AvaTard Launches! Features Hard-Hitting Commentary from Catherine Linden
by Urizenus Sklar on 22/12/06 at 12:00 pm
Readers shocked to learn SL has 2 Million Residents. Newbie places box on head!
I have to admit that this reporter was cynical when he first heard of the launch of a new tabloid within Second Life, this one to be called “AvaTard.” But boy was I wrong! If there was any doubt about what a juggernaut AvaTard will be in the SL mediascape, just look at the first issue. It features some hard-hitting commentary from infamous Linden Lab critiic Catherine Linden, a fully clothed “Avatard of the Week” — an obvious improvement on the Herald Post Six Grrrls (clothing! why didn’t we think of that!) — and thankfully nothing on griefing or gambling or ageplay or furries. but a fascinating interview with a newbie, and get this! She. Put. a. box. on. her. head. Shock!!!!
When I heard that none of the AvaTard participants had been in world for more than a couple months, I thought “this won’t work”. But now, zowie, can you believe how deep into Second Life they have gone? I should also point out that the graphic design is really something. Sort of like The Metaverse Messenger, but with cheaper paper and ink. And maybe without the graphic design background. Oh well, at least it looks better than the Herald. Something has to!
Prokofy Neva
Dec 22nd, 2006
You know, Uri, I sat for an hour last night trying to think of a name to spoof the Ava-star. I drew a blank. You have a winner! Good one!
I was faintly creeped out by those cartoonish graphics that rendered the entire thing so…uniform and polished. I mean, way more than even the Post looks in NYC in RL. Don’t you like your tabloids to look a little gritty, with photos of aspiring actresses and headlines like YOUNG GIRL SLAIN with black tape censor bars over her parts? This looked like something that would come in my Happy Meal complete with crayons to colour it in.
I did notice that the German social-democratic commentary Pham Neutra was hired on as the economist columnist. I always disagree with him strenuously, perhaps because I believe in capitalism and liberal democracy. OH, well, at least there will be that intelligent patch there in a sea of very bland copy.
While they seem to be imitiating Metaverse Messenger and not the Herald (which is inimitable anyway), M2 doesn’t have to fear, because M2 will still have a better network of people and stories being plugged into the FIC as they are. Ava-tard tried to run one lame Aimee story below the fold, Aimee herself must be harumphing.
urizenus
Dec 22nd, 2006
I wish I could take credit, but it came from Tenshi Vielle here:
http://www.wickedgoodonline.com/wickedblog/?p=148
Artemis Fate
Dec 22nd, 2006
I thought the newbie with the box on their head joke was done with now that they changed the default attachment point to the hand.
Prokofy Neva
Dec 22nd, 2006
I am so glad to hear you say that, Artemis. Yes, they have. But boxes still occasionally get on the head.
And there are fierce forum freaks still belabouring this here:
http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/is_second_life_sustainable/
//METAVER.SE
Dec 22nd, 2006
Aimee Weber and The AvaStar: Corporate Love
Springers The AvaStar is online [the first issue is free: PDF] and has its own presence at The AvaStar Island as well: I ran into Aimee Weber and asked several questions regarding the new sim and the new tabloid in particular:
//M: How long d…
marilyn murphy
Dec 22nd, 2006
hey, uri. we can do the clothes thing.
would i get a raise?
Pierre
Dec 22nd, 2006
//M: What do you think of another tabloid for SL?
Aimee Weber: Another? I guess there is the SL Herald, but that’s a blog, as I understand it. Issue #1 of the AvaStar is a really fun read. I think people are going to love it.
//M: What about The Metaverse Messenger?
Aimee Weber: That’s not really a tabloid, more of a regular newspaper. I think the AvaStar is filling a niche that hasn’t existed in SL before. People are going to love it.
//M: The SLH is controversial, yes, but undermining?
Aimee Weber: Pretty much, yeah. They don’t really have anything good to say about SL. They celebrate griefers. If there is any story about SL numbers, or anything like that, SL Herald is always there to provide a negative take on it.
http://metaver.se/2006/12/22/aimee-weber-and-the-avastar-corporate-love/
SunShine Kukulcan
Dec 22nd, 2006
Page 27 has a misspelled word (photogrpahy) and when it was pointed out…I was promptly ignored…so much for polite correctness. Bet CC Chapman isnt too thrilled either….
SunShine
SunShine Kukulcan
Dec 22nd, 2006
Now this is really rich! On page 29, under Do’s and Don’ts: Creating a Perfect Profile, this: Spell-Check, Enough said.
Sweet irony indeed!!
