The Voices in My Head

I am the most famous rat in SL. But, as fame goes, it might not last long. My fame comes from surviving 34 days in the Big Brother House, caged like a lab rat. Prior to that whole experience I ran around SL as a part time human and part time rat.

Dorie Bernstein told me about SL. It sound wierd. She talked about islands and being paid to sit in chairs. None of this made any sense. I caved in and started in SL April of 2006. I was hooked. I enjoyed exploring and shopping. Somehow I got interested in the furry population and did some research. And that is how I ended up being a part time rat.

August I somehow got roped into participating in a building contest at Dreams. My prior building experience was next to nothing. Building was the next thing that I got hooked on.

I accidently fell upon the information about Big Brother and decided to go for it. I figured that building with others would increase my building skills. I figured I would survive the first cut, but not make it into the game. And then on Thursday, I was one of three finalists. Maybe I didn’t win the island, but I was the winner. I won friends, new skills and new experiences.

First up, the dressup I mentioned in the previous post is totally unofficial, and is not organised by big brother in any way. Instead, it should be read as a tribute to the strength of the friendships we developed over the last month. It is still not definite, but will probably happen over the next 2 weeks if it does.

For those who don’t know, Madlen Flint won. Congratulations, Maddy. the after-party was hosted by DJ Strangelove, who provided some truly excellent music. I’m sure the usual SL-specific news outlets will have more to say on that, so I’ll shut up on the eviction event and winner’s party now.

I was going to finally post my deep and insightful thoughts into the recent Big Brother event in Second Life that I took part in, but after some interesting discussions with the crew of that event, I have decided to hold back on that long file. A pity really, as it would have given me posting material for a couple of weeks.

Instead, here is a picture of a BDSM merchant wearing 3 prim cocks and playing the accordion.

(more…)

So the idea is that we each prepare a series of outfits, based on our own interpretation of each of the other housemates’ usual mode of dress style. I’ve tried to summarise these below.

• Madlen - jeans and black tee shirt, tattoos
• Rencius - silks or their male equivalent all round
• Nina - ?
• Pannie - ?
• Phaylen - diva dresses and beehives (i.e. ball gowns)
• Simone - ?
• Diva - ?
• Warda - arabian nights elves, or high fantasy medieval style
• Lillani - catsuits and cloaks
• Simon - scuba diving gear
• Lorita - ?
• Allatu - purple clothes, elf ears
• Kit - cute skirts, turtlenecks, little hats
• Golda - anything furry, preferably rats if you haven’t already got a furry avatar
• Gideon - ?

(Sorry if I had a ? by your name, please feel free to amend this list so I can pass it around again). Then, on the designated day, we all get together for a series of group photos… everyone dressed up as each person in turn. It may be a little difficult to do an impression for everyone, but let’s try to do as many as we can.

I spoke to King Venturas earlier this morning. For those not in the know, he is the prime mover of the Big Brother event in Second Life. Obviously I’m not going to reveal any details of what we said. But I no longer believe it is a rigged game. There are however, certainly enough coincidences to make it look questionable, and I still think they either made a poor choice of housemates, or didn’t properly control for pre-existing fame or notoriety within the Second Life community.

In any case, it’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. It has extra interest for me compared to most observers, as I actually got to know most of the other housemates over that first week, whereas most visitors to the island already know who they are voting for before they talk to anyone.

So, yeah, I’m out of Big Brother. It was fun while it lasted. I never expected to win, but I am kind of dissapointed that I didn’t even make the first cut from the 15.

Apparently the final total number of votes in the sim was around 1000 or so, which makes an average of 60 votes for each person. 60 votes for me would probably have guaranteed my place in the second week. Of the community groups I am in, one has 430 members, another 180 members. If even a tenth of these people had taken a few minutes to come and vote, I would still be in. It is a little dissapointing to see how little some people care.

