Tenth Life

Not. Even. Close.

I have a sekrit alt who dips into SL fashion/freebies/hunts from time to time, and so I occasionally add a fashion blog to my RSS reader. (I use Google reader, by the way. If you’re not familiar with RSS feeds, a reader can allow you to be aware of any new posts on the blogs you follow by going to one central webpage or application.)

So, I came across Penned Down, by Pennelope Thiessam. It was a small, new, snarky fashion blog meant for a few friends until the behemoth Shopping Cart Disco mentioned it. (Just to be clear: I don’t want anyone to get the mistaken idea that I follow Shopping Cart Disco. The ensuing brouhaha was tweeted about by someone I follow.) Tenshi Vielle called Pennelope classless and not worthy of a link back. Needless to say, traffic to Penned Down went through the roof.

Penned Down is certainly not for everyone. The self-description?

Self Appointed SL Quality Control Coordinator

Welcome to my blog. Beware, entrance is not for the feint of heart. My language is crude, my honesty is blunt, it is almost guaranteed you will be offended. Please proceed.

Something I didn’t know is that there’s a large contingent of SL fashion bloggers who believe strongly that if you don’t have something nice to say you should say nothing at all. Pennelope chose not to play by those rules, and the comments on her posts have been mind-blowing. She also says she’s been banned from several sims. This post asking whether she should post a list of the sims from which she has been banned has an amazing 134 comments as of this writing. Reading only a few comments will give you an idea of the vitriol.

Several sentiments have been repeated and repeated by the commenters on Penned Down and on other blogs that got drawn into the fray (and apparently a lot of drama has been going down on Plurk as well). Some of them just really get my goat, and so I thought I’d reply.

But these designers whose clothing you say negative things about are really nice.

I don’t buy things because the business owner is “nice.” I buy things because I like them or they meet a need.

“This is a lie and you are crazy.” —Ivey Deschanel

I will, however, choose not to patronize a business if the owner is rude, annoying, bigoted, or any number of other things I don’t want to support. I can always do without or find someone else to buy from.

But these designers worked so hard on these things.

And your point? People work far harder on businesses that fail every day. If people (read: potential customers) say something negative about your work, you have two choices: you can decide you don’t care about their business, or you can work harder or create something different in order to attract their business. It’s more pleasant when they give only constructive criticism and do it only privately, but that’s really nothing you can control or should expect.

But I’m selling this for pennies/giving it away!

I consider 50L Fridays (and other group theme events) and hunts advertising, not favors to me. Hunts, especially, are a LOT of work and annoyance for the hunters, with very, very little payoff. If designers put crap in a hunt or make the object extremely difficult to find, they should expect to get a negative reaction. Even if you think of these items and events as loss leaders, they need to have some virtue beyond being free, or you won’t actually be attracting a paying customer. And that is what you want, right?

It’s my sim, and I can ban anyone I want, for any reason.

Are you running a business or not?

And finally. Sn@tch? Really? Really? Someone thought Sn@tch was a good name for a business?