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W-Hat is a group in the video game Second Life that screws around with other people's bizarre ideas of fun. The following stories and screenshots come from Isometric Bacon of the Something Awful Forums.
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Fit the First
I used to be pretty involved in Second Life, so I've got a million stories of griefers and griefing in general.
The thing about Second Life is all the boring stories get publicised, whereas the cool/clever stuff generally goes unheard of. Second Life is an amazing outlet to be creative, and goons are easily one of the most creative groups out there, not only in terms of building things and having fun, but also getting the goat of everyone around them.
One of my favourites was when John Edwards was doing a political campaign for the 2008 election in Second Life. He had some really shitty build set up and was generally whoring for media attention. Some goon came up to us, handed the plot of land that was next to his campaign to us and said "do something good with this."
We then proceeded to recreate his entire build, prim for prim, but reversed so it was seen from the opposite direction and with similar, but different textures (all entirely new). But instead of campaigning for John Edwards, we campaigned for John Edward, the TV Psychic. With slogans such as "He can read minds" and "Remember your dead cat? John Edward does." Also, instead of giving out lame coffee mugs and t-shirts as promotional material, we also gave out bitchin' John Edward G-strings and breast signings.
The good majority of visitors to the sim didn't notice the difference, and us valiant goons as campaigners made sure we spread the word of Edward to everyone who came, and threatened them with Edward's mind powers if they didn't vote for him. It worked great and the campaign lasted for months, until the edwards campaigners finally boned up and paid for a new sim.
There are some more images and a story the Second Life Herald wrote up on it here. http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/02/edwards_faces_e.html
Even funnier was the idiot campaigner for Edward who went off on a bent and complained we were guilty of intellectual theft from stealing his textures and was pulling at any strings he could to try to rid them of us. (Even though we were completely fine via Second Life's TOS) Which of course only egged the goons on further - If anyone has a screenshot of the amazing "How to spot a retard" poster we had that mimicked their "How to register your interest" poster i'd love to see it again.
The John Edwards campaign was in the news several times. First just because it was notable about a president campaigning in a virtual world, and the second was when some idiot channers decided to cover the campaign in litter and crap. (which amusingly Fox News said was 'terrorist attacks' by 'republicans') - None of them mentioned us though, even though we were RIGHT THERE the entire time .
Another great memory is when we had a group of Star Wars roleplayers open up next door to our sim (land in Second Life). We're friendly neighbours, so we decided to change our 'theme' to be a Star Wars sim also, and thus we created 'Jerktooine' the home of "Sith Ewoks". What followed is a million complaints about our land, and a couple of very irate annoyed Star Wars fans, quoting wookiepedia to us and screaming "EWOKS CANNOT USE THE FORCE! THIS ISN'T CANON!"
Shortly following that, we had a group of elves set up shop on the other side of the sim. We then proceeded to create an industrial orc empire for the horde "Orc Clan BaN'D AloT", mining their crystals and spewing industrial waste into the air all in the glorious name of progress. The elves didn't like that too much either and promptly moved.
In a similar move, one time we created "Tacowood" which was a spoof on the popular furry sims "Taco" and "Luskwood." An entirely cartoon based furry tree friends adventure land, except it was scheduled for 'defurrestation'. Advertised as a furry sim, we ended up getting alot of furs coming into the sim, who didn't like what they saw: Bulldozers mowing down furry tree homes,and all matters of glorious cartoon fantasy violence.
We used to get alot of complaints back then that we were "intentionally artificially lowering the property value" of our area, when nothing could be further from the truth. We would have done this stuff regardless of land value :v.
Another one I remember at one stage we'd set up a semi elaborate dance club, the kind that pubbies come to in droves. We then proceeded to invite some 'guests' by doing a search for all the people who were online with names starting with A, B, C so on, and offering them teleports. (This was before you had to be friends to see who was online and offer teleports. ) Once we had hoardes of pubbies inside, we had a switch that would open up the ground beneath them and make them fall into a pit of lava.