• From something they said to me, I suspect one of the players may be a mole. This of course is standard practice by now in BB anyway, so its not too surprising. From other things I have seen, I suspect the final winner may already have been chosen by Endemol. You heard it here first; the winner has a connection with the Netherlands. That’s right; from the start I never expected to win the top prize.
• The whole event seems less organised than I had hoped. There is no real security in the sim, and it was griefed several times before they realised they can block visitors from running scripts.
• Endemol has apparently spent almost nothing promoting this event. Certainly not compared to the people still in the game. One player ran a full page advert in an online newspaper. Another was interviewed by one of the more popular podcasts on the net. A third appeared live on Dutch TV. That isn’t Big Brother except in name. It’s an Internet election campaign. Most of the players still in even have someone (or more than one person) acting as full-time campaign managers.
• A few of the people still in have used sex to persuade people to vote for them. Given the nature of SL, there wasn’t much to stop me rezzing a dancing pole, turning my avatar into a striper, and giving the punters a good show to persuade them to vote for me. But I have my pride at least, and I did not stoop to that.

I do of course have a few more things to say about this event, and I’d be happy to share them directly with BB, should they ask. But most of them wouldn’t be right to air on a blog until at least after the event is over.

Fell down in the first round of voting. More to say later, but seeing as how I had to get up at 2:30 am for the eviction ceremony, I’m going back to bed now.

Big Brother was pleased with our Christmas tree, but it wasn’t enough. Necessary, but not sufficient, as the saying goes. Today’s twist was we had to add a full range of Christmassy things…. Santa, reindeer, sleigh, snow, the Grinch, nativity scene, and so on and so forth. I think Big Brother was expecting these to be a little harder, as all that got done within hours of the challenge being issued. Once again I went mad with the particle fountains, and the rat made custom baubles with our pictures in them.

I’m currently in a campaign to rock the elf vote. If we can get all the elven communities voting, we can win this easily. Yep, unlike the TV version, BBSL is more like a game of poker mixed with popularity contest and well-oiled election campaign, even down to the so-called “negative campaigning”. It’s also become an advertising platform for those housemates who run their own businesses in Second Life. Vastly different from the RL version, but interesting in its own way.

Last night I had a chat with another housemate, and it seemed to be that the knives had been put away, at least temporarily. That’s one thing to be glad about anyway. Then I woke up to find she has accused me of stealing her lunch money.

Yet another day in the Big Brother house. As I expected, I woke up to find the task we’d been promised arrived about 10 minutes after I went to bed. Our mission, should we choose to accept it (and we do, right? Right?) is to build a giant Christmas tree. This tree will later be auctioned off and the proceeds given to a charity of our choosing as a group decision.

Seeing as we have all the co-operative skills of the League of Nations, this is a bit of a high hope. It rapidly degenerated into pick something to build before all the showy stuff gets picked, and hope your contribution gets noted.

I built the falling snow effects, some baubles, and the particle effects on the star. Shame the star is so large you can’t see it’s particles.

So today marks my first day back at work after the weekend launch of BB in SL. Fortunately this week, or at least today, is a quiet day for me.

Also in BB, one contestant had their first official warning, for having a particle fountain that put stuff everywhere outside our boxes. Just because we are encouraged to think outside the box, it doesn’t mean we are allowed to build outside those boxes. I can’t help wondering what her plan was with that. I wonder about everyone though - this is in many ways a giant and elaborate poker game, as well as being a blatant popularity contest.

This morning I got word that today we will receive our first real task. Unfortunately I had to leave before I could find out what it is. I hope it isn’t too hard or embarrassing or anything.

More random musings in no particular order, again, no names.

• One housemate had to go to hospital for something, and I suspect they may have to drop out of the running over that. I hope not.
• This being SL, it was inevitable I guess that a group of housemates would decide that sex sells, and act accordingly in an attempt to buy votes.
• Elf circle has come through and sent the message out to elves throughout the (virtual) world. That’s a lot of extra votes coming my way.
• My action overrider, a little piece of software that stops you from walking like a jerky robot and into something more natural, got lost in my inventory, and I spent most of today walking like a jerky robot.
• Still no word on what tasks we’ll be expected to do. I think our first task is survive the boredom, or maybe it’s a get-to-know-each-other shakedown. Hard to say for sure. That stage will take longer though, given that we aren’t all ‘in’ at the same time, unlike the RL Big Brother.