I wish to thank all of you who have IM'd me their thanks for bringing this situation to light. From those in the group, to my friends and to complete strangers, it lifted my spirits and and bolstered my resolve to pursue some sort of justice for this issue.
No one ever said that ANY of us HAD to like any of the 3 designers hosting the competition. Their ability to be personable as an AV was not required, though I suspect was expected by most of us. hy and Calico managed to be honest, sweet and supportive. Not so Simone.
All three make their living earning SL Lindens converted to RL dollars. The models earn just clothing. Once drawn, it costs nothing to reproduce that blouse, dress, hairdoo, there are no manufacturing runs, bolts of cloth to be ordered, etc. None of the RL issues of merchandise production.
Once launched a piece of clothing, or whatever is created, is pure profit. Stick a pic in a vendor ... cha ching!
What does cost is advertising your place of business. In SL traffic equates to money. The more traffic your area has, the more likely it comes to the top of a search of Places. Since people have a tendency to go to the more high trafficed areas they find, being up in the seach food chain is much sought after.
Simone told me that when models's events were not going on her store was dead., traffic practically nil. The many times I popped into the store NOT during a scheduled event I saw an average of 3-5 customers wandering the aisles.
With the models there during the events by virture of forced attendance, the traffic numbers went up and so did her search ranking. So visa vi our work, our TIME, in some cases our real dollar investment, traffic was raised for Simone.
Models became promoters, event coordinators and campers for Simone. And finally UNPAID promoters, event coordinators and campers for Simone.
The models were there to promote Simone! Design, not to merely model in shoots and on the catwalk, but to devote many hours in organizing weekly events. Promotion, inception, design, attending. This involved the TIME and money needed for artwork for posters and event props, building, buying of or creation of them. Time out of the models lives and game time, money out of their virtual pockets and RL credit cards, to receive digital goods that cost the designers nothing, or as in the case I have brought to the public eye, NOT RECIEIVING DIGITAL GOODS they were entitled to.
Personally, I am lucky that I don't have to give a hoot about the actual real world cash outlay from day 1 of this competition to it's dissolution last week, it is really a minor annoyance in the big picture of things.
What I will never be able to get back is the TIME that I and so many other models gave to this "exercise in futility".
TIME = life.
Over 4 months of our collective gaming TIME, which is a considerable amount of TIME to freely give to someone making Linden and real world dollars/money off me and many others. This TIME involved 90 models, then later dwindling down to 62 models giving their TIME, their dedication. Sustaining through the stress to continue to put out day after day, week after week.
For what?
Nothing?
Clothing was started to be withheld until she could weed out the "dead weight". Then it just became "No!!!" when asked if she would be distributing the releases.
Is this fair?
Is this living up to the competition?
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
I do not care if you are a Simone fan or hate her guts. I do not care if you love her clothes or hate them. I do not care if you think I suck for writing about this.
What I do care about is the fair and equitable treatment of the 90 models of the competition she started and ended.
I do care that these 90 models invested their TIME, money and considerable in game and real world collective talents to earn real US DOLLARS for Simone who in turn could not even give these models a digital texture map to adorn their avatars with.
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4 comments:
Simone failed to live up to the competition before the "winners" were even announced. When it was changed from a "model" comp to an event planner/hostess comp. I did join a group and tried for a few days, but I was miserable... lol. Time for me to bail out. When SL stops being fun and becomes work its time to find something else to do.
I have to give everyone that made it to the end HUGE props for putting up what you did.
And I do remember you from the comp. I think it was in round 3 they had you stand on the stage for a while after they were done talking to you. I was impressed and obviously they (the judges) were too.
Dorra Debs
Hi Dorra...
Thank you for the kudos. :)
I hvae to say that I was given a notecard recently from one of the "ladies in the loop" that showed the the list of competititors for the competition.
I was amazed how a number that had a glaring NO typed next to their name actually became some of the core models of the group, like Alexandra, JoJo and her partner Tsu.
Others like myself, had side comments pertaining to real life skills such as web designers, organizers, graphic artists, fashion blogger.
Not one had any note about appearance, personality or sense of style.
Goes to show what Simone was after from the beginning. That this was not something that just evolved. That this was to reel in unsuspecting MODELS and parlay them into media/promotional consultants for Simone! Design.
To date, I have restrained myself from replying to this 'witch-hunt' in which you and Bronia have tried to portray the people who CHOSE to work as a Super Role Models as poor little victims. But as you have taken it upon yourself to use my name as part of your smear campaign, I decided it was time to let people know how I felt.
The opportunities given to the adults who were lucky enough to be chosen to join the super role models were limitless. The fact that these adults CHOSE to squander them in favour of only turning up to pick up free gear was a great frustration to those of us that were actually contributing to the project as a whole. Yet over and over again we heard from everyone involved that it was not about the 'free clothes'. Well these clothes were never FREE. They were payment for contributing to the success of the project.
I will not, however, lower myself to the level of others and reveal some of the specific horror stories that came along with working with some of the other models.
In regards to the comments made that people were not allowed to learn how to promote or use the new media, I would like to direct your attention to the fact that everyone was given a choice in what they wanted to do. And that included joining what ever team they felt could teach them the most. It was only after WEEKS, if not MONTHS, of trying to get people to commit to SOMETHING... in many cases ANYTHING... that individuals were given ultimatums.
I did leave the group for 6 weeks and returned a week before the project folded. My decision to leave was in no way a reflection on Simone or the project in general. It was due to the fact that I decided that I had too much happening in my personal and RL to be able to properly contribute to the Project. This was MY decision. A decision that ANY model could have made at ANY time. No one was FORCING us to do anything. As adults we had to evaluate the situation we are in and choose what is the best course of action for us.
I do not accept charity and I work for everything I receive. This project was always about what I could LEARN not what I could GET. And before you start jumping up and down... I never accepted anything From Calico or Silent Sparrow once they deserted the project.
So if you want to tell YOUR side of the story.. you go right ahead but do not presume to speak for me or others that were involved in the project. The idea that anyone is 'scared' to speak up is a joke. I am more than happy that I was chosen to be a Super Role Model. I got to work with some fabulous people and also learnt a great deal about how business in general works in SL and the fashion industry specifically.
What I learnt was available to EVERY SUPER ROLE MODEL! If they chose not to take advantage of this fact then more fool them. But that was their choice. None of us were exploited... none of us were children and none of us were forced to remain in any situation that did not suit them.
We DID receive designs in compensation for the work we did. In fact EVERYONE received releases no matter what they were doing. We were not expected to commit to more that 2 hours a week. We were asked to support others events but it was not a command. And yes... we were expected to promote the label. That is why we were there!
You can not say on one hand that the Super Role Models time was valuable then dismiss the time spent by Simone on designing new outfits as having no worth. To say it doesn't 'cost' her anything to give away items is like saying it didn't 'cost' the Super Role Models anything to be involved in the project.
I don't know what you are trying to achieve by doing this but if anyone wants to know what others thought of their time on the the project then I am more than happy for them to IM me personally or talk to one of the other Super Role Models. None of us are afraid to state our views. We weren't then and we aren't now.
Alexandra Nichols
I'm glad you were able to come back right before the end, Alexandra!
It's interesting to see the lists of people that are back to having some involvement. One still models for Calamity even though this model was in the event staff group that only ever showed up for the second to last or last event. I don't remember.
If one managed to not get remove from the group for not doing well, it seems like it was one needed to do was to hang with Calamity in order to stay in the group.
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