yes we dared: we arranged, conducted and are now broadcasting an interview with the infamous esteban winsmore.
listen with an open mind and form your own opinion. we are not here to judge, just to report.
but of course esteban has not hijacked the whole show, just the title.
for the fast-forwarders amongst you: the feature segment starts at 28:48 but be forewarned = you will be missing a lot.
give it a listen/download [and subscribe]and then dive into linkage to further the debate:
– eshi is coming out of the closet!
– onthemedia on net neutrality [must listen!]
– augmented rifting aka the holodeck from william steptoe.
– brain games: emotiv & other things to keep your mind sharp
– monty linden recommends: check your router, then help lindens with the http project by using the special viewer & give feedback [but what the heck is a white box?]
– loki makes a passionate vr documentary: “the LOST virtual world”
– google glass user arrested by feds
– the guardian on vr [and valve and oculus and sl as a “proprietary experiment”]
– esteban = his videos, his fb, his profile feed & an article on him on vice dot com [and my favorite video: undercover bronies]
– marc andreessen tweets about sl [after he tweets about bitcoins with cory, hamlet and philip]
– joi price and her sl + rl jewlery [& the official angels x astronauts collection video]
the drax files radio hour [with jo yardley] is a weekly production of basicdrax entertainment.
the show is supported by NTDC, yordie sands, ainemarie flanagan, harter fall, pixel ghost, natascha randt, secret rage, sue ellen tisdale, joe nickence and eshi otawara.
special thanks to esteban winsmore for providing the station ID this week. music by bd.
contact the show via skype draxfiles, avatar draxfiles or email radio@draxfiles.com
the drax files radio hour 
Oh lord, laughing all the way through Esteban’s interview! LOLOLOL, I’ll be his friend!
Careful what you wish for 😉
I’m pretty sure i bumped into Esteban either at SLB or the Vortex once, but i don’t use voice so i probably missed anything he was saying. But i don’t see Esteban as a griefer. I know some people who others find really annoying, but i’ve learnt they are just different. Its a lesson SL is perfect for teaching, that not everyone you meet on the grid fits into your idea of normal social interaction, and that we should learn to step back, be more tolerant and understanding of our differences.
I find Estebans videos hilarious and educational.
My favourite video is the video where Esteban and Jessie are talking to a bunch of girls and one of the girls is like “I’ve muted him, he can’t see me now” but she hasn’t so jessie runs right up to her face and shouts “WHERE ARE YOU!!???” .
Hahahahaha!
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Snapshot_and_machinima_policy
Does Esteban have permission from the land owner to film?
Does Esteban film where the covenant explicitly allows machinima?
I understand Esteban’s style of comedy. It’s Borat-funny. Confrontational and provoke reactions so the audience provides the comedy. Not everybody’s cup of poison.
(dramatic pause)
But is it griefing? I’d say from people’s reactions that he’s harassing his targets and covering that harassment with a “I just want to make friends, I just want to be loved” act. Classic “I’m not the bully, you’re the bully for calling me a bully” tactic.
What does the policy say? Let’s check the CS:
https://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php
Esteban fails on counts 2 & 6.
When people feel harassed, they *should* kick, ban, mute, and file an AR if they are able to. If they can’t, then it’s griefing *and* bullying.
Draxtor should know the machinima policy by heart, being a machinimatographer in SL. And after countless rants about bullying on Metareality, you’d think he’d be able to identify bullying/griefing.
Disappointed, but not surprised.
-ls/cm
Another great show, guys. Kudos on the Monty interview (ta for the mention 🙂 ). Couple of points (as always) …
If you’re going to be looking at AR being added to the VR system (William’s work with the OR, why not take a look at an AR system which is moving into VR and clould also (as a VR system) have potential for use in SL castAR.
Actually, on that subject, while interesting, I’d be tempted to look at the Valve / Oculus thing with a degree of reservation. Valve were, after all, loudly trumpeting AR not so very long ago, funding the castAR development work as an in-house project. Then Gabe Newall had a change of heart, and that was the end of Valve’s involvement in the work (although he did, in a very generous act, allow the two people behind castAR to walk away from Valve with the castAR IP as their own, enabling them to establish Technical Illusions and continue their work).
As to Esteban and the interview … I think Crap has nailed the pertinent points, whether or not the interview itself is presented “in character”.
I have to agree with Crap. Winsmore may come off as funny, but from the point of view of his victims this is nothing more than the griefing and harassment we all abhor.
If he was doing these things in RL, i.e. the invasion of homes and harassment of the occupants, would that be considered funny? Or a criminal act?
Featuring him on a piece on this show, unfortunately, gives him credibility he does not deserve.
Looking forward to video with your audio
Oh I came here to listen to Esteban but listening to that sexy Linden’s voice just made me lose all focus to anything else.
