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The Macy's flagship store at Herald Square in Manhattan. Hamlet Au has put up an open-forum post asking his readers what SL people they are thankful for on this weekend that follows upon the heels of the American "Thanksgiving" holiday (also known in some circles as the "Feast of the Inordinate Consumption").
I felt compelled to put in my two-cents, which was as follows:
I'm thankful for:
- friends like Aldo Stern and Betty Doyle, because it IS a social medium after all, although not in the way that the marketing nabobs seem to think it is...
- all the folks in the rp communities I am part of, like Deadwood and Hogwarts United--just like rl families, it ain't always tidy, it ain't always pretty, but by God, it's good to have some place you feel like you belong...
- the contrarians and non-conformist voices like Prokofy Neva and Crap Mariner--yeah, they can be infuriating, annoying and oftentimes downright wrong, but sometimes someone has to look at things differently for the dialogue to have real meaning: if they didn't exist, we'd probably have to invent them...
- the Lindens who see the need to try to understand who their customers really are and what they want and need. I know there are those of us who argue that lack of such perspicacity is one of the things that frustrates us the most about the company, but you do periodically see evidence that there are some LL folks who actually freakin' get it...
- my good friends and fellow writers of rp-based serials (our odd-little sub-genre of metaverse fiction)--people like Rhianon Jameson and Headburro Antfarm, whom I can always count on to not only read my blog, but also actually comment on the silly thing...
- All the wacky and brilliant virtual library folks like JJ Drinkwater and Riven Homewood, who have have spent the last several years bringing to fruition their wonderful ideas about what the platform can do in terms of enabling widely dispersed people to share information, ideas, and stories...
- And finally, the funny folks at SecondLie...because, well...because damn it, they ARE awfully funny more often than not. Plus, if we can't still laugh about all this nonsense we're involved in, it's probably time to turn off the machine and go do something else for a while.
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I also wanted to add that with the growing significance of Black Friday, I am hugely grateful I no longer work in retail as I did in the days of my largely misspent youth. This time of year I always think of the occasion about 8 years ago when I made the rash and pointless decision to visit the Macy's flagship store in NYC on the weekend after Thanksgiving.
As I was slowly shuffling along as part of a massive, unbroken swarm of grim shoppers trying to enter the store, all sandwiched together like CD's on a cheap shelving unit from Ikea, I observed a young-ish African American junior management-type dressed in a rather nice suit, standing by a door that was permanently jammed open and repetitively greeting the slowly moving line of customers with a droning refrain:
"Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's..."
I guessed he had been there a while. His voice was a weary monotone, repeating that same phrase, like a scratched and skipping LP.
As I finally got to the point where I was passing the young man, I listened to him continue his mantra, but with one slight adjustment in the middle:
"Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Hell. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's. Welcome to Macy's..."
I hope that poor guy is having a better weekend, wherever he is now. And I sincerely hope that all of you have a lovely weekend as well, wherever you are.
~~~
