Estimate the Size of the FIC

bwuhuhuhauahahahahaahahah

*cough cough* ahem.

How big is the FIC?

Well there seems to be 2 FICs: The Paranoid FIC, the one that is hellbent on the control of everyone (mainly Prokofy though) and has control and connections of all the SL grid, and then the Joke FIC, which is gotta be about 50-100 people who claim to be a part of it of oldbie or content savvy players who think the idea of the first is really hilarious and are usually the ones targeted as members of the first.

But since the first (which I believe contains 0 people) spawned the second, i'm going to have to go with 0.

I went with "0: They're all Linden alts!" because the first "0" didn't make me laugh, but the second one did.

And so I laughed.

But what do I know, I'm just a simple spice trader and SLuminati out to make a killing on Tringo.

The spice must flow!

I put in for 12-48, but I haven't ever scientifically counted them. I think the Bearopolis on Athens or whatever that Aimee is going on and on about will pretty much show you the line-up.

When I first talked about the feted inner core in the thread about "King Kong in the Water" in answer to Pahoa Jade's "I Don't Get It and They Sure Don't"...I meant to describe a kind of attitude and behaviour. Not only of those posting immediately in that thread, but those in the game who I saw constantly behaving in the superior, condescending, jokey, sarcastic manner. It's an attitude that a certain type of person can adapt at any time, especially when in a group, especially when mocking another.

My theories and expositions about the FIC aren't about a conspiracy, they aren't directed against "all old players," they aren't about "the leader boards" and they aren't about "all these people who in fact were nice to you and helped you in the game". I recently had two older players come and harangue me for two hours about all this kind of rot.

The attitudes spread beyond the 12-48, but those 12-48 are certain personages who have taken on the role of the elite in the game, whether content-baron or trend-setter or tone-establisher and *they brook no dissent*.

You can always tell the FIC. They are the ones who come on to you with this "Let me tell you how it has to be" kind of tone. They want to set you straight. They want to explain how you have to do certain things to "get in". They come to you on your property and say, you know, you need to change your delivery style and be constructive, etc.

Or they'll do stuff like pretend to be non-FIC for months, and almost have you convinced, but then they suck up to FIC and do stuff like flaunt to you "I have a fabulous house. But I can't show it to you. Because it's on my alt. And I can't let you know my alt. But I receive people at that house, I have a steady stream asking to TP in" blah blah, letting you know their worth, their importance...and your lack of their calling card, and not even so much as a freebie bag...even though you show them your nice house or club. That's what I mean by FIC...and someone can become FIC when you least expect it by adapting that kind of snotty and snobbish attitude toward another player -- for no good reason except that they long ago absorbed the fact that they are in a small village, with the society very stratified between the "haves" and the "have-nots" and no one can be trusted.

FIC can also be packs of jackals shunning someone on the forums. First getting together in IRC channel and giggling like schoolgirls, and all decided to do a slam-book together at the same time ROFL. Then self-contratulations and hugz all around and lots of bonding together, going on quests, and slaying the dragon Prok.

Honestly, what would they *do* in this game that is no game if they didn't have *that*?

Or..the engineering of a Linden pat on the head...a Linden endorsement...to make sure that everyone know that person is blessed...and...well...feted. There's just no other word to describe it so well!

Before Prokofy gave them the Feted Inner Core, what did they have? Nothing. Lonely days and nights, not even in the company of other soul-mates as Aimee has pointed out, hanging out in even smaller, and duller, and no doubt more vicious cliques, without much to say...but now they can break through and bond at least those little FIC particles at the core together...SO much fun...bursts of creativity, t-shirts. caps, asshats and even a whole installation of art.

Laughing and guffawing like drawing graffiti in the boy's room in Sixth Grade. It all feels like Sixth Grade! And that's what it is!

Imagine someone making an artwork about the FIC...and planning to get it hyped and covered by the house organist...for days...laughing and giggling...of course this was *never* discussed at Linden board meetings or staff meetings...just like Andrew said "tekkie wikies" are NEVER EVER DISCUSSED NO NEVER. Perhaps the agenda item has another name, however, like "Communications and Community Liaison" but it amounts to the same thing.

What's it's most practical form? It comes with the forum smackdown of the earnest newbie...the hazing to which all players are subjected if they get into anything but the kind of adulatory and suck-up mode that I see several old TSO friends getting into now with the FIC...because they see which side their bread is buttered on.

The hazing and fierce filtering and heavy apprenticing all takes place behind a kind of cloak of superficial "Friend to Newbie and Friend to All" kind of RP. It last for awhile before you see the bared fangs. Then they snarl. You will have people shouting FUCK YOU at you and telling you they hope you never have any kids, you never reproduce, and if you do, that you won't send "it" anywhere. That sort of thing. Really, nasty, nasty, venomous stuff. That's the FIC for you!

The FIC probably thought it's most brilliant turn was the Shunning. It turned out to be rather shabby (they couldn't help peeking) but also very instructive. Just as soon as they stopped all their silly, mediocre, and vituperative posts without any shred of idea in them, the forum air cleared and adults could talk to each other lol or at least to one person with alts who has to take up like 6 threads to make the same one-line point about 100 ways.

