Classic Interviews and News Stories by Urizenus Sklar

Forward thinking Herald readers may have feared that Soviet Communism was decomposing somewhere in the dustbin of history. But take heart comrades! It is not dead, but advancing on new frontiers and has now claimed its metaversal bridgehead on the shores of the Jessie Simulator. In this interview, Soviet Premier Supercool Sautereau informs us that while Soviet Communists today have not forgotten their traditional concerns of economic justice, in the metaverse they have new causes and new enemies. Today the enemies include not just fascists but griefer groups like the PN and other racist fucktards, and today their weapons include not just AK-47s, but orbits and other high tech tools favored by 21st century patriots.

In this Herald Instant Classic ™, Uri talks to two leading Second Life ponygirl/ponyboy stable owners (PonygirlSarah Clapper and Alicia Delphin) and discusses the whole ponygirl fetish – what it is, why people are into it, and exactly how large is it anyway. Are there really 4000 Second Lifers into the pony scene? Only the Lindens know for sure. But more pressing is the ponygirl trainer shortage; is it reaching crisis proportions?

You remember Uri’s Law: There is no real life fetish which is such that it is not found in Second Life. Once again that law is tested; this time I wanted to see if vore was represented in Second Life. You know. Vore. That fetish that involves eating and being eaten by animals, either swallowed whole, chewed up, or otherwise engulfed and/or absorbed into various body parts and membranes and…whatever. And surprise surprise surprise: there *is* a vore contingent in SL, and they hang out and the Second Life Vore Club (SLVC, not affiliated with the SLCC) in a skyscraper that towers over the Castle Darkwolfe sim.

It turns out that this was the most dangerous assignment I have ever carried out.

Forlorn and despondent and more than a little suicidal after being cast to the street when the Lindens shut down Woodbury University, the never-say-die /b/tards of 4chan’s /b/ board (not to be confused with 7chan’s /b/ board /b/tards) have fashioned a new home in the sky over Eon (249, 102, 630), bending pixels with their bare little virtual hands and fashioning a place that’s one part Elvis on acid and two parts post-apocalypse New Jersey.

I naturally wondered if Uri’s Law would hold in this case. You know, the law that “There is no Real Life fetish such that a virtual counterpart does not exist in Second Life.” I searched ‘bukkake’ and found the very popular Bukkake Bliss club at Nampo 67, 33, 516. Grizzly Mountain, the proprietor, was kind enough to grant me an interview, and the result is another Herald Instant Classic ™.

Below the fold is Not. Safe. For. Work. By any stretch of the imagination.

I materialized on a dock outside the Merzcateer headquarters, and it appeared that a conflict was already in full swing. Sniper fire rang out and from time to time I could hear he burst of automatic weapons and the concussion of heavy explosives.

I was immediately challenged by a Merzcateer in a small pod-like flying vessel.

“State your business here,”

Meanwhile in the coffee room people whispered this and that about how Second Life was doomed and how it really wasn’t making money and it could’t be the next wave because of all the Goreans and yiffing little furries and event penisings and in the demo rooms they are more or less told “listen, if you come to There we guarantee a nice wholesome family atmosphere – and think about it, Betsy Book is even more wholesome looking the Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island.” Indeed, I’m not sure, but I think she made a conscious effort to look like Show White this week.

“If you could be anybody other than yourself, who would you be? I’ve always thought the best answer to that is ‘me’.”

I clean the wax out of my ears after that one. I think he *meant* the right answer is that each person should chose to be his/her self. But then he did say “me.” I daydream a bit about what it’s like to be Philip. Hmmm, I think I would get laid a lot more, that’s for sure. But that hair would have to go; I have *some* principles.

But then Philip changes his mind.

“No, I would want to be Richard Feynman.”

In real life, Emily Semaphore is 35 and works as a librarian. In Second Life, she roleplays as a 13 year old girl. Together, with Ian Manray (her real life husband, who she met in SL!) she manages Jailbait, a Second Life club dedicated to age-play – often involving cybersex between the participants. In this interview, we ask her about ageplay, her job as manager at Jailbait, what she considers the psychologically healing aspect of sexual ageplay, and what she sees as the troubling aspects of ageplay and society’s reaction to it.

Denizens of the internet have long noted that many online meeting places have served roles like those of the literary salons and coffee houses of the 18th century. Online conferencing systems like The WELL and Mindvox, MUDS and MOOs like Xerox PARC’s LamdaMOO and MediaMOO, and graphical social spaces like The Sims Online and Second Life have become places where robust and innovative political, social, and artistic ideas have been discussed and debated. In this essay, I will say a bit about why such “cybersalons” are important, raise the question of whether they are endangered, and ask whether there is anything we must do to preserve them.

In what is one of the saddest days in Second Life that I have known, Wayfinder Wishbringer, long time Second Life resident and ruler of the Elf Clan leaves second life today for parts unknown. Elf Clan, which boasted over 500 members as recently as this summer, has for all practical purposes dissolved. Also today, IBM Chairman Palmisano will address his IBM troops from a scale model of China’s forbidden city. Interesting choice of venue there. If you are interested in the IBM story, go read Reuter’s SL Press Release Recycling Site. If you want to read more about the Wayfinder’s departure, read Uri’s interview with him below the fold.

