G U E S T   C O L U M N  
IMAG
 INOS  
     
   
   
Say it once, say it twice,
take a chance and roll the dice.
Ride with the moon in the dead of night.
-The Nightmare Before Christmas
   
  Hello, All. I am back with another article. I plan to touch on many of the subjects that are happening in our little community of BE, and I don't just mean the BEA. Many people are not going to be happy with what I have to say; although I hate offending anyone, I am here to speak truth, not to placate people. The truth is a tough thing to face, and too many of us avoid it way too often, you and me both. Please bear with me and read the whole thing. Thank You.
   
   
The reeling figures pass on by,
like ghosts in some forgotten play,
Beneath the black and empty sky,
Music plays and figures dance,
With partners chosen by chance,
And still some times remember,
The Masquerade's forever...
When you hear the price they paid,
I'm sure you'll come and join the Masquerade
- Berlin, Masquerade
   
  I was surprised at the response to the last article I wrote, not for the fact that I thought it stunk, but for the fact that our little community, not known for giving feedback of any kind, sent me feedback. This brings me to my first subject: Corinne.

Corinne writes a column for R & D (which will be my second subject), and in her latest article, she has gone on a little tirade against the BEA and the Owner of same. I would like to address certain things about her article that I feel are too one-sided... Corinne begins by stating that she and the BEA do not get along, and says she dislikes pay sites, yet she compares the BEA to Diana's site, which is also a pay site, since some of the BE material on Diana's site is not free. I find it quite irritating that Corinne makes it seem as if BEA is the only pay site in existence for our fetish. She needs to get her facts straight, and to prevent her dislike from tainting her point of view.

Corinne goes on to list other sites "that manage to provide the local fetishist with everything they might want, without charging you money every month." This too is a statement full of errors. The BEA is the only BE site with a rotating user gallery. It also offers a public forum (which few other sites provide), free stories, and --before the recent troubles-- some of the galleries were free, or at least offered some free content (and I hope that they will soon be back the way they were).

Corinne's final point about the BEA is her speculation that the Owner is making a ton of money from the site. Corinne has no idea how many BEA members there are, and therefore can't begin to make a valid guess at what kind of money the Owner is making, or how much he must pay for bandwidth. As a gallery owner, I know that my gallery --including the free sections I have-- receives at least 1 gig of download requests during the first few days after I do an update. That's a lot of bandwidth cost. ACOC draws at least as many hits, and on a more constant basis. Although Corinne chooses to disregard the issue of bandwidth, the very real costs of serving content to the web can't be ignored. Corinne's is a very one-sided, anti-BEA article, which is a shame, because she is a good writer.

Is Corinne a bad person? No. What little conversation I have seen from her in The BE_Loft has been intelligent. However, she has been challenged by BEA patrons and others who don't believe that she is real, and we all remember the Isabellite stuff that happened recently in the BEA Forum. So Corinne has good reason to dislike the BEA; how would you feel if you were believed to be fake or a liar, and hounded by overzealous admirers?
   
   
What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
   
  This brings me to another seemingly anti-BEA (or at least anti-BEhavior) attitude. I am speaking of Al, the editor of R & D, and his contention that BEhavior is a slick, superficial house organ, like the airline magazines you find in the seat-pouches when flying. As Franz has asked: how can Al judge something that he doesn't read? Very uninformed and unenlightened of you, Al. If Al had just said that it would be wrong to judge BEhavior without reading it, I think many people would have respected him for his comment. But we are all imperfect, and we all make mistakes. Al wrote a few things in subsequent posts that made him seem foolish, but those were superficial throwaway statements, meant to deflect direct questions. His refusal to respond seriously to Franz's posts shows a grave lack of respect for Franz and BEhavior. Al seems condescending towards BEhavior and scoffs at its validity as an e-zine, yet the staff of BEhavior have had nothing but good things to say about R & D and Al.

Is Al a bad person? No. I don't personally know him, but I have talked with people who do, and I feel that his attitude about BEhavior is unbecoming, and belittles him. Moreover, Al has probably suffered from the problem I will address next to a greater extent than any other artist or gallery owner.
   