What will happen to the FIC? Well, gradually it will dawn on them that their little red plastic phones aren't hooked up to anything...they will dial and dial...punch and punch...it goes nowhere...a dial tone....

I think for now I'd best not respond to Prok, as I'm liable to say something I'd regret.

Instead, I'll just point out highlights.







Okay, this I will respond to, politely.

Have you ever noticed that many of the suggestions made by the FIC turn into features implemented in patches?

Prok.....seriously. Don't you have like...a job or something? It seems like every thread loosely related to the FIC (and some that aren't) you jump on with the voracious vigor of a cat in heat.

Not even a small blip of "I hate FIC" or "FIC audibly sucks balls" but infact, long drawn out winded paragraphs of the FIC is this, and therein I feel this, and therefore I am this, and so on and so on.

Do you have to write an essay everytime the FIC is mentioned?

FIC
FIC
FIC
FIC
FIC
FIC
FIC

Now get writing old chap, we all want to know about how much you hate them. Again.

BTW

just wanted to mention King Kong has stepped out of the water!!!!!



















and onto the Dock,

<<insert condescending parody>>
the Polluted water being created by all the construction of Prokofy inc. was messing up his fur. So, Kong's Lawyers will be filing a Class action suit against Prokofy Inc. to help pay for the medicinal ointment used to clear up his sever case of the mange created by Polluted water.

In further late breaking news...Lackey's or Alts that is the question today in SW's late breaking story.

Yes, folks Lackey's or for a better term Alts ...primarly used for when a persons ego just is too big for 1 avatar.
Can you spot them?
Tucan can!
Tucan the Bird from Fruit Loops contests.
"They are everywhere Shadow!"
"I keep looking for those pesky kids and my Fruit Loops. But, the Alts are everywhere."
There you have it folks the New FIC is Alts.
Yup Alts proven to us today by our one and only Tucan Sam.

Back to you....



<<pokes Prokofy with a stick...Laugh ya' goof

You people kill me sometimes. First you drop the bait in the water with a poll like this, and then you spring on Prok when he shows up. And ask him why he responds. Then actually LAMBAST him for RESPONDING! To what you brought up! And he doesn't even respond to HALF the bait dropped.

As I've said before, the terms Prok coins - like FIC - have power precisely because they do have a ring of truth to them. To the point where even I can (probably accurately) estimate the number of FIC at 12-48. Personally, I think he should be proud of having such a keen and piercing mind, along with verbal ability, to lampoon and skewer this sort of thing. That's why we all read him, too. And you know it!

Like how right he is about how the FIC gives raison d'etre and entertaining drama to the game. Needless to say, it does fill a vacuum of sorts; else why all the constant thread started by others about it?

Read carefully, folks, though, to see how hurtful all of this "taking him on" stuff can be. It gets out of hand.

Now about the bears, Prok - that may be in large part a line-up of the FIC, but you know my bear is in it. In fact, I'm trying to get other friends and new players to make bears, too. It is way fun, and the cutest thing I've ever seen.

The whole "Feted Inner Bear" thing is cute - and gentle. I can participate with pride that my friend thought up the whole FIC thing (whether or not one believes in it). But while I was there the first night, I believe they were creating a bear to be named "Pork" and inflating its head. I asked if that was to be you, and someone said no, but I believe that was to another question asked at the same time - it was unclear. So I just said that I leaving before I could be construed as being a part of that.

See, that is the line that keeps getting crossed. "Feted Inner Bear" is cute and I can even view it as a tribute. My bear becomes a sort of memento of both the game and my friendship with and admiration of Prok. Plus it's a hugely fun idea. Making a mean bear that is supposed to be you, though - that crosses the line. I think the bear is you, though, because even though it is called "Angry Bear" and not Pork, there is a giant pin beside it.

I view that as a sort of compromise, since most people will not automatically know it is supposed to be you. A compromise to maybe gentle it down a little bit, rather than actually naming it "Pork". So I'm choosing to ignore it. I figure if people will compromise a little with me, I'll compromise with them. (Though it would be nice if they removed it.)

Prok isn't mean, and Prok isn't angry. Other people get that way though, sometimes.

coco

Feted Inner Bear=FIB

Didnt your mother ever teach you not to Fib you Fibber you...LOL

Whats the FIC?





(yeah yeah I killed more Emoticons, i'm a bad bad person)

Well everytime I see a post of Prok, I think, *SIGH* I am not reading that

Prok may or may not be angry, I don't know Prok. But Prok is mean, along with spitefull, shrill, condescending, arogant, self-righteous, and a whole host of other things. I say this without agression or malice... Prok has stopped being relevent to me since he went on ignore. I'm simply not willing to let this pass without correction. Regardless of what Prok might try to get people to believe, it has never been Prok's ideas alone that caused conflict. It was the manner in which they are presented.

Witness the recent, rather comical two-post diatribe against me for having the unmitigated gall to say that a sim was not "magical", but rather the result of the hard work of a group of people. Asigning all sorts of fun things to my character, until he would have you believe that I was some greasy-haired tycoon sitting in my leather chair (Well, ok, he got the leather chair part right) while I smoked a cigar, curling my lip and sneering down at all who weren't me. This was nothing more than than the basest form of character assassination, not to mention a totaly unprovoked attack on me when I was involved with a discussion with someone else.

