I don't usually single people out by name. Even the Scourgemobile Queen has had her name seldom brought up since she has not formed a public forum or published herself (or himself), but there's one who's made his mind up about things in a very OCD way and he continues to hurt good people, and that just makes me angry. It's time we re-visited Victor to see what he's been up to...
Thought I saw a better Victor emerge during Relay season, when this past weekend he kicked a Doctor Who fan from one of his groups under some claim that the poor resident may have been personally acquainted w/New London's owner, Kat Kassner. Maybe he saw their group in their profile? Maybe he missed his meds? Maybe he was nice for too long a stretch and had to make like some creep who ties their dog carrier on top of their car before taking the freeway at 75mph. It's anyone's guess how he came to such a conclusion but the notion had no real foundation. I understood this confused the resident - he did this to a Doctor Who fan without considering how he makes the Doctor Who community or Second Life in general look by this action.
Many people were watching and logging the exchange. Anything one says outside private messaging is prone to scrutiny (or in Victor's case: prone to elaborate embellishment to accommodate a twisted view & win favor over the blessedly ingnorant). Rumors have arisen that he kick-bans people from his sim investments and groups when anyone corrects him and defends NLV management - remember he's been sitting on libelous claims for going on a year and a half. He estate banned me from Katrina last year unilaterally and another owner had to remove the ban so I could party w/Hands of Omega and shop at their mall. Katrina has since gone. Although their primary attractions have changed, New London remains the oldest presence to accommodate Doctor Who fans. Common sense dictates that something around over 4 years doesn't get that way by sucking. Victor will never be god's gift to Doctor Who fandom - no individual could - but at least New London doesn't pretend to be, yet still they're the best place for it.
The truth is New London is run by good people who work on their sim full-time to keep it interesting and make Second Life residents both new and old feel welcome. They only think of Victor when someone brings him up in a group convo. These don't last long, as mudslinging rival products or communities is not welcome and aggressively discouraged in their groups. Would be nice to see others of the TARDIS and Doctor Who communities in Second Life follow suit, but there's a lot of unfounded yammer (much of it aping Victor's blog posts) about New London in various Who & TARDIS groups. Whatever disagreement Victor has with Kat is none of anyone else's issue, except that he makes it so and continues to drive this position forward with continued slander, defamation, and guilt by association ruckus.
Regarding the latter, I related that he had allegedly made some rant over a blog post of mine last year. I had objected (in the blog post. It needs to be said I had never acted out of turn on the grid) to inappropriate discussion in New Babbage group chats without naming names - this just weeks after a meeting over how they could attract and retain new citizens to ensure their longevity. I'll always maintain that if you want to avoid alienating people attracted to Victorian fantasy, don't talk openly about chasing after someone and using sexual innuendo, especially if their rump is that of a goat; not everybody's into forbidden fetish and what you do is your business. Get a freakin' room. The Victorians did and said they didn't - that was the POINT of their repressed culture and why it attracts a subculture. NB like many Steampunk communities sits on a Victorian foundation. I've been told "we're not like that" with regard to their reputation for strictness, but their theme's flexibility remains a whim reserved for moderators and admins. The issue was on only a few who behaved inappropriately and not necessarily their subject Victor. From what I understand Victor's rant painted me as some sort of furry-hater, which is a bit laughable - unless you either live under a rock and don't know me and my love of diversity (responsible & considerate nevertheless), or are dependent on Victor in some way and can't laugh it off. And let's face it: many hardcore RPers live under a rock by choice and only know what they see in an estate or what they're told by people of position. That's not a bad thing if everything performed is by the rules and part of the role. So many NB locales - not just Victor's and those of the instigators but those of total strangers - wore banlines as a result of that one comment. By the way, in a true gesture of hipocracy, Victor has not once shown his persona's actual form on web TV's Designing Worlds; he always represents New Babbage and his sector of Doctor Who fandom on their show as a full biped human. He appears to be publicly ashamed of his hybrid form.
