STOP THE PRESS! – A SNEAK LOOK BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE SL ENQUIRER- Mackenzie Abbot reporting

To the casual reader, the SL Enquirer is a great Second Life news source.  To others, it’s just a tarted-up blog with pretensions of being a newspaper.  However you see the SLE, you keep coming back again and again.  It’s friendly and familiar, with a great mix of news, views and interesting articles written by a team with a wide range of interests.  But behind the scenes, gentle reader, lies a different world.  A world of debauchery, greed for power and control.

To begin with, the initiation ceremony is humiliation enough.  But when you are in dire need of a handful of lindens to feed your starving family, you’ll let anyone do anything to you with a rubber chicken, a Walmart gift-card and small statue of Oprah Winfrey.  Survive that and you become embroiled in the seedier side of the SL Enquirer.  For a start, you are not allowed to address the CEO, Lanai Jarrico, as anything but “Miss Jarrico”.  The punishment for calling her anything else will earn you a donkey punch to the back of the head while still being receptive of a dog toy.  And you must never NEVER look her directly in the eyes unless given permission.

A recent image of an SLE journalist ,who missed out a comma in a sentence, trying to pacify Miss Jarrico.

The hours are long and laborious; often lasting a few days until Miss Jarrico is totally satisfied that you are worth of a reprieve from duty.  These reprieves can last from 1 to 7 seconds, depending on her mood, and may or may not include comfort breaks and/or food.  Call into the press room anytime of the day or night and you will see dozens of avatars, broken and battered by toil, endless research and spellchecking.  Many, just shells of their former selves, starting to take notice of their other male captives and doing their level best to hide broners, all why trying to avoid the wrath of their wicked, masochistic editor-in-chief.  Meetings can last for weeks with little or nothing being said.  The last meeting this reporter went to consisted entirely of singing nursery rhymes backwards, and mass mutual shame fest; interspersed with occasional cries of “Fo’ Shizzle Ma Nizzle!” (shouted as loud as possible to Miss Jarrico’s question, “Do you pathetic waste of prims love working for me?!?”) .

The women in the press pack don’t get away lightly either.  I observed one reporter being throttled with her own thong for writing an article that didn’t give praise to the SL Enquirer and dared to express her own views.  The party line (or should that be the Panty Line) should be followed at all times or woe betide your soul.

Three female staffers anger the CEO by not praising The SL Enquirer and are dealt with in line with the SLE Handbook.

One female presspacker, who we will call Jill, spoke to me discreetly from under a table.

“I turned up here all eager and peachy-keen on writing about my passion for fashion…and shoes….and purses….I was bouncing!  I longed to be a journalist and share my adoration for mesh with the world.

And then I signed the contract…

…I was still aglow at finally being a reporter and that’s when the mood changed.  She suddenly had a fire in her eyes and her voice changed.  She took off her glasses and began chanting.  Two of her goons appeared from nowhere and held me in my seat.  When she had finished chanting and her head had spun round to the right position, she stood up, disrobed and……and….”

She broke down quietly but regained her composure a few seconds later.

“Let’s just say there was a forest on the outskirts of the Amityville House Of Horror”

Jill turned a vicious shade of lime green at this point and scuttled away.  I never saw her again.  I’ve since heard rumours that she managed to escape and went into hiding on a sim close to the Blake Sea.  I do hope she’s ok…

Staff Action Figures on SLE Now!

Dear reader, please take it from someone who has seen and experienced the horrors at first hand; the SL Enquirer is not what it seems!  Yes it’s a great read and seems like fun to work for from the outside.  But brutality and fear reign supreme in the world of Miss Jarrico.  Please, spread the word, send help.  We implore you.

I must close now as I hear the sound of 12 inch spiked heels approaching.  Please, save us!  I must now return to pixel-counting, if I’m caught writing this, I will be subject to pain beyond human imagination….

…Keeping Up With The Kardashians…