes a jeering comment about me or my store. Because at the end of the day I’m still me. No one can take away my desire to create, to build, and bring a smile to someone’s face.
I might not know all the specifics, I might not be some bigshot, but I am a good friend. I support Penny and the Rumor wholeheartedly, even if my items were bashed on, even if they gave me a bad review. I will not choose business or honesty over friendship. I value both.
So thank you bloggers, thank you Pennelope, thank you Constance, I appreciate your honesty and your unwillingness to compromise in this latest tide as the Slworld turns. *throws you all paddles to wade up shit creek*
I <3 Boof! I think I own at least 3/4 of your store! OMG, it's the creator of the Frickin' HUGE Spaghetti Fork! /me bows down
Now THIS is SL royalty!
no kidding! i own lots of your store too.
/bows…
*thank you for making my summer full of nyannyannyan… i annoyed many
*
Read through this post, and Constance’s post and honestly cannot believe the over-reaction over what Constance said. She said she hated the words, not the product, and gets told to kill herself, gets kicked out of a shopping event, etc.
As for the “names” involved in the comments to her post and in Plurk, believe me, you will never receive another $L from me, or my friends.
Personally I prefer not to use Seraphim, I hate the new style photos that load slower than a snail, and have no SLURL linked to them.
And Pennelope, I am sure we are related somewhere along the line! Don’t give up, and don’t change a thing to feed these trolls that think they are more important than the average shopper. To be totally frank, you designers are nothing without us shoppers, you need us more than we need you.
“To be totally frank, you designers are nothing without us shoppers, you need us more than we need you.”
A+. This EXACTLY.
havent even heard of this other blog and have 0 intention of visiting it
keep on posting weekly invents so i dont have to tp everywhere! thanks
events! dumbass (sorry had some wierd eye ointment and thats my excuse!)
You made me cry when you talked about your father who has been fighting for our country’s freedom against the vietnamese who wanted to invade us with their fucking noodles and fish sauce.
This is what I’ll dedicate. Thanks for being there, Penn. Without you, SL would really be boring.
The overreaction to what CONSTANCE said?
I can’t believe the overreaction that’s going on RIGHT NOW, IN FRONT OF MY EYES.
All of you have sat here and written short stories over why you either love Penneloppe or hate her. Failing to see how that’s not equally overreacting.
Seriously all of you should take a step back and realize what it is you’re bitching about. Not to mention the fact that come Thursday morning no one will remember (or care) about any of this, Penn’s rant and Constance’s comment included. Everything, including the comments you’ve taken precious time out of your day to write, will fade into obscurity and then what?
Nothing. Nothing will change. Penn will continue to do what she thinks is right, The Rumor blog will live on, the Seraphim blog will live on, the Collabor88 event will continue like no one was ever missed and anyone else will continue to go about their daily meanderings within SL: designers, bloggers, plurkers, and consumers alike.
For the love of God. Shut up, children. EVERYONE’S pettiness is showing. NO ONE is a winner here. You are ALL losers.
And calling everyone losers makes you feel better now or …?
Yet you keep comin’ back.
I agree! Obviously, they love us.
“Nothing will change”
There are already 80+ comments here, in one day. A majority of them shoppers or small designers with their own stories of the same sentiment.
You really don’t think people will eventually get fed up and make up their own mind to do something about it?
It’s sad how very little respect you give people to make up their own minds.
It’s a shame to see that some stores I used to love, to wear and to show off are now getting a place on my personal “do not buy from…” list thanks to their reactions and statements to a totally overblown and out of control issue. It’s especially sad because some of the designers probably never had a reason to complain about the feedback they got for their offers when they were covered on this blog. I’ve become very selective in choosing spots to spend my L$ and reactions like the described ones make me less likely to add anything into the L$ flow, because you can never be sure who’ll be the next to utter “I hate and disrespect the fools who gimme their cash” and that’s a very sad trend.
I don’t mind you voicing an opinion, but being downright hateful and insulting is not even close to something like an opinion. It’s nothing but ego tripping at best.
However, to equally critisize all parties, my opinion is that the offending blog comments – the gifs and responses – should have been stopped ASAP and probably deleted, too. Letting that happen wasn’t a sign of honesty or not sugarcoating or censoring or whatever, but just moderation gone bad. And that’s something that any blog/forum admin should keep in mind.
It’s also sad that so many people seem to let negativity conduct their business in SL, because they might have a shitty first life, because they are generally fed up by the SL plattform or or maybe just because the sun doesn’t shine… who knows.
Feel free to kick me, too, please – my inworld name is Lillith Hapmouche. TY!
I agree with you about being careful where you spend your L. I’m starting to adopt that practice myself.
However inappropriate a pornographic gif may or may not be, it’s nothing compared to being told to kill myself when I hadn’t done or said anything negative or mean to that individual.
Also, it was Ampersand’s idea.
The “kill yourself” comment was mentally included in my moderation queue.
You’re completely right, it should have been moded. But, like I said I was out most of that day, and before I left I checked the comments and to me a comment about a pouffe… it never occurred to be that their might be a huge backlashing over it.
If I had seen suicide gifs, I’d have deleted them right away. But, once they were already out there, it can’t really be taken back. Now, to me, it serves as a reminder how ridiculous and petty things can get,
I commend you for leaving them up. It simply shows your transparency. The lack of wanting to hide anything here, good and bad.
1. I actually really like the word ‘pouffe’. I find it amusing.
2. I actually really like Glitch, too. It’s silly, but fun. Very good-natured game, with the nicest, most helpful playerbase of any game I’ve ever tried. Even counting SL.
However…
3. I read this blog because I like hearing honest opinions. Including the ones the designers might not want to bronze and post on the wall. “I think this name is stupid” is an opinion. “Kill yourself you ugly bitch” is not*. Some commenters might want to study up on the distinction.
*Okay, so it could be rephrased as an opinion (“I think you’re an ugly bitch who should kill herself”), but anyone thinking that’d fix it might want to study up on the difference between a personal opinion and a personal attack, too.
I am a real fan of the word pouffe
I prefer the word “ottoman” as it sounds a bit more exotic – like a pouffe one might find in a brothel
I believe that the word puff (pronounced “pouffe”) is a german slang word for brothel
I also like the word “antimacassar”
I hope that this helps clarify my current feelings on this state of affairs.
I now need to log my girl alt and go to the seahole and make a point of not buying anything, just to show solidarity.
You know, this is why I quit blogging. Most of the bloggers “if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything” and honest criticism? Not well taken. If I can’t be honest, I’m not happy. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to say “This designer is promising, but her seams don’t line up and the textures are a little iffy”. I also hate the “just because it’s not your style!”. It may not be, but style or not, folks can usually tell shit from quality. I may never wear it, but the seams not lining up is pretty universal.
I’ve done some building, and honestly, it doesn’t come easy to me. I can, but something about it is always iffy. I admire designers who can do better than myself because I know the work it takes, but designers who EXPECT me to adore them…well, forget it. You’re not THAT special..we all have a talent and it’s all a matter of perception. I have a little cartoon I always keep in my head of an engineer standing in a room with a broken toilet and ankle deep in shit and a plumber with a wrench saying “and who’s the smart guy now?”. It always reminds me that everyone contributes something somewhere. There is always someone out there who can do what you can’t and you will usually be reminded about that when you’re ankle deep in shit and need them to bail you out.