I accept that he has the right to do this. The forum guidelines are quite clear:



But as long as the forum guidelines allow him to say it, I'm going to call him on it. Because the same guidelines that let him attack me allow me to express my feelings for him as well.

Hiro,

When people are condescending and sarcastic, I call them on it, especially when I see them ganging up on newbies -- something they think they never do. They're utterly unaware of it, I guess, or don't care. I see it time in again, following a pattern -- someone comes on here who is new, he gets the "treatment," there are all kinds of wild and tongue-in-cheek kind of sayings, usually showing how kewl and uninterested and hip the FIC are as opposed to a newbie who is indignant or passionate about something. Then an oldbie will do something like take something a less high-brow or hip newbie has said and put it in his siggy to objectivy and satirize, or take what was said too literally or flippantly and come back with a picture or a t-shirt, etc. -- there's a whole list of ways in which this belittling and demeaning is done by people who also pride themselves as being such a Friend to Newbs that they should get the Lindens to pipe them in to their private island from the WA.

And Coco is right, if I see a thread on this, it isn't that it is chum in the water and I'm too stupid not to give it a pass, I see it as an opportunity to yet again hold up the mirror and yet again hope that maybe people will see themselves and not act in this manner in quite the vicious, condescending way they have.

Imagine, Shadow getting on here and telling us that King Kong isn't in the water -- as if him literally not being in the water (he is still "out there" is the issue. I don't know what he means by "polluted water" but residential communities with lots of other neighbours in them which I've helped to create are something that "pollutes" Shadow's water then he needs his head examined. This is the usual self-sanctified, heedless, hedonistic, arrogant type of saying which we've become used to from the FIC.

Yes, I have a job, Artemis. Do you? And I haven't really collated everything there is for me to say about the FIC in one essay, as it happens, so I did some of it there. When the SL Herald writes about this at least they put the links to my posts. When Hamlet Linden blogs about this he puts a link to somebody else's blog who just thinks he's captured it in some kind of condescending way, but of course he's missed the mark.

Coco, you're well on your way to Becoming One of Them. And it's OK. I don't begrudge it. You need to get in with them or you'll be dog meat in this town. I honestly do not care if you go on to suck up to them, play the bearz thing with them, etc. I'll still consider you a friend, but honestly, you need to make your way here in this tough little small-minded town so do what you need to do.

As for them "going to far" by making a bear named Prok with an inflated head and a pin stuck in him, who could stop them? Why get in the way? It doesn't matter to me. Whether they literally or physically make such a bear, they've done their work. Each time they do stuff like that, it only exposes them, not me. My valid critique of them stands. I quite understand that tekkie types used to their MUDs and MMORPGs need levelling...they need bosses to beat...they need monsters and dragons with names like Prok to overcome and kill...it's their culture, and I factor that in when dealing with them.

If this were TSO, I might make a deck of cards of the FIC with the same kind of witty and sarcastic and cutting statements on it about them as they put out about me now -- as I did with the SSG, remember? But I have better things to do in SL, and I hope they will find better things to do, too. It's sad that the in-crowd can only united on the basis of exclusion, ridicule, hazing, etc. -- but then, hasn't that always been the way of the world? At least since 2nd grade, anyway -- which is where a lot of them are arrested.

This is what pisses me off about you Prok, even those that defend you, and try and tell ppl that you aren't all that bad, you just have to belittle and say something snotty about them in some way don't you. I am sure Cocoanut is thrilled she has your approval to mingle with the rest of the world.

Personally I don't hold anything against you, I don't entertain all your FIC ramblings, but I don't think your a bad person, you are, as is everyone, entitled to their own opinions.

But when are you going to stop kicking dust in everyones faces, come down off your throne and just chill with the rest of us?

Man, you people are like... mesmerized.

As Membership Director of the FIC, I can categorically state that the current roll has exactly 17.8 members (Toy, being so small, counts as 0.8, but we all know that she is a giant in real stature).

And, as always, Prok ain't on the list.

- Ace

Have I stopped being cute yet!?

I don't believe in the FIC, I don't think Prokofy is this mean awful person either, I just wonder though...if there is no FIC, if you who are accused of being in the FIC find it so humorous - why continue posting about it? Why not let it die and move on? If it doesn't exist why are there so many posts about it? Yes I'm sure I'll get flamed to some extent for saying this but my goodness, enough is enough already.

Please forgive me if I sound grumpy or mean, no coffee in my system yet.

Well you definitely have me mesmerized by your cuteness!

I think you're one of the few that doesn't take all this so seriously.

Too bad this attitude wasn't more contagious..

Heh heh. Gee, now there's a thought, huh?

...

It's the same thing that happened with the quote-unquote "Vast Right Wing Conspiricy"... Naming it created it, and it became a badge of pride as an joke to poke at those who came up with it in the first place.

It wasn't a conspiracy, it was an obvious case of groupthink.

just like the fic is.