Bizarre behavior

I've been wandering around sl and working as a DJ here and there. Mostly just do this for fun, though it's a great perk to get tips so I don't have to purchase linden when I want to buy something.

But lately I've noticed this cut throat behavior by various people, mostly in the club arena, and I'm not sure why it happens. All I know is people seem hellbent on making Second Life not so fun.

I'm talking about Spies and Alts coming into competing clubs and/or malls, and IMing people, basically recruiting people out of the club while an event is going on. I've also witnessed spybots, chat spies, and other gadgets placed on club sims with the intent of doing some sort of harm to the competition.

I have actually been banned from certain clubs because I called people out on this.

Thing is I don't understand why there is so much animosity between clubs. Yes, I realise they all want business and traffic, but ultimately, why would that matter? Clubs don't make money, and traffic hardly matters.

Am I wrong about this?

I know a lot of so-called friendships have been ripped apart due to club wars, including some of my own friendships simply because I was guilty by association.

Is Second Life really about trying to ruin another person's fun? Is it really all about the almighty Linden? Face it, like real life, not everyone is going to make bank at this game. If you make a ton of money here, congratulations. But I'd wager most of us just want to escape reality in Second Life for a while.

Why all the bad blood? Why all the needless competition? Why try to bring down someone's club (or whatever other business) just for your own personal traffic gain? Why hurt people when they're just trying to live their lives and eke out some enjoyment from Second Life?

I know I'm rambling, but things are really messed up lately. I honestly don't get it.

Because many club owners want to feel they are running a big, popular place, and competitors pose a threat to that.

The trend I see is this.. A person owns a club, They have staff, They get into a disagreement and start their own club cause they can do it better. Then it just cycles all over again in both clubs spawning two more.. So it seems that each club owner/GM has animosity toward another etc etc etc.. It's never going to end.. One way to avoid it.. Find one club you like stick to it and when drama comes up turn into vapor till they work it out.

I've seen this behavior in other businesses as well. I dont understand it, either. It just goes to show you, human beings are animals!

Honestly, I think people enjoy leveraging their anonymity here for their own benefit, even if just socially. I understand where you're coming from. My own experience of being ejected from the grid based on a false accusation benefited nobody. Someone got a laugh out of it. And, to some people, it's the laugh that matters. (=_=)

I'm currently finding myself plastered all over a certain website run by the person/group/whatever that triggered my eject event. Do they have anything to gain by targeting me like that? Not on the surface. But, in their own circle of friends they get their reward. (=_=)

Now, add an actual competition of popularity, traffic, prestige, you name it.... I can see why some people would resort to being absolute turds. Anonymity brings out some sad facets of human nature. (=_=)y

It's a game, I think. Some people collect "friends" on Facebook, others like to play Pacman because they llike to see their high score displayed.
Like you said, it's probably not the money, it's about building something that is successful, in whatever way you measure success.
Unfortunately, some folks take things too far or they enjoy the drama that these things create along the way.

I've been 'recruited' in shops and clubs by such headhunters and, in each case, have replied that, because of their questionable eithics, I've made a note to NEVER visit their establishment.

I think its becaue a lot of clubs now seem to be Malls disguised as clubs, you rarely find a club that is not circled with shops or booths, or find the TP in point is on the other end of some endless mall/maze you have to walk through.

Part of the problem as I see it is people seem to think you need a whole sim to have a good club on now, so someone is putting out $295 a month and im sure they want to have some money coming back to defrey the costs. Couple that with the fact they cant rent out all those booths unless they can show shop owners a decent traffic number and you get the compitition to get customers to show up. The cutthoat attitude of some owners to get number up by any means possible.

I know in the club I work in we occasionaly will get someone trying to hand out notecards or offereing group invites for other clubs. but only maybe once a month. So its not a Huge problem yet in our neck of the woods.

This sound right to me. I'd be pretty surprised if many acts of underhanded competition were about helping the benefiting club nearly so much as damaging the targeted club, in some kind of vendetta, the backstory of which is known only to a bitter few.

This is not new. It's a rare thing to find places that are actually populated, and so people dip into the pool where there are folks to try to get some.

I witnessed this sort of behavior in 2005 and vowed to create a COMMUNITY out of the venue owners and workers. I do not support this warzone attitude. I have about 30 venues as members of CLUB SCHOOL and I share resources with whomever contacts me. I certainly do not share my limited audience - but advice is free. At times, I will even design logos and sound effects for new venues free of charge. I am of the mindset that there can never be too many venues. As new players join daily from all over the world - there needs to be as many welcoming free content as possible to continue to increase resident retention. Clubs are the most visited places in Second Life and will continue to be so.