Penn, I don’t know you, but I do love it when I see something and I see one of you guys say “well, there are a few problems” because, like you, I DO know where my money comes from and how valuable even one dollar is. I’ve been working to pay my bills since I was 15 and worked my way through college. Constance, keep on keeping on. I personally thought you were just being funny…and it was funny. Of course, take that as you may, because I’m the one that says “oh jeez, that makes me want to club a baby seal”.
More importantly, if you’re a blogger and you’re blogging things you don’t like, why are your readers supposed to even read? The point is to blog things you like.
And just because you value your money doesn’t mean it’s so horrible to use your poor judgement and buy something that turns out to be bad. Everyone does it from time to time but they don’t all blog about it and tarnish a designers image even further. The point is to improve their creativity, not ruin their chances at sales. If you want to point out a seam issue or some mistake, take it up with the designer personally, it’s not cool to do it in front of a large chunk of their customer base. I’ll say it again though, if it’s not worthy of your money, don’t blog it. No sense in being honest about stuff when people will decide on their own whether you’re right or wrong about a product.
i have to disagree. i want to know if some seam is uneven before i buy something, and if i see someone tell me that on a blog then i know i can make a conscious decision on whether or not i like something enough to look past a mistake, instead of buying it and finding out for myself – then regretting what i’ve done and never buying from that store again because i’m disappointed and pissed off that i just spent 200L on something i wasn’t expecting.
if the blogger says ‘this top is great but the stripes are messed up on the sides’ and i really like the top, i’ll still buy it, the blogger isn’t going to dictate to me what i should and should not buy. i think most people agree anyways when something is not very well made.
and this blog is different anyways, they are covering EVENTS, not just putting up random pictures of an outfit they put together with a commentary. what are they supposed to do? delete any picture of an item that sucks as to not offend the maker of the item?
and this whole things is so stupid anyways, over the name POUFFE! it’s a goofy name! and btw i bought the piggy one. then i punched a baby afterwards.
The point is to blog things that are GOOD. Just because it’s not your style doesn’t mean it’s not worth someone’s while or not worth acknowledging.
Well, if they are going to be in a “business” then they will have to accept the criticism with the acclaim. Since when are any of us here to hold hands and not hurt someone’s feelings? As long as you aren’t personally attacking someone, there shouldn’t be a problem. Consumer sites exist all over the ‘net, why should SL not have one? If I put up that someone’s work is promising, but here’s some issues, why not put it where other people can say “I agree” or “I disagree and here’s a reasonable reason why”. That only helps the designer. If that person fixes the issues then they can always be re-blogged. The only way their image gets tarnished is if they act foolish over it in public. I’m not going to email Bill Gates personally if Windows jacks up, nor am I going to chase down every designer and act like MY personal opinion is the only one. In a blog post the designer gets a much better idea of what EVERYONE feels, which may NOT agree with the blogger and may be more accurate. Nothing wrong with that. If they can’t take criticism, the problem is THEM putting themselves in a public space, not us for giving our opinions. If SL “businesses” want to be considered a business, then perhaps they should act like professional businesses. Sears doesn’t start crying when I tell everyone I don’t like their washers.
wow, really well said, thank you.
It’s SL, not RL. Comparing what you would do in a RL situation isn’t relevant. You wouldn’t even know how to directly reach Bill Gates. You can however go to a designers profile and drop a note and they will surely read it, if not, they get enough complaints. If you don’t wish to act like your personal opinion is the only one, then why would you conclude that it’s what everyone thinks? And since when are individual opinions what EVERYONE feels? It’s a cop out for making ridiculous claims really. I honestly do not get this whole sense of entitlement going on. And Sears crying? Are you really comparing these store owners to Sears? Believe me, even big corporations talk about negative reviews in meetings.
The problem isn’t “THEM”. They are creating things to put on your avatar while people who feel entitled complain about it. If the entire point of these blogs is to direct shoppers to “good” things as you seem to have noted, then what is the importance of “Look at this ugly POS, I wouldn’t buy it”? I’ll tell you, it generates views from people that aren’t interested in shopping. GET IT? I mean, look at the name of the website…for reals. I’m done. lol. I’m sure some people are grateful that people with that attitude stop blogging TBH.
Excuse me, but whether it’s SL or RL, my money is earned and I want value for my purchases. In RL, unless I’m shopping on the net, I can touch and try on a dress or pair of jeans before I buy it. Most clothing designers still don’t offer demos, so unless I can see a flaw in the vendor pics (which, to be honest, are often ‘shopped to hide those flaws), then I’m stuck with a shoddy item because, geez…it’s no trans so there’s no refund. I’ve complained to designers in SL and gotten largely positive responses. I’ve also sent notes of thanks to some designers and never received even an acknowledgment of receipt (other than the standard inventory acceptance notification). I think the major difference in SL is that almost every merchant here is comparable to a small business – not a corporation. Would I expect to speak directly to Bill Gates if I had an issue with Windows? Nope. I’d speak to tech support or customer service. Because Microsoft IS a corporation…not a small business. Now, if I bought a computer from a local merchant who built it himself and I had a problem with it, I’d damned well expect to speak directly with him. Because he’s most likely not only the builder of the machine, but customer service, tech support and probably the janitor, too. That’s a more realistic comparison between SL and RL…and relevant, too.
As for only blogging the ‘good stuff’…have you actually looked at the layout of this blog? They blog every item at a sales event. They don’t discriminate what they show, bad or good. So if they notice something that is poor quality or don’t like, some of the bloggers will point it out. But they also often identify what they like. Based on their individual tastes. I don’t always agree with them (tastes ARE individual), but I’ve come to depend on this site to save me from traipsing all over SL, fighting the lag only to discover the item for sale is something I have no interest in. I’ve mentioned before my distaste for blogs that show crap, simply because it was dropped on the blogger as a review item. Now if they gave an honest opinion, calling crap, crap and quality work a gem, that would be great. I’d follow that blog. Give us your opinion. Point out flaws. Ooooh and ahhhhh over a beautifully made item. That is the type of a blog that is a service to the SL community…both the designers and the consumers.
Sanity, of course big coporations talk about negative reviews. But the big difference is that the reason for Sears’ holding meetings on negative reviews is to review their own strategy and figure out the next step in fixing the issue. And that, to an extent, is the purpose of the Rumor’s transparent blog commentary. The problem is, most SL “designers” aren’t business-savvy enough to give proper thought to a less-than-favorable review. Instead they bitch and moan about it like bloody manc twats. This is why business in SL comes and gos, nobody knows what they are doing. Sears isn’t going to pay mind to 100 whiny bitches who thought stainless steal couldn’t get finger “stains” on it. And SL “designers” shouldn’t pay mind to 1 whiny bitch who didn’t like the word “pouffe.” But if someone chimes in and says, “Hey that item is ugly” and 10 commenter agree, it is time to reevaluate your design strategy.
People are entitled to complain about an item. doh! They paid money for it. I’ve quit spending my money in SL because the few times I have purchased something I was absolutely disappointed in the item. When I tried to contact the creator for help I was shuffled off and disregarded. I’m not going to bitch and moan about it, I solved my own issue by no longer contributing financially to the SL economy.
