Happy 2nd Rez Day to Eva TiramisuYesterday marked my friend Eva's 2nd year in SL. She had a huge shindig complete with treasure hunt & games (Tringo & Boogie). I didn't participate in the hunt but watched the others and read through the notecards trying to complete the hunt alone via cam controls. It was a team thing & my house was too chaotic to be any use to a team. I did dj that last few hours of her party while we played Tringo & Boogie.
Eva! Happy 2 years in & here's to many more! You throw one hell of a party!
The FIC TimelineYesterday I was trying to explain the FIC to Hawks. I know a lot of people say it doesn't exist or it does blah blah blah. I am one of the believers, they can deny it, cover it up, say I'm nuts, I really don't care. It exists. :p I realized in my explanation process that there was an FIC break down somewhere. A lot of nooblets or even not so new residents have no idea what the FIC is or was. Three years ago everyone knew what it was, who they were, and who was trying to be one. There use to be a Wikipedia def on the Feted Inner Core but has since been removed. All in all the FIC was/is a secret society of Second Life aristocrats and big influences in our community. I think the fade started right after flexi prims were released. Don't you love how I can timeline stuff with fashion? LOL Anywho for those that grew up in SL with the FIC, what are your thoughts? Do you believe they still exist & out of the public eye now? Have they faded into the backdrop as SL has progressed? I'm curious since this is a topic rarely discussed.
Bringing the Macarena BackOkay so Justin Timberlake is working on the sexy, Rosie & I have the macarena. It's time to bring it back. Killian thinks we're dorks with our "1...2...3" but we really know he wants to Macarena too. :D
You can get a free nicely animating Macarena from Animazoo in the free vendor up front. It's called "dance 10" (unfortunately not looped), a priority 3 - 29.8s long - easing 0.6 animation. You know you want it, especially after I talked techie. :p I'm sure if enough of us asked nicely we could easily get Dave Bellman to loop one for us. :)))
9 comments:
I remember the FIC. I actually started in SL in 04, and it was like this elite. I seem to remember the midnight city crowd being refered to as FIC, midnight city still exists although no one really raves about it anymore like they do the Block, Koreshan and Downtown. The FIC do still exist but you're unlikely to see them except at huge events such as the SL4B, the Trinala show and so forth.
As to definitions I always used to think is was the Beta testers, or those who had the much sought after lifetime account. If this is the definition then I'm married to one and does the make me FIC too?
As to it's current existance, as I said it still exists, but I think it's also evolved. It's become many little off shoots of cliques and their followers. You have the funky gritty people, you have the quad of Canimal, ETD, Last Call and CS.
It's even you and your mean girls hehe.
Umm I think I finished now...
Oh and just quickly, dunno if this helps
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=34957
Yah, I know Midnight City is so FIC but also so dead now. It *use* to be one of my fav spots for a rooftop dance but they recently turned off build. Bummer.
As for the FIC definition, I was always told (and this could be Urban SL Legend, iunno) that they were the residents that stood out to the Lindens, the talented, driven, leaders, hand picked, given free land (no tier), basically rule-less & perfect in LL eyes. I believe that's what Midnight City is... a free sim. I mean why else would they honestly want to pay for a sim that apparently makes barely any money now? It's a great build & was great for driving my dominus through, or dancing on a rooftop but with no build now... I honestly have no reason to visit.
I haven't seen the FIC "designers" (Aimee Weber, Mistress Midnight, etc.) spit anything new out since before the flexi prim. I could be mistaken. In fact I think Launa Fauna is FIC, and she's about the only one doing anything & that's not even regularly. Cristiano Midnight runs Snapzilla but I honestly don't think he's spit out an animation in awhile.
That's speaking of true FIC, the pioneers of it all. As for Canimal, ETD, Last Call & CS... I think that's a whole new breed of something, not FIC though. I can't recall a time they've done things Linden related. It could be my way of thinking though from what I always believed the FIC to be.
