Understanding the “Little Hitlers” of Second Life
by Pixeleen Mistral on 24/10/11 at 1:50 am
I’ve long wondered at the connection between Second Life’s endless supply of over-the-top drama and the strange psychology of certain players -- particularly those seriously invested in “defending” Linden Lab and “policing” the Second Life grid.
What is it about Second Life that attracts and retains obsessive-compulsive meta-gamerz who can’t keep their play inside the game?
Do large land tier payments to the Lab trump civil discourse even when Lab staff are swept up in an ugly cycle of Twitter/Google bombing payback as we saw with the LabRatuOut mess? After a concerted effort to attract the Lab’s attention to the recent excesses of the Justice League Unlimited, some of my friends in The Pink Hands faction are getting a bit cynical.
the Pink Hands faction is becoming cynical about Linden Lab
The golden rule seems to be in effect - those spending the virtual gold, rule. Perhaps Rod Humble is just hoping he can finish his new not-SL mobile-device-enabled game before the house of cards falls.
Meanwhile, consider notoriously toxic trolls such as Jumpman Lane, Kalel Venkman’s Justice League Unlimited vigilantes, or Prokofy Neva -- and the level of effort required to spend years tracking and data-mining other players or mounting an endless series of intensive blog, Twitter, and Google bombing campaigns designed to humiliate and destroy enemies.
Forgiveness and redemption seem to be alien concepts for some trolls upstanding Second Life residents, which implies a deep psychological need is being addressed. What exactly is going on?
A recent article in The Economist describing how “quite ordinary people will succumb to bad behaviour if the circumstances are right” may hold some answers.
According to the article, Nathanael Fast of the University of Southern California and colleagues at Northwestern and Stanford universities ran a series of experiments to see if social circumstances around power and status have the potential to create “little Hitlers” who annoy and frustrate others for their own gratification - or are certain individuals predisposed to this sort of behaviour simply gravitating into situations where they can behave badly?
The experiments randomly placed participants into one of 4 groups: high power/high status, low power/low status, low power/high status, and high power/low status. Participants were given the option of forcing other participants to perform humiliating actions -- or not.
Those in the low status/high power group chose significantly more demeaning tasks to impose onto other participants, while those in the other 3 groups did not exhibit this behaviour.
Does this mean that the more extreme guardians of Second Life feel they are in a position of low status in real life and are compensating by harassing and humiliating those within their reach?
If, as the study suggests, the combination of low status and high power is a recipe for trouble, I am beginning to think the celebrated free social media tools which empower those dedicated to cultivating their Internet notoriety may contain the seeds of their own destruction as the "little Hitlers" of the social media use their online power to trash everyone else.
Do you still want to play Web 2.0 after watching Jumpman Lane’s Twitter assault on Stroker Serpentine, LabRatuOut’s assault on Esbee Linden, or after following Prokofy Neva’s carefully crafted Google bombing attacks on all and sundry? How do you feel after learning that Kalel Venkman is still expanding and unsuccessfully attempting to secure his Brainiac wiki data mine?
Is this the sort of game you want to play?
Imnotgoing Sideways
Oct 26th, 2011
HEY!!! I just noticed… Pix used a crowd picture from before I was added… (._.)
Pappy Enoch
Oct 26th, 2011
I always knowed Elvis Costello were a Hillbilly. From “Two Little Hitlers,” and I reckon it are about SL’s fake world:
A simple game of self-respect
You flick a switch and the world goes off
Nobody jumps as you expect
I would have thought you would have had enough by now
You call selective dating
For some effective mating
I thought I’d let you down, dear
But you were just deflating
I knew right from the start
We’d end up hating
Pictures of the merchandise
Plastered on the wall
We can look so long as we don’t have to talk at all
You say you’ll never know him
He’s an unnatural man
He doesn’t want your pleasure
He wants as no one can
He wants to know the names of
All those he’s better than.
Robble Rubble
Oct 26th, 2011
@Jane Doe
That doesn’t excuse his reaction of ignoring her letter and using it as an opportunity to get one last barb in. If anyone tried to help it sure as shit wasn’t anyone in the JLU because the only things recorded in the wiki about it are them mocking her obituary and how it had no comments.