Furthermore, since 99% of shop owners have a “NO REFUND” policy, it makes a customers right to complain that much more relevant.
“Sanity”, I’m not the one who tells people “This is my job, this is my business”. That’s the designers. And if it’s a business, act accordingly. Sears is a business, if you want me to take your business seriously then act like a business. As far as reaching Bill Gates, I might know how to reach him…for all you know he’s my best friend. Don’t assume.
And they aren’t royalty because they are putting clothes on my avatar. I admire them for it, because I can’t do it, but they aren’t more special than anyone else. “They are making clothes for your avatar and you’re entitled” is exactly part of the attitude problem. Entitled is another one of those words that’s been redefined. I am entitled to have an opinion, that’s not a bad thing. If you mean that I expect things that I don’t deserve? You are so beyond wrong.I don’t expect anything I don’t deserve. Just because they are on SL doesn’t mean that they are above criticism. If you can’t take criticism get out of the public space. Why does everyone think that just because you’re a designer you are above reproach?
Jalestra, I think calling them “designers”is taking it too far. More like “Product Replicators”
One interesting side effect of a blog like this is it gets designers to show their true colors. You can respond to a blog like this (and that’s all it is is a blog, not anything that can actually affect SL) with either dignity or drama. I will never forget the Ivey/Roblem blowup in the early days. I am very sad that Drink has gone for the drama. I used to like the Sea Hole and now it’s tainted for me.
We need something like a self-support group for disenchanted shoppers.
Usually I just read things like this and chuckle to myself happy that I have NO CLUE about what’s going on. I don’t know how I found your site but I read a post where you ( “you” as in whoever blogged it) said an item looked like shit (not really I’m using creative license here) and it did. Then went on to say something else looked great , but it didn’t. Then you trashed on something I liked, bought, wore and loved it to death. Yet I continue to read the blog daily if not weekly because 1. I like seeing the pictures 2. You say what you like 3. I’m lazy 4. because you can’t have 3 without a 4 (I swear that I learned crazy outlining rules in school). I’m to old to kiss ass on either side of the fence, so do what you do and let them do what they do so a long as at the end of the day your able to honestly look at yourself in the mirror and be happy.
Hello i love your style, i love your shop even i never bought anything, i also got 10 feeds
Id be glad to blog/receive freebie for you.
Even tho my shap is damn uggly and would pretty much fuck anything i wear but who cares !!
…
lol… mkay i was just kidding.
…
Well really you guys have no life and write fucking bibbles.
The problem isnt to comment or give an oppinion about a product, its more the way you write it, if you going to speak for a community you might wanna avoid some words or expression that could be hurtfull.
So the responsability is not really on the blogger hands but more on the owner of the blog who should be abble to moderate the crap that some people spit over products.
You can joke and be a smart ass but never cross the line.
Please you should all grow up or get a nice cock in your ass you have all way to much times.
The girls never ask for freebies, so I don’t really understand what you are getting at here…
Everyone has equal opportunity to state their mind around here, I can’t help if that offends people. I refuse to put a cork in peoples mouths and make them dance for me, I have a conscience and morals, and if you did too, you’d appreciate the honesty rather then come and make ridiculous cock in the ass comments, not even under your real name.
“You can joke and be a smart ass but never cross the line.”
Actually, I think that’s a big myth on the net. There will always be someone who’s offended, when if they are offended that they don’t find anything offensive.
… like I’m offended now by my crap choice of wrong words: “EVEN if they are…”
BOY you guys know how to put on a show. I am amused every time I come here.
Errr the Vietnam war was a senseless, unjust mistake and America was fighting on the wrong side. It’s kind of weird to see it incorporated into some jingoistic tear-jerker nonsense. What was THAT paragraph even about?
Are you stupid in the head?
“Now, I’m not myself trying to attest to whether war is right or wrong, whether we should have been in Vietnam or not… but I’m trying to point out that when you have idiots making death threats or picketing things because they think they are “right”… it usually pans out that they are just causing a lot of grief. That their ideas of what is “right, are usually a bunch of bullshit. It’s usually hiding a much bigger issue”
I have a small store. I am not super known, but i do have a small amount of ppl who regular my stores and items. Now i was COMPLETELY unknown to SL, until i got mentioned on The rumor for a weekend event i did. Since then i’ve been on the posts for the event i take part in. I’ve had the bloggers Like AND Dislike my items, i’ve NEVER taken it to heart. Actually i am a noob in so many ways, i don’t KNOW everything, so i make it a point to follow up with customers, asking how they liked an item, i read the blogs to see what ppl think. The rumor a few times didn’t like an item i made, and i sat back and took in what was said and thought about it. Well if they didn’t like it, maybe other’s didn’t as well, i asked “how can i fix this for future reference” And i decided to do more things that I wanted to do, and NOT what everyone else thought was cool and was falling in line to do. I was doing boring poses, normal “everyone has them” stuff. Because i thought that’s what ppl wanted. Finally because of a blogger at The Rumor, i decided screw that…im doing whatever the hell i think is cool, it’s my damn store. Now i’ve been stepped on, bullied and gripped at by other store owners in SL for random things, from not wanting to join an event because i didn’t agree with the way ppl treated other’s, to how my prices are ridiculously low and being told im “pricing them to cheat other creators”. I didn’t understand this at all, it’s MY store, who cares what you think. The point is, we all get bullied, we all get shit thrown at us, IRL and ISL. Ppl DO in fact think they are better than you because they have the “SLebrity Syndrome”. I usually feel less than, when it comes to other creators, because they seem to be “untouchable” i fawn over how awesomely they create things, just as a non creator would. I LOVE falling in love with a store over and over. But as soon as i get a whiff of stinky attitudes and “My poop doesn’t stink” personalities, i never go back. I don’t care how creative you are, your attitude and the way you treat me as a customer is what sells it. I don’t know if what i say pertains to what’s happened here at The Rumor. But i just wanted to say I don’t always agree with what is said by some bloggers about some items, but if i liked them, i buy it! I don’t care, that’s their opinion, i have my own. I have had pinching words said about my items, but i learned from it, or just ignored it and moved on. I never get mad or upset, because you know what? I’m happy with my hard work, i feel proud. If someone else doesn’t see that, it’s fine, don’t buy it. Thank you to the Rumor bloggers for putting yourselves out there, and getting lynched when you’ve said something truly from your heart, that upset someone with a chip on their shoulder.
I’m not a fan girl of anyone, i’m simply a fan of creativity and honest business
every single person writing, commenting, reading or mentioning this, including moiself, suck. GIT A LYFE!!!!!! and btw stop posting gifs you fucking tumblr faggots
It’s incredible the irony of responses like this…
I make a level headed statement about the condition of the designer community in sl. And the response from the people it’s pointed at, “git a lyfe faggots.”
No one comes here with their name and makes a level headed rebuttal.
If you guys think we don’t get who is behind the ridiculous statements like this…. you are bigger idiots than I thought.
Breathing. You forgot breathing.
lols
I love the blog and its honesty but when i read this “The names of these items make me want to vomit and then punch a baby. Clucker. Clucker. Clucker. Pouffe. Pouffe. WTF? EW. brb.” it gives me a negative feeling, it’s bitter and rude i think. at least put a “lol” or something, to make it sound like a joke. the designer of course will be offended cause she put the names and this post of you may make people not buy the products not because of the quality of them but by your opinion on the names which customers don’t need to know. so it sounds like you hate the designer or something. plus punching babies without a reason sounds more bitter and evil than “kill yourself” as an angry reply. this is just my opinion.
