The E-literatti of SL E-lebrity

For a start I am claiming original use of the words e-literatti and e-lebrity, if only because I cannot find they have been used previously and I reckon they are kinda funky and might catch on. Perhaps one day I shall have a wikipedia article, "Magnus Brody, an SL avatar, real name unknown, amusing chap and originator of the terms e-literatti and e-lebrity".

Anyways, I digress, as is often my wont.

A certain Mr Lane, Jumpy by name and by nature, recently announced on at least two blogs in SL that he was preparing a list. My mind, as it weirdly does, sounded off with a little Gilbert and Sullivan, but I know that is just me.

This list, as post readers were informed, is to tell the plebeian mass of SL, we the great unwashed, those who, in Mr Lane's opinion, are of an exalted enough class to be on his list, of a social status high enough to be the people who are the e-lebrity or e-literatti of SL. A poor person's Forbes List or Sunday Times Rich List, as it were.

Now, although one of the things I have always liked best about SL is that we can leave our discriminatory preconceptions at the login screen, Mr Lane does have a point, even despite his expression of it in the most narcissistic and superior complex of ways.

I won't expand much here on my views of his, shall we say, personal charm, other than to say that he seems not to know that a King's court jester had a lifespan of indulgent attention which could be curtailed summarily at the whim of the King. He seems also to have missed the point that the class clown should grow up, because there's no real future career in it. He's a funny chap, despite this, so I have no wish to trash his inability to deal with that part of life beyond trying hash for the first time and thinking it's cool to drunkenly vomit over a house plant at a party.

Where he does have a point, like it or not, is that certain avis do become e-lebrity by one-off deed or continual fame or infamy. Similarly an e-literatti has formed itself by those who have influence in sl (briefly or more long lasting) and it comprises e-lebrities, the sl rich and, perhaps, regular SL forum posters who have gathered themselves a following.

As is often, SL imitates RL. I don't like it, but I don't like those who are famous and rl celebrities by nothing more than perpetual reminder to worship at the OK Magazine coverage of their sad, silly lives, but my dislike is not going to stop it. Similarly, my dismissal as pathetic that an e-literatti class has established itself in SL is not going to stop it either.