Why do we want it need a public service/”antigriefer” group that mock their fallen members and don’t know basic sim security like turning off “anyone can move” on prims in their builds. Why would someone want to associate or seek assistance from a group like that? Why do people ignore all the wrong they have done to the community by enforcing their own draconian standards on everyone they encounter?
Reader
Oct 26th, 2011
You TWH idiots mock people, harass people, grief people all the time – so nobody considers your “sensitivity” to any other alleged incident of mocking to be credible. Hang it up. Worn out and useless blather. Go hug your mom. Or better yet, go confess to a minister or monk and purge your guilty soul.
Senban Babii
Oct 26th, 2011
@Paul
“So? by your own stated logic, and Senbans, it is a Dog-Eat-Dog world,”
I’m just picking this quote at random. Paul you’ve entirely unaddressed any of my points, all of which are soundly backed up and explained. Instead you have done nothing but take my words and add an entirely different spin to them which does not represent the meaning or intention.
@Everyone else
Please ignore any attempts by Paul to interpret or apply my arguments. My arguments are clearly laid out throughout this thread and while I’m open to the opinions and ideas of others, I naturally believe mine to be correct. My thoughts on the issue are here, I’ve nothing more to add really because I believe they’re pretty clear and easy to grasp. Repeating them would add nothing more of value.
@Imnotgoing Sideways.
“HEY!!! I just noticed… Pix used a crowd picture from before I was added… (._.)”
I noticed that too. There’s at least one photo with four more people on it.
http://www.sluniverse.com/imageserver/snapzilla/515068.png?width=800
Paul
Oct 26th, 2011
Reader,
Just to clarify Tux’s position:
When griefers harass people for no reason, it is “in the game”, so that makes it alright…they are just playing a game. Either that, or it’s a dog-eat-dog world, so anything goes. Wait, no, that only works inside the game. If you cross the line then you are bothering real people outside the game so that is wrong. Inside the game they are fake people with fake money, so that is ok.. and besides, it is a mean world. Or something. And besides outside the game, harassing people is against the rules. Inside, it not against the rules. breaking rules is wrong. Unless the TOS are against the rules, and in that case they should have made better rules because in that case it ok to break the rules. Either way I don’t really care what you think. They are real people that play the game. It’s not a game, it is a game. It is ok to break rules, that makes you cool, unless someone else did it. I am not upset. Please pay attention to me, I am relevant.
Paul
Oct 26th, 2011
@ Senban
What part of “yes it is wrong but that is way the world works” did you not say?
Robble Rubble
Oct 26th, 2011
@Reader
My hands will never ever come close to being as bloody as Kalel’s or Maverick’s or GLE’s. On top of it we don’t have any desire to control the grid and the people on it through strongarm “if you keep doing x/y I’m going to call your parents/professors and bring everything into rl” tactics while hiding behind a thin veneer of “public service”. The people I choose to mock and target are impotent and incompetent bullies, there is no shame in that IMO.
Tux
Oct 26th, 2011
@ Paul
‘So you have a ‘clearly defined line’ that says it is ok to behave unethically inside a game to the detriment of actual, real people, but wrong to behave unethically outside the game’
Name one person who acts the same in RL as they do on the internet, and I will call you a liar. With the exception to his holiness the Dalai Lama, and those so obsessed they lose focus of RL. But it is funny you have gone from breaking the law to ethics. So tell me Paul who defines what is ethical and what is not? And before you jump straight in, think for a moment of all the allowed content in SL, much of it deemed unethical by some. It all comes down to once more having definition between RL and a game.
Robble Rubble
Oct 26th, 2011
Also the JLU splinter PD group is dead in the water, an article on that would have been much much better.
Paul
Oct 26th, 2011
Tux, if you want to know what I regard as “wrong” see my definition of ‘griefing’. Sure, we all behave differently in SL then in RL. When did I lie? I do lots of things in SL that I do not do in RL… that is one of the good things about SL. But if you are a bully, it is the same in either SL or RL: wrong.
Reader
Oct 26th, 2011
*****medication imbalance alert*****
Tux’s prior post is a prime example of what I was talking about.
Dude is whack!
Down the hatch Tux, and remember, never more than 2 pills at a time.
