At random I wanted to hang out and listen to music at a human club. Human clubs are known for lots of emotes and dance music that you might hear at a dance club in real life. In my experience human clubs are great places for me to write, or to play neopets while my avatar just dances. If everyone uses emotes I’m not really missing out on much in the club chat.
Then one time while checking out one club, GOL Element the 8th, I was surprised that I was imed by the club host, Psique Delicioso.
Psique Delicioso: please change to human form
Psique Delicioso: lol
Grease Coakes: Why?
Psique Delicioso: no furries
Psique Delicioso: its rules bebe
Grease Coakes: So basically this club is against furries? (shocked)
Psique Delicioso: we not against anything hun
Psique Delicioso: it’s been like that since it’s been founded
Grease Coakes: Wouldn't you think a rule like that is outdated in SL?
A little later I was ejected for simply refusing to change to a human avatar.
The next day I stop in to see if lightning strikes twice. Sadly it does, but I was able to speak with the manager and I had this to say.
Grease Coakes: Hi Lava I was wondering why furries are not allowed at your club?
LavaIncandescente: cuz is in the rules
Grease Coakes: That's your only answer?
LavaIncandescente: we try to explain to people what to be allowed
LavaIncandescente: in this club stay rules no animal no furry
LavaIncandescente: please can your change avatar
LavaIncandescente: ?
Grease Coakes: Is there a certain reason you do not allow furries or animals? I mean I have lots of Linden to tip your DJ and host. My money is no good here?
LavaIncandescente: @--'--
Grease Coakes: I don't have any human avatars.
LavaIncandescente: sure but you have need change avatar
LavaIncandescente: for to be allow here
Grease Coakes: And yet humans have been allowed in furry clubs. Don't you think it's rude and racist to not allow furries in your club?
A little later Tiggeh, a furry who likes to hang out at IYC, and I were both ejected for being furry. Tiggeh and I both began talking with each other."
Grease Coakes, "It's different if they only booted me, but if they booted two different furries that says something."
Tigg:eh (tiggy.scholessinger), "They are technically racists."
Grease Coakes, "I was thinking that for example we can change avatars in SL. But In real life how would that look if that same club in real life didn't allow blacks?"
I think in today’s multi cultured and multi-racial world a club in real life wouldn’t get very far if they said no Africans or Asians allowed.
Tiggeh also mentioned a group that he was a part of called “Furs Againist SL Social Inequality”. I easily found the group on Tiggeh’s profile and asked what the group was about.
Kenshin Kazoku (forgottendreamkeeper), "We're basically a group of furries who are fed up with the lack of respect here on SL... "
Kensihn was also booted from a cabin hangout sim just for being furry and got this excuse from the manager, "We have a very specific clientele and we would not want to offend anyone by allowing you here." Fur is offensive? It boggles my mind why someone would find an animal avatar offensive in second life.
The flip side is why someone would be prosecuted in real life for walking around in a fur suit. As a kid I remember watching Sesame Street or maybe seeing someone in a cartoon animal suit and thinking what would it be like to be a cartoon animal or a real animal? So if it socially acceptable to be in a fur suit, say an entertainer at Disneyland, why not dress up in a fursuit on your free time? Amurtigress, a griffin friend of mine, showed me a picture of him wearing his fursuit to cheer up children at a hospital in his country of Germany in real life.
It’s easy to eject a pixel furry, but would it be so easy in real life to say it’s just the rules and not have a valid reason behind the rules?
Feel free to stop by http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/GOL%207/139/205/34 which leads to GOL Element the 8th to hang out as a furry.
Grease Coakes
After the incident that got me to write the article "We Don't Allow YOUR Kind Here" for SLN (http://secondlife-newspaper.blogspot.com/2009/03/we-dont-allow-your-kind-here.html), there was some difference of opinion on how to label such behavior. Some called it "racist," while others felt that wasn't the best description, seeing furs not as a race but a class of avatar. But everyone agreed such crude behavior was asinine and small-minded. And it just didn't make sense at all. Grease later commented it was like a Horde guild in World of Warcraft that didn't allow certain races to join.