Totally agreed kiana XD
Monty sounds insanely awesome…he really should do voice over of some sorts 😀
I think the concept of The Drax Files and The Drax Files Radio Hour is wonderful and gives residents the opportunity to better see the many faces and uses of SL. As for Esteban, he is best enjoyed from a distance personally. I do not enjoy being the butt of jokes, tho I can appreciate his humor. Whoever said he was like Borat was spot on. I wouldn’t want to be around Borat either. I am not hating on Esteban, but we are all entitled to our opinions and preferences and I prefer my land not be invaded in the way Esteban seems to enjoy.
that was fun!
Esteban is certainly in the uncomfortable humour category, the victims do not appear to be willing participants and it’s uncomfortable viewing to say the least, although there is humour in it, this is certainly not something I’d like to see grow in popularity.
Dedicating a show to someone who basically harasses others only serves to glorify its idiocy and is, at the very least, disappointing. And I’m in full agreement with Crap on the matter; Esteban is a griefer, period – i.e. a bully and a troll. And, essentially, bullies and trolls are nothing more than attention whores. So yes, Esteban, an obnoxious attention whore and a lower form of online life, got the attention it wanted.
Please note that I use “it” to refer to idiotic, attention-whoring lower forms of online life like Esteban and its ilk.
Esteban serves a nice balance to the social equilibrium in SL. He’s sort of a reality check. Some people just get too serious/crazy about the game, and get stuck in their own echo chamber. When someone comes along and challenges that sort of presence, it can sometimes yield hilarious results.
If you watch Estebans videos, he’s never really malicious. Most of the time he’s playing a naive character reacting to absurd circumstances. And really, the negative attention these individuals gain are their own doing. They’re reactions(and often times OVERreactions) are what put them in the spotlight to begin with. If they perhaps played along or laughed a little, the end result could be entirely different.
“To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity”
I mispelled THEIR. My bad.
Duly noted by the spelling police :)/
We appreciate the diverse opinions on the matter of Esteban and I shall refrain from individually replying to each comment which I usually do. We feel that it was time to cover this phenomenon [pretty much the only one getting wide play in the media when it comes to SL] by way of interviewing him as well as playing some of the harsher soundbites showing him as the originator of trouble: I think it becomes pretty evident that Jo and I are not on board with victim blaming or the like. Being an SL centric podcast we are convinced it is necessary to cover Esteban and start a conversation on humor, bullying, internet disinhibition effect [oh yes: we have interviews on that subject already taped!] & what good and bad can come from an open ended anything-goes libertarian paradise [is that what SL is? Discuss pease!]
Drax, you mentioned this quote from the Guardian article on VR:
I’d like to point you at another quote, this one coming from your co-host Jo Yardley:
I’m not sure if it was her intention, but in this statement Jo pretty much summed up the main problem that many people, even VR aficionados, have with Second Life: Linden Lab once peddled SL as some sort of emerging 3D world wide web but then decided to turn it into a barn, with the gates firmly closed and locked. Its residents are held hostage by their own investments into the platform which will evaporate if the platform collapses. What Jo described is the very definition of vendor lock-in, and it’s also the reason why SL is no longer growing. It is indeed a proprietary demo, with no intention of becoming anything more than that.
Meanwhile, the elephant in the room is the fact that OpenSim expanded by 46% (10,000 regions) in 2013 and is about to become the largest decentralized virtual world platform — all by itself, without any kind of media buzz.
Masami, thank you for this comment! I am myself dreaming of a inter-connected metaverse, governed by its citizens in a democratic fashion and not by [benevolent or otherwise] kings/queens 🙂
I found the interview with Esteban to be funny and interesting. I’ve known about Esteban and his buddies for years, and 100% agree with Mr. Mariner that this is a Borat-style humor that is uncomfortable and confrontational. Is this griefing? Well, according to the TOS, yeah it is.
I wanted to address the comment by Spacetard: “Some people just get too serious/crazy about the game, and get stuck in their own echo chamber.” I believe the reason behind this “seriousness” is due to the thousands of dollars per year tied up in this “game” by real people. I’m a small player in this universe – I own a mainland region that is mainly landscape and open for public enjoyment. To the tune of approx. US$3600 a year in tier. Many, many people have tens of thousands of dollars invested per year to provide entertainment, education, or heck – just an environment – for others to enjoy. Griefers invest nothing into the platform and when confronted, they will cry, “dude, it’s just a GAME – stop being so serious!” Yet, if everyone thought that way, SL would no longer exist.
Now, if LL could understand this concept, it might be more “serious” about enforcing its own TOS.
Just my $0.02. Thanks for reading. 🙂
@Takara – Strongly agreed on the cost factor. Joyriders with disposable accounts and expired prescriptions for their sociopathy still cause event managers headaches. Open events and groups become private and invite-only events, which makes it harder to grow the community (or, more appropriately, slow the decline).
And, no, I didn’t believe a word of Rod Humble’s bluster about making life difficult for griefers at the final SLCC. Heck, these days, they get a soapbox and a spotlight from Drax.
-ls/cm
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