Reader
Oct 26th, 2011
“My hands will never ever come close to being as bloody as Kalel’s or Maverick’s or GLE’s. On top of it we don’t have any desire to control the grid and the people on it through strongarm “if you keep doing x/y I’m going to call your parents/professors and bring everything into rl” tactics while hiding behind a thin veneer of “public service”. The people I choose to mock and target are impotent and incompetent bullies, there is no shame in that IMO.”
OK Tux.
But seriously, once someone showed me that lightly toasted sammich thing on Youtube, you were pretty much figured out. Translation?
Credibility = Zero.
Don’t know what I’m talking about folks?
Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhGaBLL5rDs
Oh, and while I am at it. There is another really interesting collage Tux put together on his youtube site that targets an Alphaville troll and second life obsessor. But wait, Tux doesn’t harrass people or play petty games with other peoples RL’s now does he. ROFL
Check this one out:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TuxWinkler#p/u/10/E2aAc2DcZlQ
Anything these idiots say is complete & utter nonsense. They don’t have a ****ing leg to stand on.
All they have is THIS (this being that proverbial “endless argument” undertaking about Prok, JLU or anyone with a dissenting point of view).
[this: also defined as the context of the storyline here, the rant-capade over on the SLU and the sorry ass existence in Second Life played out in full-griefer-technicolor.]
Paul
Oct 26th, 2011
Wow Tux, is that you tube thing that Reader posted real? did you really post a RL video of a rl person in an attempt to mock them? doesn’t that cross your sacred line into RL harassment?
Tux
Oct 26th, 2011
@ Paul
‘Tux, if you want to know what I regard as “wrong” see my definition of ‘griefing’. Sure, we all behave differently in SL then in RL. When did I lie?’
Reread what I wrote, I didn’t call you a liar, I said I would.
‘I do lots of things in SL that I do not do in RL… that is one of the good things about SL. But if you are a bully, it is the same in either SL or RL: wrong.’
I disagree, I think Prok is a bully, but she has run away from many people at SLCC once she realised who they are. I would guess many of the game bullies you refer to would be far less confident in RL. It’s like I have said, being on the internet is like being drunk, social boundaries and inhibitions are dulled.
@ Reader
GJ on insulting people on medication.
Reader
Oct 26th, 2011
Definition of
THIS
1 a (1): the person, thing, or idea that is present or near in place, time, or thought or that has just been mentioned (2): what is stated in the following phrase, clause, or discourse b: this time or place
2 a: the one thing that Second Life old time griefers cling to because they have nothing else in life; no one to share anything with and no self respect – so they take to “the grid” and live a life of word warfare. Cross-reference: ‘The Tron Obsession’
3. a: a complete load of rubbish
Examples of THIS
I’m clearly a threat to all of second life and humanity for this horrible act of moving a single prim. – Rubble
Linden Lab’s design is flawed in allowing this activity. – Winkler
I have never once said this is not a game. – Winkler
Origin of THIS
Middle English, pron. & adjective, from Old English thes (masculine), this (neuter); akin to Old High German dese this, Old English thæt that
First Known Use: before 12th century
Paul
Oct 26th, 2011
@Tux
So if you think Prok is a bully, does it matter if she is a bully in RL or SL? either way it is wrong. You seem to be saying that it ok to be a bully in SL where it is a ‘game’, but it is wrong in RL. So what exactly are you disagreeing with me on? And yes, I suppose sometimes being in SL does inhibit our boundaries which is probably why griefers enjoy being bullies in SL while doing such punk ass stuff.
Tux
Oct 26th, 2011
Actually Paul it doesn’t. He sent me abuse through youtube, I responded with that. It was after an article on here I think. I wouldn’t have even know about his youtube or his name had he not given them. So I sliced and reformatted his public videos. He got upset and stopped harassing me. Aside from a few attempts to crash me in Revolution.
Had he not formed the link to my profile I wouldn’t have used it, but he did. He had already shown he didn’t mind his face in the public, I guess he didn’t like the music I added.
Reader
Oct 26th, 2011
@Tux
“GJ on insulting people on medication.”
Your welcome & Shame on you for admitting it.