There's new cliques arising from the FIC's fading... the bloggers, the designing groups & quads, the techies, the scripters, and so on. Instead of one big Feted Inner Core holding them all. I think they've branched off without Linden influences & freebies. :D
That's my theory at least in a big nutshell. :p
Hehehe, it's hardly a mystery. Aimee runs her own company full time, and Mistress works for Rivers Run Red full time in London. That's why they're a little too busy to worry about putting out new outfits! Cristiano's Snapzilla is as popular as ever, SLCC continues to grow in size, and SLTrivia.com is the most popular thing I've ever made in SL.
We're residents just like everyone else, our avatars are just older!
Not entirely gone, like Flipper said, just busy doing other things. Also, check the creators on some of your Pixels in Pink swag from RFL this year. Mistress contributed some there, but there was sooooooooo little PIP buzz this year.
Very few people remember how the idea of the FIC was loosed upon the world - I do because I was indirectly involved in it.
Ravenglass, the sim in which Prokofy Neva started Ravenglass Rentals, was still shiny and new at the time and I was working on some building there. (the entry for that build in my SL portfolio says "finished December 2004", and would put the event some time before that). Across the water from the Ravenglass properties was an island with a clique of a few artist/content creator friends (I don't think any of them are still considered fameous or I'd be more likely to remember their names). To make a long story shorter there was a minor spat over sculptures the artists were putting up in the water on their side, and it would have stayed a minor spat if one of them hadn't gone to the official forums and whined about it (without mentioning names or giving a lot of details) and a bunch of people unthinkingly jumped into posts in support of her.
Then Prokofy replied in the thread and it was there the first public instance of the term "feted inner core" was used, at least partly due to their cliqueish behavior, partly in the sense of an "old guard" looking out for each other. People started out offended (a lot of people thought Prok meant "fetid", meaning smelly), then people started going "ha ha, whacky conspericy", and from there it caught like wildfire. People formed FIC groups - meant jokingly at first - then started to identify as FIC themselves and all the false secritivity perpetuated the idea further. Meanwhile people who felt alienated, disenfranchised or unlistened to for whatever reason found the FIC a usefull scapegoat, whether or not they understood what it was.
So my answer to "what is the FIC" would be best summed up as "It's a self-fufilling prophescy". It never would have existed if the meme hadn't spread and taken root. It's a category of people: few understand what it means but sort people in and out of it anyway.
What it's not: It's not all oldbies and beta testers, it's not all content creators, it's not all people who have free land from Lindens (they don't: early in SL's history it was possible to buy a "Lifetime Membership" for about $200 and recieve 4960m^2 of tier for life. This was a big risk when SL was still in its infancy and its future uncertian, safe to say that risk has been well rewarded by now for most.)
I do think one thing about the so-called FIC is true: a lot of them felt threatened by the growth of mass culture in SL - the AOLers, the lulz, the haxors, the clubbers, people who didn't fit SL's original demographic of geek and artist types. A single "SL Community" ceased to exist and the world became fragmented and it was no longer the same comfortable playground they once knew.
But as people have said, many of the oldbies people most associate with "FIC" have gone into the RL-to-SL dev business. Others have left or gone private.
And here's the thread that started it all: http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=31559
Elle has recounted some of the history, but Pahoa Jade, the person who put down the kitschy Starax sculpture in the water smack in the view of one of my buyers on Ravenglass wasn't some unknown, she was very much part of the forums-FIC, which is how the term started: simply, anyone, particularly certain oldbies and their newbie apprentices, who were given a pass by the Lindens and could get away with more on the forums, sometimes grossly violating the TOS, but never facing discipline.
Much later, I was able to find out much more about this group of people:
o some were the alts of Lindens
o some were close friends of Lindens when they were residents, before they became Lindens or in their early Linden days(like FlipperPA was close friends with Jeska Linden)
o some had signed NDAs with the Lindens and were on inside projects with them long before the corporative invasion of 2006-2007 (i.e. the Bedazzled group).
It's funny to think of the flexiprim killing the FIC like video killed the radio star, but there's something to it -- some of those prim-a-donnas just never adapted to flexiprims, let alone sculpties.
More to the point, however, is that the FIC hardly faded. It expanded and grew.
Today, it is an appallingly institutionalized corporativist structure that emulates some of the worst authoritarian regimes of RL today and historically.