May I direct you to:
“Hyperbole ( /haɪˈpɜrbəliː/ hy-pur-bə-lee;[1] Greek: ὑπερβολή, ‘exaggeration’) is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally.”
Just so you have a better understanding.
Also, I don’t believe for one second my opinion on the name of an object is going to dissuade anyone from purchasing it. I don’t know why you would even begin to think that could happen in any universe. Really…
p.s. The reason for punching babies would be the cutesy names of the items… that would be my reason if I actually intended to punch any babies. Ergo, I had a reason.
Im always honest, i appreciate honesty and its true that people love you or hate you for it.
But there is a diffrence between beeing honest, having respect for people and ridiculously childish and rude behaveoir!
That u dislike a word Oke but you can overreact too. Quote: “vomit and then punch a baby”?!?!
Seriously? Because of a word? Only this already makes me wonder how old you are in RL? And you sound like u never heard of a dictionary?!
So then you get the ACTION – REACTION thing and some wannebe internet trolls trying to act all cool say horrible stuff.
The behaveoir of Constance isnt oke at all but saying stuff as she must die or anything no.
That isnt oke too!
Here something Constance wrote too and i quote it:
“I personally think the thought of punching a baby is hilarious because I know *I* would never, ever do it. I also laugh at racism. I guess I’m a terrible human being. I will not change though no matter how nicely anyone asks.
If you do not like what people say on this blog, then do not read it.”
hilarious! HAHAHA! no seriously not really…
There is obviously something wrong with you.
But thats oke everybody thier thing i guess
But YOU work for this website why saying stuff like if you do not like what people say on this blog then do not read it?
Wow u promote this website pretty good!
Thats not profeccional at all! Maybe it didnt come in mind but maybe people do like the posts of others but not ur posts and behaveiour?
Another thing i wanted to react on is Pennelope you wrote this:
At first I thought maybe the masses are right, maybe I should throw Constance under the bus and make a public spectacle so everyone will think I’m doing the right thing and making The Rumor a better place. But the fact of the matter is… I’ve known Constance for a lot of years, and even though we hardly agree on anything we’ve managed to stay friends.
Oke so you know Constance for years and you both always work things out. Thats great for the both of you! But what does it have to do with the business your running? I give u an exsample
I have a shop and my best friend works for me but shes lazy as *!&$*&!$ and she makes a mess in my shop and doesnt clean it up and after a while people doesnt wanne shop at my store anymore because of her.
And the people that point out to her that its a mess because they want the shop to run great she tells those people well if u dont like the mess i make you should shop somewhere else!
then what is it going to be?
Her searching a new job or me not having an income anymore and my store having a bad name?
I loved The Rumor for blogging all the events showing pictures so you didnt have to go thru all the lag and u knew by the picture if it was worth for u to go there or not.
And the honesty and facts what was wrong with an item so you didnt waste your lindens on something.
Thats what brings me here and not the rudeness and childish behaveoir.
and so like Constance said this is how she is, shes not changing, shes not sorry,for everybody that doesnt like it shouldnt read this blog and she’s obviously staying part of The Rumor, so i take the advise Constance gave us.
And decided to remove my account and not fallow/reading this Blog any longer.
well you seem to have missed this part:
“People generally find her cute and funny… and she works her ass off to help at The Rumor. I absolutely love her sense of humor and find her style to be trend setting. People are constantly commenting how her avi is so cute and where she got what at… I don’t even get that! Lols. But, even more I think she is the kind of person that would stick her neck out for anyone” (you being one of those people that has commented how cute her avi is…)
Her comment was obviously a joke, and it was about an inanimate object… she obviously didn’t even know Isla. So trying to tack on a theory that it was personal or even appeared personal is only because you’re making ridiculous assumptions.
I think you missed the entire point of the post. It’s not to point at anyone and say gah they’re behaving like idiots and we don’t… the point is that everyone has been overreacting and ridiculous. I dare everyone to laugh at themselves and find a middle ground somewhere. Yes this happened to us, and hell we’ve done shit to deserve public floggings… but look at the rest of the 100+ comments where people who have no affiliation with The Rumor, and are reputable honest people… they’re saying the same damn thing. I can’t tell you how many messages I’ve received in world telling me thank you for this post, and they have dealt with the same bullshit.
Wake up and open your eyes.
No i havent missed anything i just totally disagree i give a other exsample
here you see a other blog post of her:
http://therumor.biz/2011/10/23/fashionably-late-5/10-vuitton/
and i quote: “Wow, the vendor set up for this is really ugly. Plywood up all over this bitch. The clothes are a joke as well.”
You got to be kidding me?!?!?! its disrespectfull!
Sorry Pennelope you tell me to wake up and open my eyes but i think you should wake up and open your eyes
Like i just quoted there is nothing funny about it its not cool calling somebody randomly bitch or what so ever.
Its hurtfull its disrespectfull its behaveoir thats not oke! and another thing so i thought her avie looked cute what does this have to do with her behaveoir? nothing!
Wake up. People say things that aren’t nice. What’s the problem? There is nothing you can do about it. Why waste your time and energy?
She didn’t call “someone” a bitch, she called “something” a bitch… huge difference there.
Again, missing the point so I’ll repeat:
“Yes this happened to us, and hell we’ve done shit to deserve public floggings… but look at the rest of the 100+ comments where people who have no affiliation with The Rumor, and are reputable honest people… they’re saying the same damn thing. I can’t tell you how many messages I’ve received in world telling me thank you for this post, and they have dealt with the same bullshit.”
Wrapped up in positive words, just for you:
“The best aspect of that ad are the boots by Surf Co. and the hair by LeLutka.”
Better?
Yes, I was going to literally vomit and literally punch a baby over a word. That’s normal, right?
“Hyperbole ( /haɪˈpɜrbəliː/ hy-pur-bə-lee;[1] Greek: ὑπερβολή, ‘exaggeration’) is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally.”
I feel sorry for you that your world is so black and white. Maybe someday you’ll wake up and see that you don’t have to stop reading just because you don’t like one blogger.
Until then, best wishes.
Off the point of the OT but
“And you sound like u never heard of a dictionary?!”
Sounds like “u” need a dictionary for your spelling.
This is most likely repetition to what has already been said in comments. I have a small store in SL and I do keep to myself. Mostly because I’m to old to deal with child like drama llama school behavior. I have WAY more drama in RL than I like. My kudos go out to The Rumor for being honest and to the point. I appreciate reading the *other side of the story* and it leaves me thinking where I want to spend my L from now on.
No one is EVER going to agree about anything 100%. Everyone should be entitled to free speech and if you don’t like what is being said, quit reading and move on.
And just remember kiddies, that normal is BORING!
I just want to throw this out there. I’m not choosing sides in the matter, and honestly didn’t spend half my day reading over all of this, but some things that did jump out to me about “honesty” in blogging.
