Making An Ass of Myself - And Being Appreciated For It

[vakkotaur]

As a few may know or have inferred, I've been on Second Life[1] for a while. I'd have started as Vakkotaur but the Second Life avatar system was designed for humanoids and thus bipeds. Quadrupedal motion leaves something to be desired, even when done right. Thus instead I started with Orvan, and later as I knew more, got an additional account as Vakkotaur. And I met some folks I knew from before. A couple from RCFM, a few from faire, and then friends of those friends and so on. One curiosity was that I spent significant time at a goth club, though I do not consider myself Goth as such. The appeal, though, wasn't the "goth" of it (I'm still not entirely sure what that is, really) but that the intelligence level was such that while things could get quite silly, outright stupidity was met with mockery if not outright hostility and a swift kicking to Somewhere Else.

One night I speculated about creating an account and using a donkey avatar just so I could use the line, "*I* am a donkey; *he* is an _ass_." and this was met with some amusement and approval. And for a while I let it go. At that time, Linden Lab (the folks who own and run Second Life) had a system where last names were available for a limited time and then retired and with care you could pair a chosen first name with them, though it could get time consuming as the offered last names were not all listed at once and every try changed the selection a bit. I watched the list of last names, looking for something that would make some sort of sense. I had also decided I wanted a first name that started with the letter U as that was seldom used. There were many Q, X, and Z names, but precious few U names. The problem was, were there any good U names?

And then I saw the last name Graycloud was in the list of possibilities. I best explain. At that time, if an avatar did not resolve appearance, it was shown as a whitish smoky cloud. Gray was close enough to be descriptive. And the name Uffda Graycloud occurred to me as being a very apt joke. It seemed to take forever to finally get 'Graycloud' to appear and pair up with Uffda[2], but I managed it. And not long after I'd registered the new account, Uffda had a (bipedal) donkey avatar. Yes, the various obvious 'ass' jokes followed - but since I was setting things up, it amused me rather than bothered me.

It wasn't much longer after that that someone did make a pest of themselves at the club and got ejected for it. A few nights later I got to use the "I'm a donkey, he's an ass." line which caused amusement and was considered quite apt. I haven't limited myself to one account or another and tend to somewhat rotate through them, so although Uffda started mainly for a joke or two, he's still around, still a donkey, and still providing amusement. Even if it's just me being amused at being greeted at times as "magnificent ass" or such. Uffda might be something of a smartass, it's true, but Uffda is no dumbass.

<Uffda Graycloud>*hee-haw*

Oh, and this also explains the title line of this poll.

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[1] "If you think Second Life is a game, you've already lost." It has some game-like system requirements and some game-like characteristics, but it can be approached as many, many things that are in no way gamelike at all.

[2] If you are not familiar the exclamation "Uff da!" think of it as the Norwegian equivalent of "Oy vey" and the idea will be close enough.

Comments

[thecanuckguy.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see a drawing of Uffda! And, yes, I know what Uff-da means, I am of proud Norwegian stock (didn't think you were, but then I remembered you live in Minnesota, where everyone's Norwegian, even if they aren't.)

Didn't think Second Life was still a "thing" though. Cool. (Yes, I know it's not a "game", I see it as more of a "social network" thing.)

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I'll take a screenshot sometime. My ancestry is very decidedly German, but even in Wisconsin there was enough Norwegian influence that many things were, if not common, at least recognized.

Second Life might not be a "thing" anymore, but it's still around and going. Social network might be one of the better ways to describe it. It's sort of the visual IRC that had long been speculated about, but it's not just that by any means.

One aspect has sort of stayed the same. The "big" IRC networks try to be big and such and it's easy to get lost in them and have all sort of silly drama, whereas the smaller ones tried to be more "the corner pub" where a few friends gather. A similar thing occurs in SL. Some clubs try to make a go of it being (nearly?) continuously running concerns at all hours and hope to profit by it and get huge popularity. This doesn't seem to work and tends to attract folks who speak more in spammy n-th hand ASCII art than real conversation. That Goth club I mentioned? Small affair, only a few sets a week, doesn't try for popularity (the owner was less than thrilled with a Destination Guide listing)... and has outlasted several Big Name clubs.