Smile demmit!!!

Second Life is different from any online game or community I've previously visited, not only because of the creative and artistic freedom it allows, but because of the people who play. While lots of differences come to mind, there's one player quirk I keep running into here that I've really never seen anywhere else: People say 'smile' without emoting. A lot.

I tend to hang out with master/mistress types, and when I first got here, I had numerous exchanges like this:

Joe Blow: it's good to see you girl
Joe Blow: smile
Wildefire Walcott: Yes, sir.
Wildefire Walcott smiles.

I eventually realized that people were smiling at me when they did this, not ordering me to smile, and I felt very silly.

Sometimes it's even a little more confusing... I often get something like this:

Jane Doe: were you a good girl today smile
Wildefire Walcott: ...
Wildefire Walcott: Is ma'am asking a question, giving an order, or both?

The weird thing is these same people know how to use emotes (just type "/me action", for example "/me smiles." but they just DON'T when they smile. I know it's just a very insignificant thing but I really haven't seen it anywhere else. In fact I've seen it so commonly here I'm beginning to think there's a single guy with like 20 accounts who keeps stalking me and taunting me with ambiguous "smiles".

Any other only-in-second-life observations? Post 'em if you've got 'em.

Hmm, i don't think i have ever seen somebody say smile.
And most people that i hang around with usually just use , or ^.^ .

This is a very real possibility.


Now smile. No.....like you mean it!

Uh-oh, more evidence for my 20-account guy stalker theory?

/me shivers and bites her nails.

Ah... but you did mention one more thing... I've seen people in other games use :) ;) and =) before in chats, but I've seen 1,001 varieties on those most mundane of emoticons here.

smile

OMG! Cybering makes so much sense now!

I don't like "smile"

Just say :) for the love of god.

Subliminal advertising for Brian Wilson's "Smile"?

I often use ~smiles~ to show action if I don't use /me

Its good for mid conversation actions. For an example:

Its good to see you today my pet ~hugs her close~ how was your night?

I'm sort of an oddball, I've used brackets for actions as long as I can remember, dating back to the early days of AIM. No clue why, and I've never really seen anyone else do it, but it's become habit.

Felix Uritsky: Hi there, how's it goin'? [tailwags]

That whole smile thing always throws me off. It's kinda creepy, cuz when someone says "smile," I imagine their face as a mask and breaking out into some freakish, mimey, clown, plastic-doll grin. Like the vampires in Anne Rice novels ... And no, I don't feel like smiling when I read "laughs" too. It breaks the immersion for me I guess. No offense to those who use it, I just take it weirdly because I'm odd like that.

I think some who use the smile phenomenon also played in There. They had that thing where you typed words and the av would react to them. Smile. Frown. Laugh. Kiss. It read unnatural to me. I just go MWAH! in most cases.



One observation I made in SL is how people look at one's stuff. I can tell when my friends use the right-click Edit when they look at my furniture, and then their hand goes flipping around over their head. It's a bit distracting but it's comical and oddly cute. I just find it funny anytime I see someone's arm bent or raised awkwardly when they rez stuff. It breaks the poise of even the coolest looking avatars, so that we all look goobery.

U R 2 so 1337!!!!

Now THAT made me laugh!

Actually, in There, you had to type an apostrophe in front of an emote to make your "avie" perform that emote. Example: 'smile, 'laugh, 'wink, etc. And, you could type one - three apostrophes before the emote to denote the extremeness of the emotion being portrayed. IIRC, typing '''laugh made the "avie" jump up and down, laugh like a maniac and clap his/her hands. *shudder* Wow, what a bad flashback.

I find using the emoticons (i.e. : ), , etc.), especially the ones which elicit certain emotes or gestures in our avs, much more natural in conversation; but, hey, whatever floats your boat.

That's what I use; I have two 'smiley' emoticons both set to trigger the 'big smile' gesture, so when I use one in conversation, my av actually does smile.

I supose its better than seeing "cheeeese."

You know, you only see that kind of stuff with the D/s people too. Most everyone else just uses the or , but all the slave girls and masters feel the need to write it out I suppose.

My friend finds that very annoying, when they go *smiles* constantly.

Is that what they're doing? Ah... yes, I wondered why my friends sometimes shoot an arm up in the air at such awkward angles (and times).

I guess another thing I've seen here that I've not encountered elsewhere are the AFK campers. I find it annoying for "Find Places" reasons, but I do think it's cute when clubs make people assume bizarre stances while camping. Dirty Deeds strings people up in bondage devices (and even added a new camping tank that passers-by can fill with water).

I occasionally get dommed-up and go hunting for campers, paddling them mercilessly for my own pleasure. The screams echo endlessly but no one complains; they are getting paid for it after all.

How do you pronounce that?

It's pronounced "Fhtagn"

I once saw this couple "bamming" campers with caveman clubs. I was laughing so hard cuz every so often I'd hear BAM BAM BAM shouted through the sim. The animation accompanying it looked all crazed and hysterical too. Loved it.

I also noticed that when some folks feel like it, they stand on another av's head. I've had that done to me a couple of times. I just go with it, it's an SL norm now. But I'm jealous since I can't do it myself.

Haha Lash, that's so funny you mention standing on others heads. That's something I've been doing for the last couple of years. If I'm around you enough, more than likely I'll stand on your head at some point. It kind of stems from the old days when we had no way of interacting with each other, so we bumped each other around and stood on heads. Those two things have stuck with me though, even with being able to hug lol. There are exceptions, I may know someone really well and never stand on their head, it's just a vibe I get .

There are simple scripted attachments that can do it for you.

*raises edges of lips*

You can:
- smile with an emote
- smile with an indication it's an action, like " I turned the frabinuzor off, at last! *smiles* "

But putting the word smile in a sentence is confusing and therefore bad communication.
If your mistress says " were you a good girl today smile " then you should get a smarter one.