Success Breeds Liars

On May 5, 2012 I will be celebrating my 5th year in Second Life and what a trip it has been. Many ups and a few downs. I have met and made some fantastic friends in that time and to be honest I wouldn't trade it for the world. But this is not a "happy go lucky" blog my friends... oh no.... it is a rare downer to the usually positive blogs from yours truly. The topic?... Liars.

I started creating in SL almost immediately. I don't think I was more then a month old when I created my first build which I think at the time was a 20+ prim frog. I kept building and building and working on developing my skill as a future content creator within SL. I was fortunate to meet many other creators who taught me lessons along the way.

My first ever "main" store was named Brave New Worlds and opened in December of 2008. Up until then I sold my creations in various malls with some success. But all the while just building for the fun of it. The story of BNW is here: http://shaynakorobase.blogspot.com/2008/12/brave-new-worlds.html

I have been a RL business owner for over a decade and one of the hard lessons I learned early on was "With success comes jealousy" and the jealous and irrational people will do just about ANYTHING to chop you down to their level. They even resort to telling lies in hopes of damaging your reputation. These liars are often failed content creators who have some talent but no marketing skills or in most cases they are customers whose asses you didn't kiss well enough so they make up fantastical stories about their mistreatment or in one case send alts after you to make accusations of THEFT! That's right... theft.

About a year ago I was contacted out of the blue by some guy accusing me of being a copybotter. The guys rant was comical... he just went on and on about what a bad person I am... but all the while I had no clue what he's talking about... not to mention I was busy copying every word he said in a notecard to send in my abuse report to Linden Labs. The guy finally gave up after a while and I promptly muted him and sent my report to LL. I thought it was over... I was wrong. A short time later an alt of this guy contacts me with a link to a blog. By the way.... the alt had the EXACT same typing style as the crazed guy that first contacted me HAHA! If you're going to use an alt at least make an attempt at changing your typing style LOL! Anyway... the blog was entitled something like "Shayna Korobase copybotter". I read this blog and my first reaction was anger but then quickly turned to laughter. I contacted Linden Labs and sent them all the information on the guy again plus his alt name and blog address. I even contacted the blog host but they have a strict policy of not taking anything down. If you look you can still find it today. Amazing how someone can write a blog about someone with nothing but lies and a blog host will allow it.....

Going back even further I had some crazy guy contact me saying I prim copied a build of his. A submarine. When I researched the guy I quickly found out he accused a TON of other content creators of "copying" his builds. A chronic complainer who thinks the world is copying his god like building "skills". Let me say this... when you build common every day things like chairs, lamps, cars, submarines and so on... you know... concepts YOU didn't original create... there will be builders out there who will replicate them as well and chances are (with secondlifes limited building platform) will end up using similar building techniques. This lunatic even included my name... in his blog. Look it up and in it you will see all the other builders he claims ripped him off. It's quite a humorous read.

A few years ago a builder I have great respect for was accused of stealing skins. She had released a huge line of Na'vi looking skins that became quite popular. Unfortunately she found out that the skin template she purchased to make her product was in fact a stolen template. But the original skin template creator pounced on her publicly instead of talking to her personally first. My friend defended herself and removed all her skins from the market and emerged triumphantly a few weeks later with brand new skins. She had no idea that the template she originally purchased was stolen but because of that she forever bares the mark of thief. The good news is she is still creating content and to date is a very successful SL business owner. After all... the cream ALWAYS rises to the top.

Secondlife has many successful business owners and content creators and with all that success breeds the jealous and dishonest residents who thrive on drama and negativity. But the reality is that the honest people always win out in the end. To date I am still creating and running my stores and businesses within Second Life. The products I created years ago that were called "stolen" are still on the market. If Linden Labs was truly given evidence to prove they were stolen they would have been removed. However Linden Labs really is powerless to the blogger. But that's ok..... Those bloggers are minuscule.

If you are a content creator in SL don't be discouraged. Keep building and managing your business. Don't allow these poor pathetic souls to control you. After all... action speaks far louder then words. Your actions as upstanding business owners and contributors to Second Life speaks for itself.