Some of us simply choose to blog things we enjoy, and solely stick to that. I commend people who can be critical in a respectful manner, but just because a blogger like myself only chooses to showcase positivity and things they enjoy doesn’t necessarily mean they are being dishonest. I am always honest in my blog posts. Always. I just choose to blog what I personally feel is worth blogging about, instead of pointing out criticisms. It’s not in my nature to do so. It doesn’t make another person’s blog anymore “real” than mine, and it certainly doesn’t mean my blog (or anyone who blogs in a similar nature) is fake.
Just my two cents. Carry on angry mobs!
Harlow..well said, I had been thinking along the same lines. I blog a little and mostly blog what I like. So naturally…I will say why I like the items Im showing..Im not ass kissing, or tied into a designer..I just happen to show what I enjoy…Im honest about the items that catch my eye and make me want to keep them…simple really.
I am all about simplicity and enjoying SL. I don’t understand how some things spin so wildly out of control and turn into such a hate fest. I think people often times forget SL is for fun. Isn’t it the biggest reason most of us joined in the first place?
I like your comment the most. It’s well grounded, quick, and to the point. I totally feel the same way.
If you stop the Rumor blog because of something like this, you’ll just let the others win. We don’t want that, do we?
The reason WHY I utilize your blog is because I get an honest opinion & the giggles over some of the comments. I think everyone is entitled to their opinion & I think everyone is also entitled to not give a flying “cluck” about someone’s opinion. Hehes keep on keeping on, this blog is great! And I feel for you about your dad. That’s a lot to handle hugs.
The snarky comments are part of what I love about the rumor. The thing I like most is how fast events are covered and how many events are covered. I know that putting out each post is a lot of work and effort. If you ever clearly say that you like or dislike something there will always be people who feel the opposite. It’s just a lot of fun to read about a product, sometimes after I buy something I go back to leave a review comment or just read what others are saying.
About the Sea Hole/Seraphim thing. It’s pretty funny to me because I had already been to the Seraphim freebies skybox when it first went up and grabbed everything. I thought it was just some new shopping center like truth district, I had no idea it was a blog in the style of therumor.
That the owner of the Sea Hole would kick out Sauce from collab88 makes me sad. I love the sea hole’s clothing and builds. Collab88 is a great event and the owner always seemed nice and quite generous with gifts. She has a freebie fullperm gatcha for anyone to take. All this to say, I hope that we aren’t seeing everything. For her to act this way, maybe something very hard is going on in her life? Or maybe her friend came to her upset and crying and all she could see was the pain her friend was in and just acted quickly. Maybe she feels that certain people at therumor have always hated her and if that is the case nothing can really be done about that. I doubt she will ever try to explain herself though and that does color my opinion of her. I’m not going to boycott her store or tell my friends not to shop in it, but it’s fun to support those who we like in SL. If her only public response to this is “read seraphim, therumor is mean” then I’m much less interested in buying from her shop. One shopper won’t make a dent in her sales, I’m sure very few of her shoppers even read blogs at all. So I’m not trying to say she will go out of business just saying how I feel about it.
I’m really sorry this happened to you guys. Just keep going and look at all your visitor statistics and know that you are doing it right. We readers love the pics, surls, the snark and the love you give to products. You deserve the best.
Ladies there is constructive criticism on SL blogs, look at juicy bomb, she gives her opinion without having to use the words “cunt” “bitch” all over the items she is reviewing. Do you see designers getting all bent out of shape because when she critique an item? No, because she isn’t giving pathetic commentary like this blog does. You guys just snap pictures, you don’t even receive review copies or purchase the items and yet you still resort to 4th grade like reviews “THIS LOOKS LIKE SHIT”. I really don’t understand how this blog became popular just by going into stores and taking snapshots. And the people who like the snarky comments that come along with this, sad. Penn, no wonder why the sims you have are doing poorly.
Wowow, hi welcome to reality. Gogo has been repeatedly harassed for her opinions, don’t be naive.
The sim is doing better than ever friend, even when 20k was stolen from them.
If you don’t get why this blog is popular, why are you here?
Hehe yes, once Gogo simply said she felt a shoe HUD was hard for her to match her skin with. She even said the shoes looked amazing. And the shop owner and a huge fit about it, acting as if she was attacked and totally unable to accept that someone might prefer other HUDs.
I didn’t read the comments cause I’m sure there’s a whole lot of ‘get a life’, ‘being honest makes you a meanie’ and ‘omg how dare you be honest in the first place’ high school bullshit.
The only thing I needed to know was the information contained in that little plurk … the usual Justice League United of SL wannabe famous designers and drama lamas – insert dramatic eyeroll here – calling people ‘plebs’ and ‘bourgeois’ (anyone else still laughing about the lack of spelling skills when making insults?). One thing I know is that poor pleb me is not going to spend any more money there.
And besides all that, what’s wrong about snarky bitches? I think they’re kinda hot. :p
Serious note: I check this blog daily cause it saves me the trouble of teleporting to places and waiting for vendors to rezz just to find out I don’t like the stuff anyways. And I mostly nod silently when I read those comments cause they are true and I’d find much harsher words for some of the crap featured at some events.
can we make babies?
beautiful bitchy babies…
The irony is that certain plurkers from that quote pride themselves for being snarky bitches… ahem.
No, but you can keep blogging and I’ll admire your work from afar.
Edit: It’s nothing personal, I’m just scared Constance might want to punch them.
ROFL!
that was supposed to be the added bonus
I love you so much.
However, I only punch babies. Pennelope eats them.
Do I like the “pouffe” post? Not really.
Did I think the writer deserved that treatment and the subsequent overall drama? HELL NO.
Don’t people realize they have the power to simply walk away from things they dislike instead of jumping and creating a huge fuss? Apparently, not.
Other than that, this blog’s pretty okay. It does what it’s supposed to do and I’m happy with it. I may not necessarily agree with everythings posted, but my super power of pressing the “back” button and walking away has left me with some measure of peace of mind in the last 2-3 years (in and out of SL).
As a long time designer myself, I’ve learned the hard way that keeping away from people was my only way to keep my sanity (because spending hours in an online game getting butt-hurt because I disagreed with someone and getting all stressed when we’re both acting like ten year olds is awesome for my mental health). Sure it HURT my sales A LOT, but I like my peace of mind. I’m usually alone now, making things and trying to scrape by SL. But it’s this sort of thing that’s taken a toll on inspiration and or socializing.
But anyway, good luck and keep on trucking! And should you encounter more douchebags life saw fit to throw at you, remember George Takei and play his “Oh My” sound bite and imagine saying that to your detractor’s faces.
This poster of him might help: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpfvek68FW1qks9jeo1_400.png
I’ve been out of town to a concert so I had no idea that again all this stuff is going on. I guess I’m still much too small potatoes to worry about this kind of stuff and to be honest, I’m just as glad to be that way if this is what happens when you are a “bigger” name. The whole thing reminds me of grade school bullying.
I don’t know how old any of the people involved are but calling someone else a plebe or whatnot is no different than calling them a retard in the school yard. It’s stupid, demeaning, actually not applicable and really reflects badly on “yo mama”. There’s nothing plebeian about having an opinion, yo. It’s far more plebeian not to have an opinion or to merely puppet someone else’s opinion. (The Webster’s definition of plebeian is – 2
: one of the common people – and I can’t think of much that is more common than to call someone a cunt or to use other vulgar language to speak of them – in both senses of the word common)
I really wish before people type up some of the things that they type, that they would consider how they would feel if their mother knew they were talking about someone else that way. The anonymity of the internet really does give some folks delusions of grandeur.