Stanford was a fairly sleepy sim until last month when a Second Life gang named ?The Associates? bought up two thirds of the simulator with plans to build a mega-mall. What transpired next was a series of battles, conflagrations, acts of intimidation, harassment, broken business partnerships, betrayals, and plain old drama, along with fireworks courtesy of some of the most gifted script writers in Second Life. It is easy enough to take the whole thing as war gaming or gangster/soldier roleplay, but that is probably a mistake. Arguably, what we saw during the past month was a genuine clash of real world values fought out on a virtual battlefield by virtual tools, and, perhaps, even a glimpse into our own future.

We are used to griefers taking sims offline, and it happens so often we usually ignore it. But this time, Cinda Valentino, an old friend of the Herald and leader of the Valentino Mafia (one of the oldest vigilante groups in SL), asked that we call “enough” on this one. In the following Interview, I talk to Cinda, who lost many family members in Nazi death camps. She has vowed that her group will be proactive in the matter, since, in her view, the Linden’s are unwilling or unable to solve the problem and apparently unwilling to seek help. As Cinda asks of the Lindens, “WHERE R THEY??… WHY CANT WE TALK TO THEM ANYMORE??… WHAT ARE WE PAYING FOR?”

Longtime Herald readers will recall Mrs. President Chomsky from her crusades against pet culling back in The Sims Online. She continues to be an active force online, having founded a new civic organization: Concerned Understanding Mothers Striving To Achieve Improved Net Neighborhoods. Its mission? Bring some shred of decency to a world that sometimes seems to have dropped its moral compass down the rabbit hole of Universal Linden Consciousness. Today Sparrowhawk Perhaps interviews Mrs. President to get the lowdown on her latest crusade – the tragedy of prim babies adopted by blingtard moms. Oh, and Mrs. President asks us to add that she is “no relation to that anarchist Norman Chomsky.”

Cages, fires, and guns, but “No Security Whatsoever”

No one is impressed by a giant sore toe of a vending machine standing like a 20th century rust belt monolith in a land of furries, elves, orcs and blinged out cyberpunk gangsters. For that matter, no one is impressed by a structure that is just sitting there. Second Life is not a billboard for rent, it is a place for socializing, and given that I have to ask myself this:

What in sam hades was Nissan thinking?

Lord Philip, following please find my report on the great success of our Second Life Pacification Project, otherwise designated SLPP-108b. I can assure you that apart from having a few furries and elves to exterminate, your Brave New World is pretty much a wall-to-wall simulacrum of the REAL world, just as you requested. We have many people to thank for this acomplishment, including those who led the meat-space anschluss, notably the young pioneers of the Electric Sheep and Millions of Us, and our new Beloved Corporate Overlords GM, Nissan, Sony, IBM, etc. The following screenshots will demonstrate just how total our glorious victory has been and how much more orderly your world has become.

But what were these corporations in fact contributing? Rather than use Second Life to create new and exotic things, the corporations brought their old tired ideas with them. Fantastic flying vehicles gave way to scale models of Scions and Sentras. Psychedelic builds and castles and mushroom hotels gave way to scale models of the next Starwood Hotel. Flaming jet boots gave way to scale models of Adidas. Golden battle suits gave way to American Apparel yuppieware. Giant snail races gave way to pathetic in world broadcasts of the MLB;s home run derby in a traditional looking stadium.

Following are Uri’s choices for the top screenshots in the Herald library (which is to say that not all were taken by Herald photographers). Some are included because of their historical importance, some because of their formal artisitic value, and some because Uri just plain likes them. Below the fold, you will find them in more or less chronological order.

In this interview we speak with TrannyPet Barmy, the gifted scripter and alleged griefer who made the Hand of Satan push gun and the DBomber notecard spamming weapon in addition to an advertising broadcasting system during his first incarnation on Second Life. After being permabanned for questionable reasons, he returned as AsterixLe Gall – better known as Foxy – and initiated the SuperFox TV network, went to war with the Cinquetti Mafia and worked on other projects before being outed and banned once again. Now he is working on his master plan SLAlt – a version of Second Life that he is coding himself. Is it the ultimate Blakean story of revenge by the author of the Hand of Satan? Remaking Philip’s creation in the image of TrannyPet Barmy? Oh the hubris… the hubris…

Last night I ran across a crew of 4 skinheads brandishing baseball bats, tire irons, and lag inducing weapons, torching a suburban cul de sac in second life. I invited the group – called Crew 88 for purposes of the interview – back to Herald Media Inc. HQ in Jessie for a chat about their motives, their plans, and their methods. In short, they are on a mission to take back second life from all the degenerate perverts (including prostitutes, druggies, furries, elves, Goths, goreans, emos, etc. etc.). So who’s left?

Gangster, but self-described "businessman," Marsellus Wallace, wed Mackenzie Draper today in a lavish ceremony on the island of Cameo. In attendence were many of Mr. Wallace’s "business associates" as well as some of the underworld associates of the former Ms. Draper (indeed, she was given away by Galante Family member Ciara Lardner).