Sunshine
Artemis Fate
Dec 22nd, 2006
“They don’t really have anything good to say about SL. They celebrate griefers. If there is any story about SL numbers, or anything like that, SL Herald is always there to provide a negative take on it.”
I think i’d agree with that, seems like most of the posts, probably largely in due to Prokofy, are very negative outtakes on LL and Second Life, Correct me if I’m wrong: I kind of rarely see anything that says anything positive.
urizenus
Dec 22nd, 2006
Art, we count on *you* to provide the positive comments that will balance everything out.
But seriously Art, look at the posts that are up right now. I count the following as very positive: the interview with Dimentox, the story on Kage Seraph, the landshark story (which is really a cute story about a fun hack), the story on the Slatenight party, the Gideon Television story (really a story about Abbots Aviation), the Raph Koster story, the Post 6 Grrl, and the SL Swat story (just a story about a fun PR group). I mean how much fun and happiness can you take?
The problem is that the rest of the SL media are so poor and so unable to report critically that when we do take a critical stance here it gets amplified 100X. If everyone were doing their job the Herald would look pretty fanboyish.
Prokofy Neva
Dec 22nd, 2006
also the IBM build story is positive — there are plenty of positive stories.
As for celebrating griefing, I *never* celebrate griefing. Other Herald reporters report on it and sometimes take more of a bemused or noir attitude toward it than I would, but they report on it — like the story of this hapless rentals agent in Avatard isn’t negative? And isn’t the typical “let’s eat the rich and hate on the land barons” story that the FIC is famous for?
Ugh to Aimee’s quote. SHE is the one celebrating griefers by constantly praising the odious Second Citizen, which is riddled through and through with W-HAT/v-5 types and all kinds of anonymous fucktards who constantly harass people on forums — she calls SC her “me-time” and props up the whole thing with that sort of wink-and-nod endorsement.
I totally agree with Uri. The Herald is more in the tradition of National Lampoon, the Onion, Ramparts, etc. So where are they? Where’s the company? It’s a very lonely niche to be filling.
I think it has to be said that in RL, tabloids often tend to be very conservative because they are appealing to the masses and they often serve the powers that be. I mean, you don’t go to the Post or the Daily News for some dry-eyed coverage of the war in Iraq. These newspaper box free papers now like New York Press and Village Voice kinda sorta play the role of the old for-pay Village Voice in its heydey, serving as dissenters and rabble-rousers, but really, it’s hard to find dissent of any sustained sort even in RL these days except in blogs, and even there, it’s of the Amy Goodman, “let’s hate Bush” sort of facile analysis that actually only feeds the powers-that-be.
I think it’s a bad time for the press in RL as in SL in terms of being able to take a critical stance against corporations and their myrmidons without them constantly trying to either suffocate you in their embrace or pulverize you.
Spasky
Dec 22nd, 2006
ALWAYS UNBALANCED: Herald-Tards
http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/04/genital_review_.html#more
Genital Review: Play Sexy (male)
by Matthias Zander
To continue the Herald’s strong dedication to weeding out the weak for our readers, we are now bringing you the first of a set of genital test-drives that will review and rank genitals for both males and females. This week’s victim is the Play Sexy “Commander” cock for our male readers. Play Sexy was once the industry standard. Have they been able to retain that title? Read more below – and be warned, this is NOT safe for work (but if you’re here at the Herald, you should already expect that).
urizenus
Dec 22nd, 2006
I’m not sure what point Spasky thinks s/he’s making, but that review by Matt was excellent and I wish he would finish school already and get back to work on the SL fashion beat!
Prok you’re right that the Herald does not celebrate griefers, and you in particular have been the most outspoken opponent of them in the blogosphere. I think it is also worth pointing out how false the claim is that we always spin Linden numbers in a negative way, as just a couple days ago you made a very strong case for positive growth — a case that no one else had the credibility to make after they had spent so much time on their knees swallowing up those Linden 2 million resident numbers without even spitting. You know if you refuse to eat the hype it makes it easier to make a case for what the real growth is in SL.
Artemis Fate
Dec 22nd, 2006
“also the IBM build story is positive — there are plenty of positive stories.”
I thought the IBM story was about how they were exploiting a griefer made super-prim, of course, I didn’t actually read the story, this is just based from the title.
“As for celebrating griefing, I *never* celebrate griefing.”
Very true, that claim definately seemed off-base
“Ugh to Aimee’s quote. SHE is the one celebrating griefers by constantly praising the odious Second Citizen, which is riddled through and through with W-HAT/v-5 types and all kinds of anonymous fucktards who constantly harass people on forums”
Not so true. Just because SC has griefers that post on it doesnt mean that everyone in the forums is pro-griefer or “Celebrates” griefing.
