Chouchou Update from Owners: Beloved Second Life Sim Still Set to Close End of June -- Largely Due to Unchecked User Harassment

Chouchou photo by Shiva

Since news broke that Chouchou, the beloved Second Life owned and created by Chouchou, a Japanese music duo of the same name, would soon close, the dream-like place has been inundated by SLers taking farewell photos. I finally heard back from the duo's manager with the help of Sanny Yoshikawa, who translated their responses into English.

First off, as Sanny confirms from them: "The closing date of the sim is end of June (not in a few days )." So it's not closing as soon as originally reported.

After I first reached out to them a couple weeks ago, they've been inundated by messages from Second Life users: "[W]e received tons of messages through email, IM and Twitter. Most of them were very emotional. We became too busy to answer his questions."

And unlike most other beloved Second Life sims which have closed due to the high cost of monthly sim tier maintenance fees, Chouchou's owners say their main motivation for shutting down is unchecked trolling on their property:

"One of the reasons was definitely financial issues," as Chouchou puts it. "But the biggest reason is that many users experienced some harassment from other users while visiting our sim. This is against Chouchou's concept, and even though we kept trying to stop them, we couldn't, because Second Life allows these bad people to get a new ID and then they do it again. The situation was getting too much for us to handle. Unfortunately the Chouchou sim is now different from what it should be for Chouchou [the band] and most of its residents."

They have reached out to Linden Lab via a support ticket  -- and through Sanny, I forwarded them Patch Linden's e-mail, to directly get in touch with the staffer most responsible for preserving SL sims -- but Chouchou's fate is still unknown:

"If there are no solutions for our problems ChouChou's sim will close end of June as scheduled. First we hope to hear from Linden Lab and if we have to close the sim, we will notify SL Chouchouholic Group ASAP and then we will make a formal announcement on various social networks, official sites, etc."

Even if Chouchou the sim goes away, however, Chouchou the music duo may make a return performance in Second Life:

"Currently, we are shifting our activities to release more music, not live performance, but Chouchou's activity style is always fluid and outside of the box. Someday it may happen, depending on Chouchou's feelings."

More on Chouchou when I learn more; until then, and unless the Lindens or someone else intercedes, you have roughly one more month to visit and experience this metaverse landmark. But based on what Chouchou says now, its fate doesn't just depend on preserving the sim itself, but also preserving the creators' original intent of Chouchou being a peaceful, magical place -- and somehow, kept free from the user-to-user abuse that plagues many other popular places in Second Life.

Thanks again to Sanny Yoshikawa for the translation and communication help!

Comments

[BritBong Forever]

Is it really trolling or just someone pointing out the very obvious about people?
why so cereal? geez people need to learn how to take a joke like for real i'm just saying.

If they have a child avatar their referring to there obvious adult avatar partner in the profile as a sexy soul mate for life, why should they not be tarred & feathered as pedophiles. it's fair social justice with a twist of SLU style

[madeline blackbart]

TBH I think they're goal of having literally no one harassed when they go to there sim is noble but impossible. Life just doesn't work that way. If harassment was a truly solvable issue we wouldn't still be talking about how to reduce bullying in schools. That said I'm wondering if they have/have considered getting volunteers to act as a security force to eject or remove people who misbehave?

[Han Held]

That said I'm wondering if they have/have considered getting volunteers to act as a security force to eject or remove people who misbehave?

...because if SL's history has shown us nothing else, it's that in-game volunteer/resident police never goes wrong!

/s

[Fnord_lord]

There's no such thing as an interactive space open to the public where someone will not be offended by something. Some people are simply unpleasant and others are simply impossible to please. The only way to change this is to change human nature itself, and if you start actively trying to figure out how to do that: you are part of the problem.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of thin skinned people out there.

[nuff]

Just do what hamlet does and delete comments you find unacceptable.

nuff said

[Han Held]

There's no such thing as an interactive space open to the public where someone will not be offended by something. Some people are simply unpleasant and others are simply impossible to please. The only way to change this is to change human nature itself, and if you start actively trying to figure out how to do that: you are part of the problem.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of thin skinned people out there.

There's a lot to unpack here, most of it wrong.

1)In the real world, if you "troll" in a club or an art gallery, you will be escorted out. It's the same for most forums; any forum worth spending time on is moderated.

2)Some people are simply unpleasant and others are simply impossible to please.

The first group can -and should- be shown the door, and there's a world of difference between 'impossible to please' versus 'wanting polite, adult behavior in the space we pay $300USD a month in'

3)The only way to change this is to change human behavior itself.

