It's all about the people

Some days - most days, SL fills me with joy. Makes me want to sing, dance. I am overflowing with effusive feelings and geniality.

Sometimes it makes me want to weep and scream with frustration. Not the technology. Not the platform. Not the server or sim performance. It's all about the people.

Some few people occasionally turn on you, like a rabid dog might. Perhaps out of nowhere, someone you have never met harasses and abuses and insults you. One time it was a person who I had chatted with on and off for days. Weeks. And I never found out why. Not that I'm terribly keen to.

In the former cases though, the question of why seems to yield a common result: This is just some internet thing. It doesn't matter.

I'm sorry, what? You can rake someone over the coals, insult my parentage, ancestry and gender. Say all manner of belittling, insulting and disparaging things. Hurt them, because "It doesn't matter because it's just some internet thing"?

Please. Grow up. If you're already grown up, go back and do it again, because you screwed it up badly the first time around. No, really. Off you go. I'll wait.

These are all people here. Really real people. I might have failed the Turing Test more times than Video Linden, but I'm really real too. I don't get any laughs out of sitting comfortably at my PC and telling people how much they suck, or about how the Internet is no place for women, or how they are personally to blame for anything I don't like.

Just imagine yourself, standing with the other person. Able to see their face, and see their tears, and think twice about what you're about to say and why.

The rest of you? *hugs* You make the occasional bad day a small price to pay for the blessings of your companionship.

Lesson over now. Go have some fun.