When someone stands in the middle of my dancefloor wearing a club owner tag asking for staff - we have a problem. But beyond that the threat is minimal.

It's when I read about stuff like that I remember to be thankful for the club I work at.. It may be a small simple place with quiet days at the moment, but the owners are great people who love the club they built together and never take a moment to worry about what others do.

happens in stores too...
ppl coming in and IMing customers.. sending them LM to competing stores..
or just generally being loud and rude and trying to make shoppers there feel uncomfortable

i just see it as a mark of success... something must be going well enough to bother the competition

Truly... Someone was in the mood to do this to my store once:



It didn't bother me much, since I don't really have any sales, I had nothing to lose and autoreturn took care of things. But... It was still a rude gesture. It really ticked off my friends. And, if I really did rely on sales from the place, it could have been quite damaging. (=_=)y

See, this is what I find ridiculous. There is no reason for the stupid competition, since clubs make zero money. And unless the malls have stuff people want to buy (which, for me, is never the case), there's no reason to have high traffic. I can name a lot of clubs that aren't even associated with malls. A few of these were created "for fun" by people who engage in this clandestine and idiotic behavior.

What gets me is they actively try to bring down people who actually ARE trying to have a good time by saying "hey, you don't want to hang out with this jerk, why not come to my new place?"

Granted, people who would be coerced that way aren't worth having around, but it's a bit of a drag to see this happening.

There's almost a "he needed killing" mentality with some of the people who are at the heart of this behavior.

Seeing stuff like this, along with some of the other nonsense that goes on makes me wonder if there arent more underaged juveniles in SL than thought. I understand the anonymity factor makes people a bit less concerned of their actions, but sometimes the sheer childishness displayed is just mind boggling.

It exist where ever people are.
Heck it even existed in The Sims Online in beta and in other virtual worlds where you needed to attract new residents or visitors.
People would recruit "new" friends at popular houses to come to certain other houses.
Sometimes you hired very social, likable type personalities to go make "friends" then
bring them to new places to get traffic.
When we did that we tried to be bit more tactful, we go to places where newer people
with few friends would be hanging out but there was lot of people but everyone sort
of was anti-social but had high traffic and we go there make friends, get to know them and
say "Hey, I know this really cool place and friend who got this place. Do you want to go
met them?"
They say yes, we take them there.
Over time the hope was we would have whole lot of people who come over to our place
but it wasn't always the case.
Some people took money we gave them for recruiting and didn't get how to do it tactfully
and didn't return.
Some were too obvious about it and disrespectful to the houses they visited.
I see it here in forums too to certain extent.
It isn't that wanting others to see your products or creations, or buy them, or come to hang out is wrong, it is when it done in way that is disrespectful to others.
It is human nature when their is competition and greed to do whatever they can to get a head, it just to easy to do justify this behavior when one exist in reality that must do this
to get head.
I wonder what would be like if we existed in world where fun, connections, caring about each other, developing friendship, creativity, believe in abundance instead of lack
and value of everyone who Resides here was more important then being the best, the amount of wealth, number of people who shop or visit a place mattered more?
Perhaps it unrealistic fantasy but I wonder what that would be like personally if it wasn't
about being the best, the wealthiest, and popularity.

True, this. It is inane. But some people really do think that clubs make money and are intent on it. Oh well.

The only clubs I could see making money are the unique or rare to find games places and escort clubs personally.
But my friend who is a Escort says that most of female Escorts aren't finding jobs in those places where they are paying for advertisements or working at.
The gay escort places it ghost town, often unfriendly I can't imagine how they make a dime
at those places, especially their are places guys can go and get it for free.
Gaming place like Pizza use to be a few more I have first found one. Now the only I know about is Kahnis. I don't know if they make that much money though, crowd isn't big the host don't make many tips and rarely is game up to 1000 L.
I don't think places that host live music make any money, maybe the performers.
When my friend Catherine did live classical concerts sometimes she made pretty good
money but that was last year. I think at one point out generosity of her heart she gave me
around 15k in usd from 4 of her concerts because we shared land together but most don't do that with those who host them.
There too many clubs personally few I went to were fun but they weren't a place I would want to go to every day or every week. The lag bugs the heck out of me.