I have been a blogger before and there seemed to be this consistent sl cultural assumption that a blogger HAD to say something nice about whatever he or she was blogging.
When I was blogging, the idea of review copies or groups for bloggers to get review copies wasn’t even invented or common yet and I thought it was crazy for a “designer” to expect me to spend my own money on an item and then not report any problems I had when I wore it. Bzuh? I wasn’t getting paid by anyone nor had I asked to get paid, so you bet I am going to report what I truly thought. I eventually stopped blogging over the drama and little baby “designer” feelings and all of their little fan girl groupies etc.
You “designers” should look up the word review. A review is not a post of the items with little or no verbiage and/or a post which simply gushes about said item. A review is a critical assessment of the item or experience (as in a theatrical review) stating pros and cons. Websters defines the word review as – 6
a : a critical evaluation. -. Simple gushing or pictorials are hardly critical evaluations folks.
Furthermore, I shop on my alt(s) quite a lot and I have been to these sales with other shoppers. Most of the comments which are made on The Rumor are far more kind than those made in the shop. So I think some of these store owners should spend some time on an alt lurking in their own stores to see what people actually say.
Also, I’ll say what I’ve been saying for a long time. It’s a simple economical fact. When times are not so good for the economy, real life or otherwise, you have to LOWER prices not raise them. Some “designers” concept of fair pricing is beyond insane which is why we now have all these sale events, because people don’t want to pay 200l (or 500l) for a pair of jeans no matter who “designed” them or how fancy schmancy the sculpts or mesh or whatever is. In sl where there’s no finite supply, one can sell MORE of the same item at a lower price and end up making more money.
It’s not real life where you have to buy the cotton and the dye and pay people to sew them so you can only afford to make 50 pairs so if you’re gonna make your costs you have to charge 85 bucks a pair. You have an infinite number of pairs in sl, people, so you an afford to charge less for them in SL. Try it.
*gets off soapbox and makes room for next person*
Try http://vifinition.com video dictionary. So much fun defining and vifining words.
Personally, I have mostly stopped reading this blog even though I’m one of the shoppers that you say are your target audience because of all the negativism over stupid things like hating names. If you want to warn me about bad textures, poses that don’t work, shoulders that don’t match well, hair with bald bits and no demo, that is great and legitimate.
However things like names, personal sense of style are way too often the object of ridicule and I don’t see the point in it. While I agree with most of your bloggers that the showing of ass crack and too much boobage is a bad thing, a lot of things I see and say to myself “Wow..no one over 12 would like that” your reviewers rave over and say “must have”. It got so bad that if your reviews liked something I thought I liked in the photo, I went back and checked to see if I made a mistake. I’m mature enough however to know that I probably have a couple of decades on your reviewers so I look at fashion from a different eye, and what looks juvenile to me, won’t to someone in their early 20′s. It’s just a different stage of life, different fashion environment growing up. I wouldn’t ever trash those items just because I don’t like the style, because I know a lot of people would. I see people every day in things I would never buy. So someone has to like them.
When you trash things, for no legitimate reason (bad construction, bugs etc) you are not only hurting the designer, your insulting the people who have the same taste as the designer. People who are your readers. People who have babies or grandchildren or maybe have been trying hard for a decade to try and have that baby that so casually is talked about getting punched out.
Sometimes it pays to think past then end of your nose and consider the person on the other side of the screen. The real life person who will be reading this.
Wish you guys all the best of continued luck with your blog, however you decide to continue writing. In the end it’s your blog and you will do it your way. We can come or not.
I certainly do try to think beyond the end of my nose, and moderate comments. I’ve had girls change their comments prior because I thought they were over the line. Like I said before, I was gone all day, and I really didn’t think someone would take “punching a baby” literally. It’s such an absurd thought… People were offended this past friday because Constance went on a rant about the color aubgergine… should I have stopped that too? (24 comments over that mess, go take a look) Was ostracizing the color purple out of line?
It is easy to see the line in your own head and not cross it… but where do you set it for others?
Although I am pretty sure Constance has learned a lesson from all of this (as grown ups do, and they move forward) and won’t be threatening babies anymore nor calling anyone a cunt, as she already apologized for.
Here’s the thing, like I said, I hire people who have opinions because they don’t have ties. Sometimes those people come off as awkward and blunt and people don’t like it. So they criticize and maul them to a certain degree because they don’t like what was said. I don’t feel like it’s anyones right to attack people personally… ever.
I said what I said to state the facts, not to earn sympathy. I feel like everyone should have a right to decide for themselves. I don’t have anything to hide, I put myself out there as an open book. Honestly, I thought each of the people in the article that I spoke directly about (not the plurk) were terrific fabulous people at one point, and there was a small inkling of hope inside of me that by posting this, they would see the 150+ comments about people getting treated the same way and realize the entire thing is stupid. I’m not expecting them to apologize (although other designers that have had ill words with me in the past have, yay maturity) or admit their faults any time soon, because I probably wouldn’t either after getting wrapped up so deep… but I expect level headed people, that were once level headed to make their way back to the surface and approach me to find middle ground.
Well, I read all of it too. It took me back to earlier SL days when I had seen/experienced situations like this, people just like these, drama just like it. (Insert Thank you for reminding me why I exited all that bullshit)
I left SL for a year or so over this kind of crap. People that have nothing… and I mean NOTHING better to do than spin drama for the sole purpose of making themselves feel large and important. HI-LAR-IOUS. They like the chaos and constant drama bc it keeps them from having to face themselves. When things are quiet, truly settled down, we hear what’s in our own head. And a LARGE portion of the SL population are in SL to avoid exactly that. So, the spin drama and revert to high school behavior. They finally get to be the popular girl or the guy all the girls want.
SL can get away from you, it can turn a direction you don’t realize till you are there. You can get involved in situations that in RL, you wouldn’t waste a second on. I always laugh when I see people say SL is SL and RL is RL. Um… yes, keep telling yourselves that. We all bring our RL into SL. We may chose to hide the details of our RL, but you bring who you are wherever you are whether you like it or not. And clearly, there are A LOT of people that do not like who they are and are threatened by people that do like themselves.
I am a designer in here. A successful designer actually. I don’t speak to a single other creator/designer. Ever. Nor will I. I learned that lesson years ago. I work with my bf in RL in here. We hang together in SL and work and sometimes explore. That’s it. No one else. Been down the road of backstabbing and lies and alts and boys who are actually girls, girls who are actually priest in RL (true story). I just decided that it’s my SL. I will make it what I need and want. And I don’t really give a fuck who likes it or thinks about it or talks about it. I don’t tell anyone else how to run their SL so I am not listening to anyone else.
I used to follow a lot of blogs. About a year ago, I discovered the Rumor. Deleted all my other blog bookmarks and only follow this one. Why? Because pouffe IS a fucked up word, for one thing (as well as the word puce. Seriously, sounds like it should ooze something) But, mostly bc of the totally honesty. I like honesty personally, but then Im not hiding behind a cartoon telling people they should kill themselves. The incredible hypocrisy that was all handled with, was mind bending. Not to mention the total LACK of professionalism (funny they didn’t notice that about themselves in all of that). I guess they didn’t know they weren’t legally required to read a blog from someone just giving her OPINION. I thought maybe you had smuggled in illegal arms at first, I mean seriously, you didn’t kiss someone’s ass and had your own opinion. WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!?! Elitist cartoons can be so cranky when confronted with free will.
