Are we friendly? Are we snobs? Or both?

I think there are cliques in SL. I think most of them are non-snobbish though. Seems this enviroment mostly promotes acceptance, and therefore perhaps the definition of clique needs to be redefined? hehe.. Yeah, there are few snobs out there. But even the "snobs" of SL seem to be nice. There are a handful of people that are horrid, but they are quickly known. The cliques seem to be fast to weed out those that are untolerant. At least, this is my outside observance.

I know for myself, I love to go all over. I have friends from many circles, and I often hear of this or that other person that is so bad. Most have learned though that I'm not one to listen to someone badmouth a friend of mine in front of my face. Though I tend to be polite when I tell people to please stop, there are a few times I've gotten really upset, even when I didn't mean to. I am also not afraid to call a friend out when I feel they are being grossly wrong. I'm a waste when I"m angry though, because I get all flustered. hehe

For the most part I'd have to say that I have been very lucky. That most people in SL don't mind if I drop in to say hello. That most don't get freaked out that I smile and say hello and am my chipper self. I consider so many friends, and I think that for the most part people are very open in SL if you give them a chance.

For the record, I very much consider someone's forum personality when deciding how they are in world. To me the forums are just an extention of the SL world. A town pub or community center in ways. I do not ever seperate the personalities. And I know I am not alone in this. I am always me no matter where I am. And I just expect others to be the same. Right or wrong, that is just how I am.

I completly understand. You want to be friendly, but you don't want to interrupt, so it can get awkward. To complicate things, it's easier to determine how open someone is to chatting (or having someone join an existing chat) in real life. At least there you get clues with body language, tone of voice, eye contact and so on. Plus there's situational clues. In real life, you're probably not gonna start gabbing with someone who's on the phone with someone else. In sl, they may have five IM's going and you wouldn't know.
I'm hoping some type on online etiquitte evolves to make it easier to approach those who want to be approached and avoid those who want to be left alone.

Sometimes you just need an icebreaker -- I can suggest dressing up in a Hulk av and wearing a french maids costume.. then jumping into the middle of a group screaming HULK SMASH PUNY DUST BUNNIES!!!!


(Don't laugh, when I'm bored I actually do this)

Siggy.

A funny thing to this is that IRL, I have great difficulties reading body language and cues. (It is because I have Asperger's Syndrome, which is a form of autism.) Text-only chat on the Internet often bores me and puts me to sleep so I really enjoy the multimedia aspects of SL, including the Gestures. Emoticons matter to me though, as a line of text can be read so many ways, so it's important to contextualize it.

And oh yeah, if I seem slow... it's prolly 'cuz I'm learning to multitask. I try not to have too many IMs going on at once because of how rude it can seem -- I wouldn't want to be put in a "slowww reply" box myself unless I was dealing with an extraordinarily fast typer -- but it can be hard to convey this each and every time. Bottom line for me is: if I seem unresponsive, please pardon me, it likely indicates that my attention is focused elsewhere.

In Second Life, how someone expresses themselves through words means a lot. For example, Francis Chung, Catherine Omega, and Kex Godel all have this extraordinarily lucid and amazingly crisp way of communicating inworld. I can't quite describe it... it's like eating nutmeg foam or something. Efficient yet elegant.

I joined SL around April and everyone was pretty nice to me. I'll go up and talk to anyone and often found that was the best way. I could see people kind of wandering around not engaging in conversations.

I was a little paranoid when people out of the blue would say, "Welcome to SL!" Oh my, do I look that much like a newbie? I took the cabin off my head, how do they know? Finally I realized they could check my profile. I don't care what anyone says, that is the only way they could tell I was a newbie. I blended perfectly. Shut up! I did!

I did have one incident that just made me furious when I was a newbie. I was so mad.

I went to a newbie show and tell event. I had worked really hard to create one of my first items in the world. As it turns out, I was the only newbie at the event that had created an item to submit. For that reason the event was opened to everyone else there.

Well all the "cool" kids started pulling out friggin relicas of the Eiffel Tower and flaming coffee pots or something. By comparison my little newbie creation seemed kind of lame. The cool kids took all the prizes and I slinked away cursing every one of them to fiery pit of hell. Oh you think you're so cool with your fully interactive thingamabob.

It took me a few days to get over that.

I don't know what it is like now, but when I joined the one thing I remember most was that people gave you everything. I had an inventory full of free stuff. Everywhere I went it was "so and so has offered you inventory".