Again -wrong. You change this by having and enforcing a set standard of behavior. In other words -moderation. The fault isn't in expecting civil behavior; the fault lies with the company that charges hundreds of real world dollars but does not give the tools for behavioral moderation that even a $10 PHPBB rental has.

4) and if you start actively trying to figure out how to do that: you are part of the problem.

That sentence literally makes no sense. "If you try to solve the problem, you become the problem" lol que?

5)"Unfortunately, there are a lot of thin skinned people out there." ...and they are not the problem; the folks who come in to disrupt and act badly are the problem.

And there's absolutely no reason that Chouchou should allow it to happen on their dime Benjamins.

Just do what hamlet does and delete comments you find unacceptable.

Adults call that 'moderation'; that's how you prevent your comment sections from being buried in viagra ads and white /b/ level nonsense.

All boards do it -even 4chan.

[Han Held]

white /b/ level nonsense.

All boards do it -even 4chan.

eh, I was going to write "white supremist nonsense" then decided to say /b/ instead -but didn't hit the backspace enough.

Oops

[Bufje]

Seem a bit strange response. Juliet talk english very well, so why a translator? And management of sim become LL problem, if exist. Mah.

[Amanda]

@Han Held. It hasn't been $300 a month for some time now. It's been $250 and next week goes down to $230. That's still a lot of money for most of us but it has gotten better.

[Masami Kuramoto]

Chouchou (the sim) has been a part of Second Life for more than a decade. Its extension "Chouchou V" was added 9 years ago.

Harassment has been part of SL even longer than that. If harassment was a valid reason to shut down those regions, don't you think it would have happened long ago?

You need to read between the lines of Chouchou's response. Unlike other media, SL hasn't evolved much beyond what it was ten years ago. The band has moved on, and maybe so should you. The time has come to let go.

For multiple reasons, I would advise against accepting Linden Lab's offer to "preserve" those regions. Preservation would be incomplete anyway because the parcel music streams, an essential part of the experience, would be excluded.

For those who wish to remember, the original opening trailers will remain online:

Chouchou
Chouchou V (Memento Mori)

[jackson redstar]

the fact is Liden can do IP bans as that technology readily exists. While it is possible for a abuser to get around a IP ban it would cut down on return griefers alot. Just kinda sucks a few assh*les have to ruin things for everybody else!

[madeline blackbart]

@Han Held...So closing the sim entirely if LLs doesn't step in instead of volunteers is a better option? Yeah makes sense.

@ Masami Kuramoto…. While it's true that SL hasn't evolved that much I still think preservation would be good even in partial form. It's a beautiful peace of art that deserves preservation just like any art piece. It's a shame how much art is lost to time in the realm of videogames and virtual worlds because they aren't seen as being as valuable as say a painting and therefore often not preserved well if at all. For that very reason I would highly suggest they accept LLs offer to preserve there work. We really don't need more lost beautiful sims.

[RavenSword Skytower]

There are real perverts that exploit ageplay in there then there are ones like me who NEVER have and NEVER would do that . One day my account was there the next I got an email stating it have been numerous acts and reports of such acts. I was never contacted to ask if this were true. I tried several times to put in a dispute ticket got the same copy and paste responses from the same two linden lab employees which i find odd that only those two were so quick to shoot it down. I wrote the head office and still no response. All three of my accounts were shut down without warning nor a chance to tell them I have only been on one of my accounts in the past six months. No one will listen that the account , my primary account was the one and only one I have been using. At this point it is not even about getting my account back its being accused of such a horrible thing when others do it openly making stuff sexually designed for kid avatars and selling them on the marketplace and yet their accounts are active still. According to LL's own TOS a person is given a chance to dispute however I got the same copy/paste responses as well as many that tried to write on my behalf vouching I'd never do such a thing. LL used to care about the customer base you could call on a matter like this and speak to someone they could hear it in your voice if you were guilty or innocent and would then correct any mistakes. Now all they care about is the all mighty dollar , if you are not premium or bringing them in money you don't count even if you were set up . It's sad really I was a SL member for over 10 years without incident , I got set up or the accounts that were not being used were tampered with not sure as I could get no details or actual responses from anyone other then Theresa and Vanessa Linden and no one else. LL has strayed from what it was designed to be which was a platform for learning , exploring and meeting new people , now its all about sex and money and to hell with anyone that isn't premium. So many places that should still be around , people falsely accused gone while the ones that do the deeds against the TOS remain as long as they make LL money.