Anywhoo. I never comment on blogs. Anywhere. For any reason. But had to say something here bc it reminded me of past SL experiences and how grateful I am that I distanced myself from them. And to say that I love your blog. I wont follow any other blog. Precisely for the reason you were vilified over (I have been DYING to use “vilified” in a sentence.
My standard mantra about SL and well, RL as well, is “I AM NOT PART OF YOUR REGRESSION THERAPY. MOVE ALONG”.
Haters are … well, hateful. How they reacted and what they did following up, is scream for some kind of mental assistance. But, then again, I feel that way about Walmart.
Don’t change a thing about your blog. It rocks. So do you. I appreciate you and your words and your honesty, even if I don’t always agree with your assessments. You know, like a grown up can do.
I contemplated leaving second life after the whole seraphim fiasco. If it weren’t for a very good friend convincing me otherwise, I definitely would have.
There are so many designers out there just like you, and it’s terrible when people with thoughts of their own, wild creativity and intelligence worth getting to know are continually squashed and kicked. It’s minds like yours that should be given the credit and put on the forefront. Not the loud twats that throw the biggest hissy fits.
It’s a sad world where mediocrity and immaturity are credited more than creativity and hard work.
<3 your voice, you should use it more.
… I just keep watching that breaking bad video over and over.
Ty for your support
It’s why I follow your blog. People have trouble sometimes really seeing what someone is saying. Text has no emote, so we fill that in, assign intent. Not always correctly.I agree it shouldn’t be that way. We should be able to encourage and bounce ideas off each other etc. Sadly it isn’t mostly. I have learned to be selective in SL. Like I am in RL. It means I have a massively smaller friends list, and a hell of a lot more smiling and laughter though. You have a good support system. A lot of quiet watchers like me, sitting back and not saying something till they have something worth saying.
You are worth saying something to and for,is all.
OH yeah! Um… I assumed you didn’t actually want to hit a baby in the “punching a baby” comment. But, Im capable of not assuming everything is about me or my personal issues. I’m funny like that.
I’d like to make a point to post that The Rumor is amazingly honest, and that Pennelope personally helped me grow to my full potential as a designer. Pennelope and all of the bloggers at the rumor’s opinions are something to be taken in a good state of mind. Whether they are saying your object is a POS or they are saying it’s the most beautiful thing in the world… I value all of their opinions.
So mainly for all of the designers that are butthurt about comments made on the blog, please don’t be! I guarantee you they aren’t making a personal attack against you. They are either A) Making a joke, or B) Making a criticism (which you should probably take! any criticism is good to hear)
I don’t know, I’m just sayin’. I love and support The Rumor and all of their bloggers and I always will. As for all the other topics discussed in the post.. tbh, im too lazy to comment on them.
Love all of you, and keep up the good work. This was an amazing post, Penn. Needed to be done! A+
- Divine <3
p.s. if i have a shitload of grammar mistakes… don’t hate me, I just got done writing a 2 page english paper, and I don’t feel like proof-reading anymore!
This situation has been blown completely out of proportion.
The Rumor staff may think saying stupid hyperbolic crap is honesty, but a lot of what’s said on this blog is just tacky. You don’t have to post lovey-dovey comments about each item, but in the same vein you don’t have to type out every curt thought that comes to mind. If you don’t like something, the “it’s not my style” comment I’ve seen here before works just fine. Not commenting at all works too. If it’s poor quality, by all means let us know so we don’t waste our money. But to say that item names you don’t like or understand suck and make you want to vomit and punch a baby? That’s just poor taste. (No, I don’t think she would actually harm a baby. That’s not the point.) That comment wasn’t an honest critique of the quality of the item; it was an exaggerated and unnecessary reaction to the name of the item, which was ridiculous to start with.
Granted, there was absolutely NO need to blow the whole thing up like this, but Constance was wrong to start with. The Rumor staff saying “that’s just her way” is like pardoning a puppy that just urinated on the floor with “oh he doesn’t know any better.” You’re making excuses for poor behavior instead of changing that behavior.
The thing about humor is that everyone has a different idea of what constitutes humor. Trying to be funny in black-and-white where it’s difficult to convey emotion (like sarcasm) runs you the risk of offending people. How do you get around that? By being classy. ALWAYS. Stay on the high road and don’t sink to anyone’s level. The crassness I’ve seen here is beneath most of you.
I’m not here to beat anyone up. I do think both sides are wrong, and I’m shocked by the response of some of the folks involved in this fiasco. (Telling someone to kill themselves is wholly inexcusable.) Some of you really should be ashamed of yourselves. It’s obviously past time for you to take a step back and examine how you behave in your first and second lives. Think about how incredibly petty and uncivilized this minor minor thing is making you. Look in the mirror and ask yourselves, “is this really who I am? Is the way I’m acting reasonable? Are people seeing me the way I want to be seen?” You may be surprised by the answers.
I am not exactly sure who the uhm “head honchos” are out there, that create these imaginary “standards” for what my blog is supposed to be. People come here because they like it, they leave it because they don’t. End of story. Why am I supposed to adhere to your standards? We are REAL people, individuals with thoughts in our head, different sense of humors… etc. Why are we supposed to bend who we are and what we want to do, when obviously a majority of people agree here. It’s silly to step up to some standards that someone somewhere set up, just because we are supposed to….
Why exactly am I not allowed to run a blog where people can say what they think? Why can’t I run a blog where people are free to be themselves? Sure I don’t expect everyone to agree with each other here, but I don’t expect death threats, theft and pettiness in return.
I didn’t say you couldn’t write whatever you wanted. I see you’re still stuck on hyperbole by suggesting “head honchos” are giving you orders. I merely made a suggestion.
Those “imaginary standards” are called manners and tact. Forgive me for thinking you might make use of them instead of spewing cattiness and hiding behind a “this is who I am” excuse. I should know better than to expect too much. I’ll lower the bar and skip the commentary.
By all means, stay defiant in your indifference to or ignorance of manners. They’re such trivial things anyway!
Bless your heart.
This is the problem with social media: allowing the man/woman-on-the-street to get involved in a discussion about what is essentially journalistic opinion (or worse, someone with a stake in the items under review) will always lead to bunfights.
My PR advice is to make a final comment, close the thread and move on. therumor is a genuinely useful blog, and while some people may not like the style all the time, they will like looking at the pretty pictures.
By the way: I blame Simon Cowell for the brutality of criticism that seems the norm nowadays. It’s much more entertaining to hear a bit of a really fruity comment than just a 3 out of 10 rating.
Keep up the good work.
I’ll chime in as a reader as well as someone who’s been occasionally banned from stores for opening my big damn mouth about certain creations or events.