Prokofy Neva
Dec 23rd, 2006
Find one person on SC who doesn’t celebrate griefers. Just one. There aren’t a single one. Oh, maybe somebody with a name like “tmp” or something. They are all part of the big griefing circle jerk.
Well, there were 3 IBM pieces, 2 negs, 1 pos, well, this is the Herald for God’s sake, Always Fairly Unbalanced.
Quack
Dec 23rd, 2006
“Prok you’re right that the Herald does not celebrate griefers” -Urizenus
“SL HERALD’S AVATAR OF THE YEAR, THIRD PLACE: PLASTIC DUCK” -Urizenus
urizenus
Dec 23rd, 2006
Avatar of the year goes to the person who changed teh news the most, for better or worse. Hitler and Khomeni made Time’s Man of hte Year. I don’t see the difference. Are we supposed to stick our head in the sand and pretend that these people make no difference to our lives. It seems to me that the actual celebration of Plastic Duck didn’t come until his extended and very kid glove interfiew by Tateru Nino in Aimee’s own Blingsider:
http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2006/11/10/interview-plastic-duck-gene-replacement/
some lowlights:
“One of the more colorful and contentious figures in SL’s three and a half year history is Plastic Duck, later known as Gene Replacement. While it took a little doing, I was able to sit down with him and have a bit of a talk about himself and about Second Life.
He took the third-place prize of Avatar of the Year (2005), bestowed by the Second Life Herald. He’s been flamboyant, artistic and edgy. He and some 59 others were famously purged from SL. Some consider him to be a rampaging rakehell, some a leader of a griefing army, some a sort of renaissance technojester, a dark god of ornithophobia.
Truly a lot has been said, done, understood and misunderstood, rumored and misconstrued. So…I didn’t ask him about any of that sensationalist nonsense directly. Instead, I wanted to find out more about the man behind the duck.
SLI: So, introduction first. You’re known as – or were known as Gene Replacement (and once as Griefer Overlord, with delicious irony). That your preferred identity?”
shocking really. Aimee should be ashamed.
Artemis Fate
Dec 23rd, 2006
“Find one person on SC who doesn’t celebrate griefers. Just one. There aren’t a single one. Oh, maybe somebody with a name like “tmp” or something. They are all part of the big griefing circle jerk.”
I honestly don’t ever post or go to Second Citizen, but I find it VERY hard to believe that EVERY user of the 1298 registered members is a “celebrator of griefers”, i’d more categorize this as your usual callous lumping and hasty generalizations of qualities of some to the masses of those who are in a group or even agregate.
I mean, you categorized Aimee immediately as a celebrator of griefers because she posts there, but what has she done or said to say that she is “pro-griefer”, I can point out one thing that shows otherwise, that she didn’t like the Herald because she thinks it’s pro-griefer. I imagine if she celebrated griefers as you claim, she’d love the herald.
Urizenus
Dec 23rd, 2006
Meanwhile Aimee’s Blingsider, in addition to its fawning interview with Plastic Duck, currently features a video of an Anshe press conference being griefed by hundreds of penises.
Hey Aimee: glass house, stones, don’t throw?
The difference between Herald reporting and Blingsider reporting is this: all the Blingsider does is show the griefing. They never call the organizers or the Lindens to task for either failing to secure the event or providing tools to make safe events possible. It is griefing as spectacle or eye candy without any thought of social responsibility and preventive action. Shame on the Blingsider, shame on Aimee; shame and ridicule. Who would have thought that virtual journalism could
sink
so
low.
Prokofy Neva
Dec 23rd, 2006
BTW, the Blingsider went in an even worse direction. In that thread, I indentified the griefer of the Anshe press conference as Plastic Duck’s latest alt. I also called to task the maker of the machinima from the “Safari” group which is yet another W-HAT spinoff. I asked aloud the question of how Petey was able to get word of this event’s griefing with such lightning speed. Within seconds of the making of this grief account, Petey had the word to go film those rubbery pink penises trotting across the landscape. While not closed to the public, the CNET interview wasn’t on the events calendar. You would have to have had an invitation to come to it, as a journalist. I don’t know if W-Hat’s Safari crew is on GreeterDan (CNET’s) press list, but I simply find it far-fetched that Safari would go cover a boring Anshe press conference and come prepared to make a machinima of it UNLESS they had some prior knowledge or close networking with the griefers.
I’d like to know how that mechanism works. When a terrorist act is filmed so carefully, these questions are always asked by law-enforcement. Like, when the Russian government just “happens” to have a journalist on the scene when some Chechen warlords “just happen” to cut off the heads of British telecom engineers, well…who did they know, when did they know, when did they know it?