Second life is amazing resource for this sort of creative griefing, and it disappoints me to see so many people just spamming disgusting images or shooting people with guns when there are so many other ways you can do it and still be in the realms of the games TOS, but get an even bigger reaction.
I have a ton more of these images and stories if anyone is actually interested... or otherwise I may just be a sad wierdo who's played entirely too much Second Life. (Which is also true.)
Fit the Second
Ok one more before I go to bed.
One of my favourite things to do when I first found Second Life back in 2006 was to go around and see if I could find type-fuckers. That is, people who use Second Life entirely as a sex substitute to get off.
It wasn't very hard to find someone, especially in those days. All you had to do was simply look for two dots on the map that were very close to each other, and there was about a 70% chance they were e-fucking. Naturally of course, from then on a prank was in order.
What i'd usually do, is jump in a Cadillac and drive straight through the wall of their house mid-coitus. When confronted, i'd be apologetic and tell them "Sorry, I believe I took a wrong turn somewhere" and ask for them directions. I'd needlessy draw the conversation out as long as I could and make it as awkward as possible. Some people would get incredibly mad or embarrassed, standing up outright, others would continue as if I wasn't there and respond in casual conversation back to me.
You can also thank some other SL goons for the following amazing images:
Fit the Third
The problem with Second Life is it's got a rather steep learning curve - at least to new players. Lots of people load it up, have difficulty using the controls, bitch that it doesn't play like Halo and it needs some investment of time and give up right away.
It's also not a laugh a minute amazing adventure like the screenshots and stories show. Alot of the time is standing around, shooting the shit with goons like a 3D IRC channel and just waiting for something to happen. To get the most out of it, you really need to be pro-active and go out exploring and stumbling across events, or hang out with some people that do. Also learn to build as soon as you can - it's easy and you can essentially make anything once you're good at it.
Alot of the older goons (like me ) are still around, but are generally reserved in what we do in fear of getting banned. When you have invested several years in your account and lots of stuff you've created, you really don't want to lose it.
But enough about that shit, I probably have enough Second Life stories to start a separate thread:
Back around late 2006/ early 2007 Second Life really hit the glass ceiling in terms of membership. News organizations everywhere were reporting on this amazing 3d future and how joe middle-fuck from Kansas wherever, Arizona was now a multimillionare from selling virtual earrings. Along with this came alot of corporate interest too - Companies were creating virtual islands left and right as a new tool to market with, (but typically failed in their efforts, since Second Life users are generally insular, don't go anywhere new in Second Life and don't want to be marketed to.) Along with that came some 'celebrity endorsements,' with interviews with people like 'Bruce Willis' and well known bands such as "Duran Duran."
I remember probably at about the 57th reported "virtual first!" press conference by a real world business in Second Life, Reggie Fils-aime - (The president of Nintendo America) talked to a group of people about Nintendo's upcoming plans. Finding out about this I had to get in on the action.
I went to the event much earlier than it started, and found Reggie just idling around, obviously with no one in control of his character. I then proceeded to have fun with his AFK avatar, taking various pictures and poses and giggling like an immature child throughout. Some other goons came and added to the fun.
tee hee.
Then, in preparation of his arrival, I replaced all the "Reuters" giant TV screens with big "REGGIE" banners that honoured his mighty presence. The Reuters employees either didn't mind or neglected to notice this as they lasted the entire show. As people started filling in the seats awaiting his arrival, I gave them REGGIE hats and flags to wear to celebrate with me.
Even Reggie himself got in on the fun.
Right in the middle of the conference, I decided to switch the textures on all the REGGIE TV screens to show the footage of my previous shennanigans with a idle reggie, on a giant screen, right infront of everybody in the audience. I then proceeded to flash back and forth between the Reggie banners and this picture quickly, so that those astute enough would notice it.
There was a few chuckles and gasps in the audience from people that caught on, and I don't know if the Reuters team or Reggie ever noticed it since they were facing the opposite direction. I was laughing my ass off the entire time though. I'm one of the few people who can say they virtually raped the President of Nintendo.