The following programs are all examples of the institutionalization of a privileged, skilled class that is granted more access to publicity -- and therefore economic benefit -- by Linden Lab:
Mentors -- long time privileged group, get to sling newbies landmarks to their stores in the welcome areas and bring them into their commerce circuits
SL Certified -- group of those certified in certain skills by LL
SL Views -- select group of residents brought to SF all expense paid to talk off the record under NDA with the Lab about upcoming features
Architectural Working Group -- contains IBM programmers and others also brought to the Lab and involved in private and semi-private meetings to discuss and implement open-source future of SL
LDPW -- Linden-made residential builders' corps of "moles" making exclusive urban sims for sale at auction
Showcase -- venues and projects selected by Linden for display on the Web site and soon to be offered as a tab on the UI
...not to mention the various metaversal service agencies spun off from SL by either former Lindens or former/current FIC. That's exactly the phenom referenced by Mistress going to work for RRR, etc.
All of these special groups aren't merely about "they're talented so they get to do this" -- because their talent isn't judged by any impartial judge or by the community at large, but by insiders' groups. More to the point, they all derive considerable reputation enhancement and publicity and therefore economic benefit ultimately precisely because the Lindens steer them to the media and help them out considerable, ignoring others.
None of these groups have an open, fair, impartial entry procedure whereby anyone who fits an open and transparent set of criteria can joint through registration; instead, they can only be accepted by discretion of Lindens.
Many people want to pretend the FIC has died so as not to think about the awful implications of all this special favouritism for the "your world/your imagination" slogan.
Prokofy Neva
Elle has recounted some of the history, but Pahoa Jade, the person who put down the kitschy Starax sculpture in the water smack in the view of one of my buyers on Ravenglass wasn't some unknown, she was very much part of the forums-FIC, which is how the term started: simply, anyone, particularly certain oldbies and their newbie apprentices, who were given a pass by the Lindens and could get away with more on the forums, sometimes grossly violating the TOS, but never facing discipline.
Much later, I was able to find out much more about this group of people:
o some were the alts of Lindens
o some were close friends of Lindens when they were residents, before they became Lindens or in their early Linden days(like FlipperPA was close friends with Jeska Linden)
o some had signed NDAs with the Lindens and were on inside projects with them long before the corporative invasion of 2006-2007 (i.e. the Bedazzled group).
It's funny to think of the flexiprim killing the FIC like video killed the radio star, but there's something to it -- some of those prim-a-donnas just never adapted to flexiprims, let alone sculpties.
More to the point, however, is that the FIC hardly faded. It expanded and grew.
Today, it is an appallingly institutionalized corporativist structure that emulates some of the worst authoritarian regimes of RL today and historically.
The following programs are all examples of the institutionalization of a privileged, skilled class that is granted more access to publicity -- and therefore economic benefit -- by Linden Lab:
Mentors -- long time privileged group, get to sling newbies landmarks to their stores in the welcome areas and bring them into their commerce circuits
SL Certified -- group of those certified in certain skills by LL
SL Views -- select group of residents brought to SF all expense paid to talk off the record under NDA with the Lab about upcoming features
Architectural Working Group -- contains IBM programmers and others also brought to the Lab and involved in private and semi-private meetings to discuss and implement open-source future of SL
LDPW -- Linden-made residential builders' corps of "moles" making exclusive urban sims for sale at auction
Showcase -- venues and projects selected by Linden for display on the Web site and soon to be offered as a tab on the UI
...not to mention the various metaversal service agencies spun off from SL by either former Lindens or former/current FIC. That's exactly the phenom referenced by Mistress going to work for RRR, etc.
All of these special groups aren't merely about "they're talented so they get to do this" -- because their talent isn't judged by any impartial judge or by the community at large, but by insiders' groups. More to the point, they all derive considerable reputation enhancement and publicity and therefore economic benefit ultimately precisely because the Lindens steer them to the media and help them out considerable, ignoring others.
None of these groups have an open, fair, impartial entry procedure whereby anyone who fits an open and transparent set of criteria can joint through registration; instead, they can only be accepted by discretion of Lindens.
Many people want to pretend the FIC has died so as not to think about the awful implications of all this special favouritism for the "your world/your imagination" slogan.
Prokofy Neva
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