These are legitimate public questions to ask.
I also pointed out that Safari is basically the PR arm of W-Hat, not some innovative little start-up machinima company. I know Uri enjoys their seemingly “expert” satire (I find marching pink penises to be overdone as a genre in Second Life, myself) — but surely Uri would concede that this is not some group *unrelated* to W-hat and somehow not then implicated in the griefing. They’ve also let us know, time and again, that they don’t care how people feel; they think it’s fine to shock and harass people because they view it as “just a video game” and they think it’s their right not merely to make people think (with good social satire) but to bludgeon them with terrorist acts to make them act horrified and shocked and then film and ridicule the results (bad social satire — actually, no, a TOS offense?)
Prokofy Neva
Dec 23rd, 2006
And what I mean “went in a worse direction” than appearing to celebrate griefing — when I began to ask some pointed questions about this griefing, and make some pretty logical statements about the connection of the griefing to W-Hat, Akela came on the thread and started threatening me with permabanning if I kept up making conspiratorial accusations.
My accusations aren’t “conspiratorial” but based on long and careful documentation. There’s a group. They plan and execute griefing episodes, small and large. To say they are a group of fun kids with only a few bad eggs is to be bluffed by their propaganda arms.
Urizenus
Dec 23rd, 2006
Well, this is a point that I’ve argued with Petey about for weeks now and no doubt we will still be arguing about it years from now, but the way I see it, the debate comes down to this:
*They* think we are delusional to take SL seriously.
*We* think they are sociopaths for denying an obvious social reality or perhaps pretending to deny it as a pretext for acting out in a hurtful and destructive way.
But don’t go to the Blingsider for that analysis, they would rather show the march of the penises in their top story. As long as you don’t criticize anyone or provide analysis when you celebrate the griefing, it is A.O.K. in Aimee’s book.
Ordinal Malaprop
Dec 23rd, 2006
I’m just a little puzzled as to their business model, personally. I mean… nobody’s going to pay L$150 for a copy of a bloody paper, you could get an actual product for that. For god’s sake, you can get RL tabloids cheaper. And that would be even if people couldn’t read other blogs with just as much ease as reading the Ava(star|tard|whatever), which they can.
Urizenus
Dec 23rd, 2006
They will have to start giving it away for sure, given that M2 is free. But presumably the biz model has nothing to do with making money now, and maybe not for years to come. This isn’t costing Axel Springer much in real world capital. What, say 20K US for the island plus maintenance, pay a few people to run the thing, which will generate stories that they can run in Bild back in germany. This could very well be written off as some cheap R&D. It’s a reasonably smart move if you don’t mind dropping up to 100K US a year (which isn’t much but is what I imagine their losses will be when you figure in everything).
Cheri Horton
Dec 23rd, 2006
AvaStar ripped of one of my pictures!
I explain it all here:
http://www.slpixelpulse.com/2006/12/23/avastar-rips-off-my-photo/
Cheri Horton
Dec 23rd, 2006
*off
Sunshine Cant
Dec 24th, 2006
Spelling mistakes – here’s a good one:
“Is the new Axcel Springer-owned Tabloid AvaStar ripping content from other Second Life News Sources?”
I thought he was called Axel not Axcel?
The AvaStar
Dec 24th, 2006
The correct version of the AvaStar is now back online at http://www.the-avastar.com
We apologise for the inconvenience caused by a technical problem with the server that led to some people seeing photos and texts that were only intended for internal use bythe AvaStar.
However, we believe in transparency, and are happy that you can see how we have been developing the newspaper with the editorial staff over the last few weeks.
The dummy version that went for a few hours online was an experimental version produced by our staff as we were in the process of developing the newspaper for Second Life.You could see by comparing the two that we have experimented with different graphic layouts, design and formats. It is a process a professional newspaper has to go through, in order to ensure that the end product is right, particularly given the uniqueness of the virtual world.
We hope you enjoy reading it and look forward to receiving your feedback.
Wishing you a merry Christmas in SL,
Your
AvaStar Team
Artemis Fate
Dec 24th, 2006
“when I began to ask some pointed questions about this griefing, and make some pretty logical statements about the connection of the griefing to W-Hat, Akela came on the thread and started threatening me with permabanning if I kept up making conspiratorial accusations.”
Well, I think what sounds logical and pointed to you, ends up sounding crazy and accusatory to everyone else. All I know is that everytime you get banned or almost get banned from a forum, it’s not because of your claims of being “too logical, or hitting to close to home” it’s because you went around insulting people and accusing them of wild conspiracy theories.