Whenever I read some type of commentary about anything, I associate the opinion as more of a reflection of the writer than the subject. For example, “plywood all up in this bitch” still makes me laugh my ass off, but I can’t for the life of me remember to whom it refers. To that point, I form my own opinions about creator content pretty fast – a jab or comment, no matter how hilarious or cringe-inducing, most likely isn’t going to influence my own opinions about a particular creation. (Gogo’s posts and a few others could be an exception to that statement because they approach creations from a technical and often balanced standpoint.) I think some creators need to calm down and give the readers some credit when they read blog posts that reference their work. One opinion isn’t going to cause a mass exodus to or from your stores.
I think Isla is one of SL’s more talented creators and I’m always grateful when she offers her stuff at great prices; however, when I saw the pouffe in question, I had no desire to sit on a pig’s face, no matter what it’s named or how Constance described it. Just because we’re not enamored with everything a creator puts out (let alone the name) doesn’t mean we don’t still respect and admire the creator. We’re intelligent like that.
This kind of situation actually fosters a culture of ass-kissing bloggers. When people start getting fearful that they’re going to get banned from a store, griefed and/or dogpiled for expressing an unpopular opinion, we’re going to end up with bland feeds full of sheep-bloggers. Actually, make that plebe-bourgeois-sheep-bloggers. (OUCH, YAWL! Seriously??)
To Cad: I thought the whole point of expressing journalistic opinion was to engage the man/woman-on-the-street in some manner. If not, I’ve spent almost two decades as a deluded journalist IRL. Oops.
“We’re going to end up with bland feeds full of sheep-bloggers.”
You mean the feed isn’t full of that already?
To Emerald: Yesss…but they dont get to come into the live TV studio and howl inanities at you or add their comments on the bottom of the newspaper in bold text using words of less than 2 syllables.
If you stand on a box on the street and shout something provocative, expect people to shout back.
I’d like to point out that some of the comments that some of the bloggers name are very TROLL-like. If you can’t handle trolls, GTFO and move on. Yes, punching babies isn’t exactly a appropriate troll remark, but it is what it is. Telling someone to go kill themselves over text is absolutely ridiculous and shows your lack of spine and your lack of character.
If you feed the trolls, more will come. Most people who hate on this blog or get asshurt over some of the outrageous comments are feeding the trolls. It’s funny how some people say they come to this blog to snag slurls or eyeball the pretty pictures yet they focus so much time picking apart every bit of commentary from the bloggers.
Everyone has heard of the Rumor. Everyone knows that the Rumor has a lot of positive comments, negative comments, and stupid comments. When you read The Rumor blog, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GETTING YOURSELF INTO. So why in the fuck would you be so shocked to read some of the shit on this blog?
I’d also like to point out that even though this is a blog, it’s a BUSINESS. What you say and do affects other people’s businesses. I know I have been out of the loop due to RL, but this is horrible for some of the stores. However, I’m very proud of Pen for stepping up and calling out the elitists. Considering my best friend is the owner of Posh, I’ve seen plenty of elitist bullshit that goes on here in SL and it’s sickening. Enough is enough.
In closing, we’re all adults so act your damn age and DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS. The more you feed, the more bullshit that comes from it. Pen, I’m proud of you because even though I don’t agree with what Constance said.. telling someone to kill themselves is 100x worse.. especially coming from spineless elitist pricks.
This is a message from Ashley, the owner of [Slutcookie] and I am proud to be a Rumorite.
I’m a tad late at reading this as I’ve been busy in rl, and normally I wouldn’t involve myself but I feel I should add my two cents so to speak..
I am a designer and an event organizer and I would NEVER kick someone out of my event due to some comment they made on a blog. It’s just immature and proves that some people take second life as a popularity contest and to go as far as to bribe your customers into reading a blog and pretty much underminding them into boycotting another blog even though no name was said, it was obvious.
Also, I would NEVER treat my customers with such disrespect, some of you designers should really be ashamed of yourself. Just because people buy your (probably terribly made) virtual items does NOT give you a right to think you are above them in any way. Your customers are what make your store possible, remember that.. And while you are being “elite” and slandering your customers, I will be in my skybox, staying away from childish drama, making items and oh, making money and making my customers happy.. Isn’t that the whole point of designing in sl? Because it seems anymore, most designers just do it for the attention and elitist stamp of approval.
I’m hungry.
*feeds you cookies*
*supplies the milk*
better late than never… <3
Again, I was linked because something of mine is here. I don’t know why I do this to myself, but maybe it’s because I hope it will change.
Constance, you aren’t a nice person when you do that kind of stuff. The viciousness for no real reason but to be ‘clever’. No one is expecting you to be nice, but when people push back, you should expect it. It was your own response that convinced me that I shouldn’t support this blog. I was pointed here by a friend who was trying to convince me my opinion about the “mean girls” was ill-conceived. I remain unconvinced but not about every one who blogs here, or even Pennelope. It’s really just ‘mean girl’
And that’s what you are called. “The Mean Girls”. Not everyone who blogs here is mean. Mainly it’s just Constance. I haven’t found fault really with criticism, but here I am a couple months later trying to see if it’s any different. I thought this post would be different. It’s not. The complaints that you have against those others standing up for their friends over perceived bullying, that is exactly what this is. Standing up for Constance over perceived bullying.
Thank you, Constance, for not pointing out that my makeup would look better on a dead hooker, or like a baby applied it with chopped off hands… or that my store looks like something that someone chewed up and vomited out. Because that’s really all I expect from you…and when you don’t do it, I am surprised.
And that’s why I always feel weird when I have something at the Black Market, when Rhed has always been so kind me, or why I hesitate to put things in hunts for even a moment. I feel like a hypocrite because I feel I am giving traffic and money to The Whisper. So, in order to balance that, I advertise on Seraphim. It’s not Rhed, or Penn, or anyone else. It’s just Constance. She harms people with her ‘humor’. Being toxic because you can, isn’t the best way to treat the people who call you a friend. Because they WILL stand up for you. And that’s all on you. *awaits the flaming*
1st Did you even read the post before you responded here? This post is months old and Constance’s indiscretions are even older.
(“The better part of valour indiscretion.” – Samuel Butler)
2nd I’m not sure what The Whisper or Rhed’s event has to do with this blog at all. I think it’s ridiculous to hold such a grudge against one person with opinions, such as to hold it against an entire sim, myself and the rest of the bloggers here who had nothing to do with this.
3rd Do you understand Constance was told to go kill herself over a simple ottoman/baby comment?
4th Your response is to support a blog that not only stole lots of money from innocent designers such as yourself, but is guilty of breaking other laws. People can brush it off as simply politics… but when you work with someone only to steal their ideas and clientele, that’s illegal. (it’s called trade secrets if you’re unfamiliar)
5th Can we not grow up and move on? Constance has, I have, the other bloggers here have… we’ve focused on a much more positive route by highlighting designers we enjoy or great deals and bargains we find every day. You want to pretend like you’re doing some sort of justice here, but you’re not.
6th We believe in what we do. We watch people get bullied and attacked by these people you support and think are “righteous” all while you hand them over your hard earned money. I’m sad for you, I’m sad you don’t understand why a voice is necessary even if it’s gruff and unpolished. An honest voice with motivation is the only way to go in my opinion. I’m okay with criticism, disagreement and doubt and I accept it with open arms… can you say that about the people you are dishing out your linden to? If you simply think all of this is about Constance punching babies or having a foul mouth, or her opinions… I’m going to have a good slam against my headboard tonight for you and hope that you come to your senses and actually talk to one of us in depth about it all.