You are a hypocrite, a liar and most importantly – A Griefer ejected from an internet service provider. You claim to be a web designer/network admin but you behave like someone with a serious case of Asperger syndrome in need of review – and I mean that in a constructive way – go get that taken care of – your family is depending on you. But back to the point, you behave like a web-nut and not a person who respects the web for it’s true value or as an enabler of a livelihood. Again, in the simplest of terms, you are a demonstrative hypocrite.
Peace Out Everyone (else), I’m done with this one. He’s exposed.
Tux
Oct 26th, 2011
@ Paul
You said: ‘ But if you are a bully, it is the same in either SL or RL’, I disagreed, it is not the same.
Beyond that, it is for LL to decide who is bullying who. It is not always as clear cut as you would like. You akin griefing to bullying, but that is simply your definition. In some situations bullying is acceptable in SL, but that is a whole other topic.
Paul
Oct 26th, 2011
Tux,
Well glad to know you weren’t data mining information about him from google or youtube.. that might be considered crossing the line.
GG3
Oct 26th, 2011
@Reader
“Lightly Toasted Ruben”
A sandwich? I’m feeling hungry right about now.
Second Link:
So I see a video composed of some dude with a tune in the background. Try checking out the other 1,000+ videos on you-tube that are like that. But then again your too busy trolling for the JLU since the beginning of the leaks, huh reader?
Lets see now:
A sandwich and a music video amounts to obsessive stalking that the JLU have done.
Nope.
Reader
Oct 26th, 2011
*****BS Alert*****Medication Flux Density At Critical Stage*****
What is this shit now? : : :
“He sent me abuse through youtube, I responded with that.”
Lame rationalizations time again Tux. Try and soften it up. But be clear folks, this whacko made a specfic effort to point out that this dude was a Herald troll. Ponder that a minute. He paid attention enough to out this guy as a troll on this here forum? So what was it Tux, youtube abuse or in world griefer? Or herald troll that needing attention?
OK, couldn’t resist on that but now I am really done with this one.
/me sticks a toothpick in it’s belly
“Yeah, it’s done”
Tux
Oct 26th, 2011
@ Reader
I didn’t admit anything, but even if I was medicated for anything why would I be shamed for admitting it? Is it shameful to take medication?
You know everything you just typed makes you look really immature (despite my guessing you are probably older than me). And once more don’t worry about my dependants, our lifestyle is such where we don’t have much to worry about. Thanks.
Next time you post maybe you should apologise to the people who are medicated and have just had some keyboard warrior tell them it is shameful.
Reader
Oct 26th, 2011
GG3, right on queue.
Noticing the pattern here yet folks?
GG3
Oct 26th, 2011
@Reader
Like calling the kettle black eh reader? Weren’t you the fellow who claimed that this tux person went after me? Yet you fail to provide any proof, as always.
Now your gunning off you-tube videos of sandwiches and random music videos. All you can do reader, is troll your way through the herald as you’ve been doing since those leaks.
Your ill-logic is laughable and sad at the same time. What do sandwiches have to do with JLU?
James Doe
Oct 26th, 2011
@Tux,
Seriously you posted those youtubes. Nice here i was trying to give you the benifit of the doubt, that you were serious about the RL vs SL issue. But Prank calling Linden labs really the poor woman was just doing her job to try to help you and you act like a jerk? Doing a spoof video about a person you dislike posting his rl web came stuff. Seems your crossing the line of that RL/SL you claim you don’t do.
@Robble,
I am confused now, You all yell at the JLU for crossing the RL line.
Then you yell at them for not crossing it.
Which is it that you want them to do?
GG3
Oct 26th, 2011
@James
That was a real avatar. It’s nice though, to see how LL handles customer inquires
Reader
Oct 26th, 2011
“@Reader
Like calling the kettle black eh reader? Weren’t you the fellow who claimed that this tux person went after me? Yet you fail to provide any proof, as always.
Now your gunning off you-tube videos of sandwiches and random music videos. All you can do reader, is troll your way through the herald as you’ve been doing since those leaks.
Your ill-logic is laughable and sad at the same time. What do sandwiches have to do with JLU?”
GG2, Paul got it. JD will as well. I reckon a few other level headed people will get it too. You on the other hand just revealed a serious lack of reading comprehension not to mention zero conceptual relevancy. The name calling doesn’t phase me a bit and I’m glad you got a laugh. Know this though, most are laughing at you and I’m jealous.