ReplyDeleteTalking about the matter with a black coworker in real life, he thought it was nuts that someone in a virtual club would be booted because of what his avatar looked like. But the idea of calling it racist, he never gave an answer.
Myself, I call such stupidity discrimination and not racism. Though thinking about it, in a virtual world just how does one define "racism?"
This shocks me, although it shouldn't. Any time that I have talked with Lava I have never had a problem with being asked to change to human form. It is pretty obvious that someone with purple skin, head plumage, big teal wings, and a tail isn't human. Lava has always been nice to me though the few times we've crossed paths. Perhaps it had to do with the times we have crossed paths there were not others around. I highly doubt Lava even remembers me since it was only ever a few minutes here and there that we saw each other. It has been a very long time since I have been to a club though, and longer since the last time I spoke with Lava.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that it is bad form to eject someone just for not being human. This is part of the reason that if anyone stops by a meditation or misogi session I am hosting I do not ask them to change (and why I use a non-human avatar, whether a mer, kitsune, qirin, or any permutation of dragon).
yep. Ive seen this in action from another angle. A club that was in dire need of Dj's had a guy who was a furrie fox av apply. There were hosts that applied who were furries and all were rejected and not told why ( i was a host here at the time). The reason? " Because all furies are gay men and we dont want gay men in our club in anyway way shape or form. It looks bad on us". How Eff'd is that?! I didnt work there long...and it closed not long after i left.
ReplyDeleteTinies face this kind of discrimination as well, not only from places that ban furries and animals but also from those that ban child avatars. (We're small, not children!) I even had a hostess at a club once compliment my Tiny's formal gown and then ask me to change or leave. I left.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I went to a friend's DJ set at a new blues club he found about eight or so months ago, and they told him to tell me I was to change into a human, because "my furry automagically had too many scripts and was causing lag" which in some cases is true, But I had just knocked down that particular leopard to 25 scripts. I went human and checked the human they requested me to change into, she had Even more scripts than That. They didn't even have a script counter, and he said it was only baseless fear, so he moved on from the venue.
ReplyDeletein my town in RL u r not even allowed to enter a club, if the guards believe ur shoes r not expensive enough.
ReplyDeletethat´s racist?
is it "racist" not to allow male avatars in one of the typical fake lesbian clubs on SL?
I don´t think so, sorry.
maybe u just forgot somehow, that u r no furry or animal or demon or petite or whatever.
To address your last section there, from maybe to whatever, perhaps you forgot you're not a 6'5 superhuman who can fly and using only the power of a credit card alter his appearance in any way. It's a break from reality, why do we have to copy what already exists?
DeleteAnd your other examples are discriminating based on finances and gender respectively, not... well, race. I suppose the difference between RL and SL in this case is well- we COULD change avatars. We just have no desire to use a human one. Honestly, when I'm touring less furry areas, I'm often in very modest avatars. Ones that look nice visually, usually something like an aventity jex.
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Deleteyes, ppl on SL tend to copy what already is in RL.
ReplyDeletewhy r "racist" discriminations important and other forms of discriminination boring?
btw, plz check out and talk with the owners and managers of "Beast Forest".
Beast Forest allows only "beast avis", whatever that means exactly.
as far as I understand them and from they "style" of the avis I see there it means anything that is not "standard human" to them.
but they allow female human avatars.
male human avatars get politely asked why they don´t read the rules and politely told to leave.
Beast Forest: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cherokee/147/90/21
Hello there I had a simular problem , Me and my husband are horse avatars and we love to go exploring the world of SL and we came to a club with friends to dance ....we did nothing wrong we got a rude IM off some club owner dj stating " Can you change to a smaller avi or human ?" he then didnt give a second to even change and booted us .....he then called us nasty horses and we had been knocking over guests and were rude ! ...we hardly pushed or knocked anyone over it was so so so negative he acted like a rude brat and booted our friends too ! ....it was so upsetting ....and we felt so segregated and shameful for even going to vist there ...they did have " ALL IS WELCOME !" in their club description . ...its saddening how people are to each other in SL.
ReplyDelete