The concept of customer or follower retention is truly lost on him. Does he really think his droning inflection is going to keep opened doors open (I know - it's almost hard to believe I said it, but the fact is some Americans have an irresistible fascination over foreign accents. Remember that Fran Drescher based a hit sitcom around the phenomenon), or that respect is secured by accumilating an army of dependents? It doesn't take much looking to see he's left a trail of burned bridges behind him.
There's one thing for sure: charities may be grateful for the money, but philanthropy does not redeem a dark soul. Never has and never will. If anyone believes they can go around manipulating, hurting, ruining and slandering people, then make up for it all by helping the oblivious, they're a sad & sorry lot and destined for some major karma.
As much as someone like that feels they're better, more popular or powerful, or more well off than anyone else, I truly pity them. Victor could be what the unsuspecting think of him and truly great, but he has built himself into a shallow and low individual on one side with another side configured with those who only know charitable gestures or DJing. I'd rather like him and admire him, but much of his behavior disgusts me and it's just a shame so many people listen to his drivel and think badly of better people without knowing the truth about anything.
Unlike Victor, I'm prone to faults like a real human being, and I take responsibility for my actions and own up to them instead of build a tower of lies to feel better about myself. Also unlike him, I genuinely mean well when I do a good deed or help somebody and nothing I do on that scale has an ulterior motive, be it to win favor, gather up followers, or prove I'm better than anyone else. Well, except in cartooning, which I'm great at (and which is now on hold since I have probs w/my hand). Drama makes anybody wallowing in it ugly. Eventually people you've won over who see your true nature either drop you from consideration or reluctantly work with you because they're stuck until there's an opportunity to sever ties. I wouldn't want friends or allies on that basis. Or maybe they're afraid he'll blog bullshit and halftruths about them like he has about me, Archangel, New London, and lord only knows who else. I'd never want to be someone like Victor.
The sad thing is, there are Victors in every society. This should be a lesson to anybody how not to get around in this world, a role model of how not to do things.
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When I was working at Blockbuster Video, from time to time we'd get a customer who didn't want to pay his late fees, so he'd leave with the remark, "I'll just go shop at Hollywood Video!" Now, we could have assumed, like a certain moron is driven to do, that the competition had sent these people over just to stir up trouble. And we could have then launched some kind of all-out war against Hollywood Video that included banning anyone from our stores who dared mention the name of the competition. But we would have been complete morons for doing so, and there's a very good reason why: blaming everything on the competition and taking our frustrations out on the customers would have been suicide for business. People got frustrated because they perceived us as not doing our jobs, because management was incompetent and failed to adequately staff shifts and train employees. (It didn't help that our particular store was in a ghetto neighborhood full of customers who knew they could take advantage of our being short-handed to sneak their late videos back onto the shelf so they could foist the blame for late fees on us, steal merchandise, and were dumb enough to think that if the night deposit box was full they could simply leave their cassettes outside and no one would take them.)
ReplyDeleteThe point is, blaming others for one's own incompetence and refusal to communicate properly is an idiot's way of doing things. And those idiots insist on making everyone else suffer for their shortcomings.
yeh and he probably did the same thing to them and eventually had to find a third place, right?
ReplyDeleteYeah, the customers we got, being the ghetto trash they were, would frequently do things like drop off tapes, games, and DVDs from the wrong stores in our night drop box, and not just different Blockbuster stores, but different chains as well. What kind of idiot thinks he can return a movie rental to a different chain? Obviously the kind that actually did it.
DeleteOf course, Blockbuster Video had its own problems beyond thieving, imbecilic customers. They tried to screw Universal Studios out of money and as a result Universal wouldn't let the chain rent out its merchandise anymore, and Blockbuster's insistance on pushing DirecTV meant that it would eventually push itself out of business. And it did just that. Stores began closing a few years ago and now there are hardly any.
I know. The one 2 blocks from me is almost empty. They have a reputation of offering edited versions of movies. Nobody wants to rent that.
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