Side bar:
Did you even watch the entire sammich video? Oh wait., maybe you were instrumental in it’s creation and therefore you didn’t need to watch it (again). Possible. As far as the rest of your inane post. -ignored. Save it for later brochacho.
Reader
Oct 26th, 2011
Here’s another GG1 right on queue:
“@James
That was a real avatar. It’s nice though, to see how LL handles customer inquires”
See the developing pattern here folks?
GJ GGzero
OK folks, I’m done with this one too. Not only is his picture pasted on the back of a milk carton, but the expiration date has long since past. Sock puppet – anybodies guess – but definitely one from the worn out & smelly sock drawer.
Paul
Oct 26th, 2011
The sandwich video reminds me of Borat where he gets the college boys drunk and goads them on to be jerks while filming it. Then, he pats himself on the back all proud of himself for his great accomplishment of making drunk college boys look like sexist idiots. Good job!!! Who would have known that drunk college boys might be idiots? So now we learn that that corporations have shitty customer service? amazing. You should be very proud of yourself! Next time, show us a video demonstrating something difficult, like that the sky is blue. Kind of a shame that the real person on the line was made of fool of. Bad for her.. being a real person in real life and all. I think that crosses some kind of line.
Reader
Oct 26th, 2011
Hi5 Paul
(just like Borat…what timing…)
Tux
Oct 26th, 2011
@ JD
‘Seriously you posted those youtubes. Nice here i was trying to give you the benifit of the doubt, that you were serious about the RL vs SL issue.’
The Freak video came after the guy made himself known through youtube. I simply used his public clips. I didn’t know his account in SL, so it was unrelated. In fact it wasn’t until this year he made himself known to me by attacking me in Revolution.
‘But Prank calling Linden labs really the poor woman was just doing her job to try to help you and you act like a jerk?’
The sound clip IMO is funny, and also not me. It is a recording of a support call. FYI I don’t have an American accent.
‘Doing a spoof video about a person you dislike posting his rl web came stuff. Seems your crossing the line of that RL/SL you claim you don’t do.’
Already explained. Rule of trolling is: Don’t troll with the same account you have all your personal stuff in, it is considered fair game.
Had he asked me to remove it I would have, instead he hurled threats for weeks.
Paul
Oct 26th, 2011
Tux, you said: “Rule of trolling is: Don’t troll with the same account you have all your personal stuff in, it is considered fair game.”
Roger that. “fair game” eh? I know for sure that when my identity is stolen and my computer invaded, “Tux Winkler” will be the first words out of my mouth when I call the police.
Tux
Oct 26th, 2011
Lol and you wouldn’t be the first!
James Doe
Oct 26th, 2011
Ok So in your logic Tux, Tizzer then deserved what they got, they linked their rl and sl. So all the calls to the school were justified since Tizzer trolled people and griefed them. “Rule of Trolling” right?
Joshua desreved to get harrassed with a forum post since he links his SL and RL together. I mean he trolls other people you could say.
Again “Rule of Trolling”.
The Pink Hands expect people to take them seriously about supplying information on how to protect your privacy when they have members like you in the group?
GG3
Oct 26th, 2011
@Reader
What else can you come up reader other than gobble-gook about socks and milk?
Again, you failed to establish any connection on the so-called tux-encounter I supposively had that you claimed had happened. Instead you trolled a response out than provide a solid answer. Simply because it did not happen. Continue to rehearse to your invisible audience, it falls upon deaf ears.
Back On Topic:
Regardless, SL does have a problem with data-mining. If it’s not the data-mining, then it’s the scams.
Reader
Oct 26th, 2011
What are you on about?
“Again, you failed to establish any connection on the so-called tux-encounter I supposively had that you claimed had happened.”
Bring it forward GG(-1). Your comment is worthless without a citation.
Tux
Oct 26th, 2011
@ JD
Ok, here is the thing, Tizzers RL link was that he was an admin in the WU sim. It was the JLU who scoured the internet to hunt him down. It could have been kept within SL, but no, the JLU contacted the university. On more than one occasion. Remember Tiz was a teenager then, they knew this. So they was stalking a teen. That is creepy. They should have kept it in SL, used the SL abuse system. Not tried to target his RL.
