For those of you experiencing the metaverse known as Second Lifeâ„¢ with me, I have a small rant to get off my chest.

As live musician in this cyberworld, I have a problem with large gestures spamming the chat.

You know, the howling wolf, 2 finger peace sign, cat, lips, the HELL YEAHs and the YEEHAWS et al.

I’ve talked to many residents and have had it explained to me a number of times.

“It’s my way of expressing my appreciation to the musician!”

While that may be your motivation, it appears to everyone else to be nothing more than an attempt by the gesturer to be noticed… by everyone in the vicinity and further if SHOUTED. It seems to be more self serving than expressive.

In reality, there’s nothing really expressive about it. It’s not original. In most cases you simply buy the gesture and assign it to an F key. It’s almost a non effort.

The larger the gesture, the more chance that someone else’s posted request, suggestion, advice or comment will be sandwiched into the gesture and, thereby, lost.

If you want to be originally expressive, type those 20-30 lines of chat manually for every post with different messages and images each time.

Now THAT’s an original expression of appreciation. (No, please don’t try, thanks! No really.)

A good number of residents as well as a lot of live musicians will mute you in a second for gesture spamming the room chat because it interrupts their chat/conversation with their friends in room as well as with the performer.

Kinda defeats your purpose .. right?

One can only hope that the Labs of Linden will, for residents who would choose to ignore gesture spam, come up with something that would auto block spammed gestures more than three lines long.

I could use that. I have friends that could as well.