I feel mostly isolated in SL, but it's because I'm pretty introverted, and I've not learned how to make friends in the SL environment really. In past MMORPG's I've played, everyone starts out with similar goals related to the game, so you meet up with people, you're working together towards game goals, and along the way you make friends here and there. It's kinda like making friends on your job. You don't seek them... you just were in the same place together for long enough to become close. It's much the same way I enter relationships. I'm not a seeker.

In SL, I can either build, chat, or attend events. I find it hard in SL to read people who are talking to me and know what their real intentions are. Is this person being extra sweet to me just because they're doing bussiness with me? Are they just this sweet to everyone? Or are they really interested in talking to me? Do they wish I'd shut up and stop replying?

With that said, I apologize if I ever come across as being quiet or stuck up with anyone. Especially within the past several days, as this hasn't been a good week for me at all.

*Edit* because I think I confused the topic of this thread with the "Do you actively seek SL relationships" thread. They're alot alike.

I can't generalize and say the people in SL are friendly or are snobs. I've seen all types of people around, and as I mentioned above, I don't know who is genuine and who isn't really.

I have not been able to effectively experience the "Torley experience" but every time I see you at a trivia event you trounce everyone

I have heard of the Asperger's syndrome. I was not aware that it was a form of autism. From what I know, it is a certain mix of heightened senses (such as sounds that nobody notices but bothers the individual with the syndrome) and an ability to learn through words and information rather than someone TELLING you things -- like knowing where Cambodia was from a map rather than someone telling you where it was.

I'm actually not sure what this has to do with the thread subject. Sorry 'bout that.

Awww, thanks Lo... well, I do that sometimes. Hehehe. Other times I like to watch. Hey, I like to mix it up.

Good info about Asperger's is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger%27s

I pretty much exhibit or have exhibited (past tense, since self-improvement goes a long way) all the major diagnostic criteria.

In my case regarding heightened senses, let's just say I never needed a Winamp visualizer. Also, I wasn't always this "social". And oh... yeah... I like to get pretty systematic and root things down. I have a tendency to jump from topic to topic and then tie it all back into one full circle, so it's all good with me.

Cheerio.

Thirded here...

And fourthed here to what Kex said....

Sometimes my mind just goes blank and I do feel the pressure of conversation...

and sometimes I don't speak to groups of people because they appear like they are already busy and I don't want to butt in because it might be breaking some 'netiquette' - it's not that I'm ignoring - really

I think we need a group for ourselves - the 'we're like Kex' group !

Kex - if I ever see you in world I'll be sure to say Hi

Reads what now...

BTW.. I am always just floating about usually on one of my plots somewhere, anyone is welcome anytime to come and hang with us, we are mad and quite nuts, but you are all welcome

Seriously, If you ever need someone to talk to, someone to shop with, dance with, or somewhere to just sit and listen to mindless, insane babble, just IM me

I want to love you all

I am my own clique, and I have every right to be snobbish because we cherubs are so superior to you lowly cloddish war-like humans who are descended from monkeys and pollute the earth with every form of filth you can invent and it's too bad you don't eat your young but hopefully you will soon push the button and leave the planet to the rats and cockroaches.

But I am very nice too.

i am a total snob. i rarely go to events, prefering small groups instead.

i'm not a mentor, or helper, or anything like that. i used to go to the welcome area and help out noobies but only to make up for particle bombing it.

I'm SO glad I met you inworld first, then, Pen.

Self improvement does go along way. Although I've never been diagnosed with Asperger's, I have the default personality, social skills and grace of a block of wood. I was oblivious to basic things like eye contact or that, say, "how are you" was in fact a cue to ask the same thing in return. D'oh! I'd say it's only in the past ten years or so that I finally learned (through observation and reading up on social interaction) how to successfully interact with others.*
Now I find the topic of "how people interact" kinda interesting. Particularly in SL, where some of the reguler cues to "how so-and-so is feeling" are masked. Yet people get along, have fun and make friends. It's like a new culture.


*although I suppose hijacking my own thread is a slight faux pas

I have been a resident for less than a month: a fact which is apparently crucial information since it shows up just about everywhere. It seems only natural that this should have status and signficance attached to it. So far almost everyone I have met in SL has been friendly and genrous with their time and attention (I am not sure I can genuinely say that I "met" the av who came up to me in the Cordova sandbox and--without any warning--used some kind of weapon to blow me into the nex sim) not to mention clothes, scripts, animations, etc.