As for Joshua, well I didn’t follow it so I am not really in the know of what happened (nor am interested).
TPH? Who better? They are a great bunch. All intelligent good hearted people. But you need to clarify ‘members like me’, I am not sure what you mean.
Robble Rubble
Oct 26th, 2011
@James Doe
Actually they did cross the line into rl with Nikola, they just did it in the most ghoulish way possible, mocking her obituary, rather than a helpful or constructive way. Lemme lay it out here for you, if someone is talking about killing themselves, it’s a pretty good idea to make sure they don’t hurt themselves rather than waiting until after and mocking their obituary.
Gundel Gaukelei
Oct 26th, 2011
Oh, and while I am at it. There is another really interesting collage Tux put together on his youtube site that targets an Alphaville troll and second life obsessor.
And I thought it was about to be removed very soon. Guess thats “very soon” as in “I will very soon leave the left lane of your famous german autobahn with my fscking dutch caravan”.
Jimmy
Oct 26th, 2011
Prokofy Neva is gone from the People List!
GG3
Oct 26th, 2011
@Reader
Too busy ping-ponging for the JLU eh reader? Allow me to refresh your memory:
Sep 1st, 2011
“GG3- Aren’t you the one Tux went after for trolling the hell out of the AH?
OH & learn to read.”
Unlike you Reader, I can provide evidence that you continuously fail in doing so. Surely you can remember your own posts, reader?
GG3
Oct 27th, 2011
@Reader
Anything else you would like to make-up/exaggerate on your side, Reader?
You do a great job for the JLU. Hi5′s!
James Doe
Oct 27th, 2011
@Robble
On January 14, 2009 at 10:53 PM the following article appeared in the Herald:
“Open Letter to Free Fandom
See you on OpenLifeGrid
Hello Free Fandom. I know it has been a while since you heard from me, and there’s a reason why.
First off, my account was cancelled. The reason for this was I refused to pay the bill.
I refused to pay, because, at the time the bill was due, I received disciplinary action
regarding classifieds I posted denouncing Lalinda Lovell for stealing Free fandom content
and reselling it.
The fact is, I believe Linden Labs has become unworkable as a company, and the main grid
stymied because of the drama. As such, I have transferred to OpenLifeGrid, where,
lacking a money system, content theft will no longer be a concern.
I operate under the avatar name of Miley Stewart, and if anyone wants help with projects,
I will be running projects similar to Free Fandom there. I am also working on open sourcing
all of my files, and I am transferring all targas to the new admins.
Unfortunately, the objects and scripts I made will soon be defunct, as will my land. All I can
outsource, sadly, are the textures, but as mod rights were enabled wherever possible,
hopefully the new creators will be able to recreate what is lost. Thank you all for your
support, and so I leave for peaceful pastures, so to speak.
Happy playing, and see you at the crossroads.
Nikola Shirakawa”
Didn’t Nikola say they were going to kill themselves
On January 18, 2008 in the hearld?
Seems to me that you making this death up?
Please point me to the research you have shown. But What i have seen is that their is no actual proof of the actual sucide. especially if it was in 2008 kinda hard to post from the dead.
But if i recall Nikola use to take pictures for the Herald until replaced after his supposed sucide.
Tux
Oct 27th, 2011
Wow really JD? Are you really going to do this? Perhaps it is best no one knows who you are!
James Doe
Oct 27th, 2011
Ahhh I missed it.
The person commited sucide in December 2009.
So How is the JLU responsible for this persons death as Robble says?
He/she left secondlife. The Money thing was in 2008. So I am really not seeing how you can blame the JLU for this persons death.
Unless your doing one of those Prok logic leaps.
Tux
Oct 27th, 2011
June 6th ’09. Move on.
James Doe
Oct 27th, 2011
Ok so then explain to me how the JLU are the cause of this persons death?
I am still missing this. Its one of the big arguments against the JLU that they caused this person to kill themselves.
So January this person moves to Opensim, March he/she gets their name legally changed then in June they kill themselves. So I still trying to connect the dots. So far the only way i can see connecting the dot is by a prokofy logical leap of warping facts as you all say.
Is this the “crazy cat lady” theory of responsability?
Pappy Enoch
Oct 27th, 2011
My Gawd. You folks do not drink enuff.