All the Cyberlebrities Ask: Uri, Where da Party At?
by Alphaville Herald on 02/04/09 at 7:12 pm
Photo from Josh Fouts
by Pat the Rat, from the Cyberlebrity Watch Desk
I recently read a critique of the Herald in which we were taken to task for being self-absorbed self-hyping wankers. I confess, I don't see this at all. Anyways…
Joshua Fouts, the Chief Global Strategist for Dancing Ink Productions (hereafter DIP) is everywhere in Metaplace these days. DIP in turn is most famous for their CEO and creative director, Rita J. King, who in real life is hotter than any avatar will be until we achieve Singularity (sadly for Uri, she has a rock on her finger the size his Subaru WRX STi; even if he sold the Herald yacht he couldn't afford *that*). But I digress yet again.Josh's most recent post on DIP's Dispatches from the Information Age details the Studio 54 circa 1977 atmosphere swirling around Uri's place in Metaplace. As Josh reports, Raph stopped in to ask Uri for some help with a tough Lua scripting problem, and then Tish Shute (immortalized by Prokofy Neva as "The Chirpy Whitewasher from Ugotrade") dropped in and offered to whiten Uri's wash, metaphorically speaking. Is it like this every day? Only the Cyberlebrities know for sure.
Satan
Apr 2nd, 2009
Holy shit, Rita is hot but I’m not sure I understood the rest of this article. And I’m pretty sure it’s not just the doob I just got finished smoking either. Does this make sense to anyone else?
Prokofy Neva
Apr 5th, 2009
So this is how Uri desperately tries to get the cool kids and the Metaplace FIC started ROFL.
But…It’s important to know how it works. People ask why I don’t blog about Metaplace, even being in the Beta. That’s because…we signed an agreement upon becoming Beta testers NOT to blog about MP.
However, recently, the MP folks started what they called an “evangelism” program. That is, if you wanted to sign up to be an “evangelist,” then you could blog — judiciously. The understanding with being an “evangelist” is that you will blog enthusiastically and positively. Which is all that Uri and Pixeleen have done so far. They’ve been perfectly good little evangelists.
I told Cuppycake at MP that I refuse to sign up for something called “evangelism” because that’s just not free media. You lose your independence from a game or world and its devs if you become their “evangelists” (I hate that term, and its rightly associated with religious cult recruitment).
Soon, they’ll be out of beta this summer and then normal, free, and independent blogging and news coverage can start. So far, when the bloggers-on-a-leash report positively in a program like this, Uri can blame *them* (like the BBC, which gave a very hypey coverage under the evangelism clause) rather than blaming the program that he himself has opted to join.
Of course, he’s failed to note that he is an Evangelist who signed up for this program. And no doubt thinks that because Raph is cool and MP is cool (and they are) that it’s ok to be on a leash. But it’s not. Raph will ultimately appreciate more the genuine and independent blogging coverage he gets.
Rita is quite the star- er…seeker. My first encounter with her was when she pressed into my hands an envelope full of her clippings at Virtual Worlds Expo in San Jose and said she was dying to meet me, and wanted me to read all her stuff — she was hustling her site to get gigs. I then noticed how she posed herself next to Philip Rosedale and asked to get her picture taken with him together. I’ve always found that sort of thing repulsive and exploitative, but it works, because then she can spread her picture all over town. I find it funny, because I’ve never had to ask Philip if I can take a picture of him and me, I just talk to him and other people take the pictures.
There is something so desperate and wannabee about these two, and they are awfully thin-skinned and block any criticism off YouTube, their blog, of their “Understanding Islam” site which should be renamed “Understanding Second Life Understanding What We Wish Islam Was” lol.
Perhaps it was precisely in order to protect such projects as this ridiculous one that Raph let slip into his TOS a clause discouraging criticism of religion, barring “disparaging of religious belief”.
Urizenus Sklar
Apr 5th, 2009
Prok, have you been on vacation or something? We missed you!
Anyway, I haven’t signed on to the evangelist program. Does that put me in violation of the ToS? Oh noessss! Send the SWAT team now!
>I find it funny, because I’ve never had to ask Philip if I can take a picture of him and me, I just talk to him and other people take the pictures.
Yes Prok, but that’s because you are the Lindsey Lohan of the metaverse.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 5th, 2009
I was told that Pixeleen signed on to the evangelism system on behalf of the Herald, I think it was even stated publicly in response to my query about all this on the MP forums under “off topic”.
Urizenus Sklar
Apr 5th, 2009
I think Pix did join the evangelist program. Isn’t that where the MP alphavilleherald key came from? I haven’t read the agreement, because I’m not party to it.
But I don’t see how this constrains what I say. Or rather, if someone *thinks* that Pix joining the evangelist program is going to constrain what I say (or what anyone says) they are probably going to be disappointed.
Satan
Apr 5th, 2009
I really don’t see how the evangelism program affects anything. I don’t think many people are going to sign up for it to give MP praise if they don’t really mean it. So in the end, what difference does it make? Almost everyone I speak to inside MP is extremely happy about the project and they’re excited about what the future holds for it. I can infer from that, that many if not most people in MP would join the program and genuinely feel the way that they say they do when they blog. If it were me, either I’d blog about MP because I meant what I said or else I wouldn’t blog at all but I can’t keep a consistent blog anyway. Plus I’m too busy in MP when I could be blogging to bother lol.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 6th, 2009
Wriggle, wriggle, Uri. You don’t represent the Herald and are an independent entity?
I’m on MP FIC Watch.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 6th, 2009
THE SOVIETS ARE COMIN’!!!
Witness X
Apr 6th, 2009
The idea that anybody of any note even knows who Uri/Pixeleen is is laughable.
As laughable as Tizzers attempting to sock-puppet legitimize himself by buying 51% of BnT stock, pretending it’s the real Woodbury doing it through MC Fizgig, who is operated by Tizzy these days. All fake.
Just like this article.