At the same time, I don't expect to be embraced as a pillar of the community just because I online a lot right now. I am aware of how many activities I have become excited about in the past, only to find my enthusiasm waning in a few weeks or months. That blog for instance that I kept up on daily .. for three months and now rests morobund in Xanga land somewhere.

Being friendly in world is one thing, to not be would be to be snobby. But when it comes to posts on the forums about serious community issues, I think it's reasonable to wait to see how much commitment the player actually has to the community. As a relative new comer, I cannot expect my positions on the "g" word to be of much interest or to spark much comment. And I ought not--and don't--feel that SL is snobbish when this turns out to be the case.

That's a good way to put it, Olympia about your experiences... I'll just say... hey, while we may take the thread off-topic, it's kinda like one of 'dem flying cars -- they're comin' back to the road sooner or later, and thus the connection is made. Here we go:

Having social difficulties and struggles to acclimate in an environment with other people may be viewed as a type of snobbish attitude, when in fact this is not the intended case, but rather, a misunderstanding and barrier of miscommunication between "different interaction types". For example, some programmer types appear to be curt and brute while talking to peers, but it may be because they are accustomed to the efficiency of coding and don't see a need to glossify or sugarcoat their words. With Asperger's, I have noticed that there is a trend towards "perceived arrogance": that is, reciting of facts can be perceived as a type of unfriendly snobbishness and I can see why that might be the case.

There's my segue, mixin' it in like a DJ! And now...

New culture in SL? SURE thing... I kinda view it like some neohippie-ism at times, for example. Nuffin' like "getting high" (in many senses of the term) inworld, sitting in a circle with good friends, and discussing ideas both highbrow and lowbrow and everything in between.

Also, trying to explain SL to someone who's never experienced it CAN be such a heart-hardening experience. If my friends have questions, I'm like "Come in here, there's a 7-day trial and it's only $10!" It really is a culture shock for some when they came in here. I was, and still of the camp of "OMG!!! WHAT A TRIP!!!" when I come across something really dear and amazing to me, and the way things work in here may parallel but is not necessarily the same as RL.

So the right shiznit shows its place like in the cinematic epic The Matrix, where Morpheus tells Neo that he can only show him the door. Also related: in life, many "rules" for social situations are quickly tossed out the door or flagged violently around when one is in the heat of the moment and must learn to adapt dynamically.

Very true. It's ironic that a lot of percieved unfriendliness is neutral behavior, misinterpreted.
Some time ago I logged in to find huge chunks of my builds missing. The saved IM from "Linden X" bluntly said he'd returned my things to determine the lag source. No "Sorry for the inconvenience" or "sorry about wrecking the place". I was livid.
I looked Linden X up to complain, then noticed in his profile that he did tech stuff. Suddenly it made sense. Just like you said above about some programers seeming curt because they get to the point. From his POV, the sim was frozen, he systematically returned potential lag objects, notified the owners, problem solved. No animosity intended.

I used to get depressed seeing all the calling cards I had in my folder and knowing I wasn't comfortable to IM a single person on that list. On a bad day, I just start deleting cards out of bitter isolation.

The snobs are all in my head. I'm sure everyone is nice. Eck, I just dread that feeling of walking into a room where everyone already knows each other and I'm the idiot that doesn't get any of the jokes. But ... I'm already like that with my friendlies here. Huh?! What an interesting revelation.

As for me, I'm pleasant on a case-to-case basis. Depends on what mood I'm in. I do say Hello back I think. But I'm boring to make small talk with so new people don't hang around long.

Aw Lash,

When I have met you inworld you've always struck me as very poised and self-possessed. Last time I spoke to you inworld you were building, so I left you alone. Having read your posting, next time I might make a nuisance of myself, until out of desperation you finally have to ban me from the sim!

Dee,

<<I think we need a group for ourselves>>

I thought there was already such a group. It might be worth going down the listings and checking.

Torley and Olympia,

It seems to me there is a very large number of people inworld with Asperger's Syndrome. I would imagine the attraction of the place is that you can talk to a 'real' physical being, without any of the problems of body language that otherwise make it difficult. Smilies are the only facial expressions you are likely to see, and they are very easy to interpret.

The interesting thing is that this environment provides a great opportunity for people with AS and neuro-typicals to communicate on a real level that might be more difficult in real life.

Hmmm it all depends with whom i have to talk or hang around with.

With some people you can easily talk with , and with some you have to really force yourself to keep the conversation going.


I don't know half people on my IM list either.


There's only 2 (ya ok i admitt 3) people who i've had a serious discussion with and ended up being trashed and of course trashing them myself.