Location: HippiePay Woodstock, Camping

My friend Tempest Homewood sent me this picture of a “Griefer” she was about to ban from HippiePay Island.  When you meet a loser named “Cracklord” you know you are in for it…this one ran a device called a “poofer” to spew images about. At least these were not offensive.  But they can ruin interaction between avatars.

These malicious individuals come in all forms: naked avatars who run amok, violent goons, lewd-talking losers or worse, those who spam others in Second Life with porn, or, as Tempest’s co-worker Huge Recreant describes below, a repeated shouting of the griefer’s own name in order to bring down the server in a particular region and spoil everyone’s fun. Talk about a misguided cry for attention!

By the way, Huge is Paul in the band SL Beatles. I’m hoping they’ll play a gig for my class’ end-of-semester party in SL.

Huge: My take on why they grief… it’s often impenetrable, but some people - I suppose one would call them sociopaths in extreme cases - can only get the attention they crave by making a nuisance of themselves… perhaps they need a virtual hug or something, but they’re too emotionally unstable to know that…

Iggy: like journalists

Huge: Others get a sadistic delight in seeing people get angry or upset - it’s almost a thrill-seeking mentality: to see how far they can push people. They can’t get away with setting somebody on fire in RL - but at least they won’t get arrested for doing it in SL. I don’t think any griefer actually thinks that way - but at the end of the day everybody needs love & acceptance on some level - whether they want to, or even can, admit it. I consider part of my job here is to try to communicate positively to everyone who passes through… yes - even griefers: which can be a thankless task…

Iggy: Tell me about the WORST griefer you’ve encountered.

Huge: [The worst] wasn’t a violent one with virtual weapons… He/she just cut and pasted their name thousands of times into main chat. It brought the entire sim to a standstill. Nobody could chat - and eventually the server crashed. THAT was not a fun day…

Iggy: I asked Tempest to look this over as well and reply later.

Tempest: My coworker Huge is right (as always).  He didn’t mention the worst sort that I’ve seen, rarely: a gang. We had goons with baseball bats once, “beating” avatars who did not even know they were being beaten up, since they were dancing while they camped and were away from their computers.  But others saw it and it asked for my help—the jerks were yelling “die Hippie die!”  We’ve had other teams and gangs, but those were the worst.  I’d ban them not just from our business, but from Second Life!

Iggster, you got me as to why these dorks grief others who are just out to make a few Lindens at our place. I like to describe griefers as 12-year-old boys with runaway hormones, who have lied about their age and gotten into SL.  That’s like the moron, Cracklord Aeon, whose snapshot I e-mailed you.  He’s such a noob that he didn’t even TRY to be subtle.  We nailed him quickly.  But there are the ones who scare me, who really have this malice going for no good reason.  I banned a male/female pair last week like that. He was RoboCop and she was a naked chick with a gun. They were yelling and shooting, picking on vulnerable looking folks.

When I banned them, she accidentally IMed me instead of her buddy.  “That was fun” was all she had to say.  You think someone like that would want to pick up a real gun sometime?

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