   
...something touched me deep inside,
the day the music died...
-Don McLean, American Pie
   
 

Almost everyone who donates to the BE community --artists, writers, web page builders, video capturers, community helpers, editors, etc.-- wants to receive feedback. They need feedback in order to provide better content. Here's what these people would like to know:

  • Are they doing good jobs on whatever they do?
  • What would make it better?
  • What would you like to see?
  • What didn't you like, and why?
  • Did you enjoy what they provided?
  • Do you appreciate what they do, or are they wasting their time?

We all have the time to grab the stories, read the articles, download the pictures and videos, yet we don't seem to have the time to say "Thank You". This raises a question I posed in my first article: what happened to our courtesy? When did it die, and why? Al has been doing R & D since time began, yet he receives hardly any thanks for it. This kind of thing is very sad. We are too greedy and self serving, and should thank the people who feed our needs.

Have you noticed the "Thank you, Goober and Mr Boobaholic" threads in the user gallery forum? I think it is great to thank the big breast uploaders and scanners, but I see no thanks to the artists who spend many more hours creating content than any scanner or newsgroup surfer, and their work is the Breast Expansion fetish. I have talked with many artists and writers at the Loft who get the "I don't have enough time to thank the artists or writers" response, yet people seem to find the time to thank the other uploaders. Why? Does this mean I want Goober and Mr Boobaholic to stop uploading? Not at all, but people need to remember what they are here for, and to appreciate the time and effort it takes to satisfy our BE desires.
   
   
It is better to own a hand full of dried dates and be content with that, than to own the Gate of Peacocks and be kicked in the eye by a broody camel.
-Arabic Saying
   
 
Now for the other side of the coin. The BEA has gone through some major tribulations. The most recent seems to be a growing dissatisfaction with the way the Owner is running things. Gallery owners complain that they do not get any feedback from the Owner, that things that were supposed to be set up aren't, that their e-mails go answered, that their problems are not resolved. These things cause some artists to go independent (though we all know that free hosts have their problems). Visitors, Members and Morphers also have their complaints about server problems, passwords that suddenly don't work, and the spam and floods that often make the user gallery an unpleasant place.

The most widespread complaint I hear is that the Owner doesn't communicate enough. For example, his reticence during the possible lawsuit several months ago allowed panic to spread unchecked, and I believe many members quit. There is also the question of how much money the BEA is earning for him. People are afraid that the Owner is making a ton of money and not spending it on the archive, yet when the Owner is asked about these things, he tells us that the archive is just barely staying afloat. People disbelieve this because he backs nothing up with hard numbers about bandwidth costs, the number of members, or anything else. But weren't we in fact raised to believe that the correct way to do things is to keep quiet about stuff, to keep information hidden? Since he owns the site, he can do whatever he wants with it, and he doesn't have to tell us anything at all. The Owner's obligation is to keep the site running.

Is the Owner a bad person? No. However, I believe that many of these problems can be avoided through more effective communication. The Internet is already too impersonal to take a totally hands-off approach. Communication is essential in all walks of life, and needs to be maintained.
   
   
Fear leads to Anger,
Anger leads to Hate,
Hate leads to Suffering,
These are the path to the Dark Side
-Yoda, The Phantom Menace
   
  This brings me to attitudes again. There are pro-BEAers, anti-BEAers and anti-pro-BEAers, all with valid attitudes. Pro-BEAers totally support the BEA, and anything else is bad. Anti-BEAers oppose anything BEA or BEA related. Anti-pro-BEAers oppose the Pro-BEAers' "only the BEA is good" attitude. The pro-BEAers get out of hand as much as anyone else, and are not exempt from negative attitudes. They attack anything or anyone that is not BEA as if it were bad. But that is not the case: our community would suffer If only the BEA existed, and it would suffer if there were no BEA. On the other hand, I received early negative responses to the BE webring from some of the other BE sites because it was and is hosted at BEA.

Also, there are some out there with negative attitudes about BEhavior. I found the first few issues to be hokey and not very interesting, but that was about it. Like many things, it has improved greatly with time.

What do I see as the roots of these attitudes? Fear that their smaller sites will be forsaken for the bright lights and glitter of the big BE place? Jealousy and envy that BEA and BEhavior are both succeeding so well, or that they do not have the capability to create such things? Jealous that the Owner may be making money, while they are not? Why should it matter if the Owner makes any money? These emotions lead to Hate. People do nasty, petty, and evil things when they feel this way, from minor badmouthing to active troublemaking. For instance, during BEA's first anniversary birthday bash, the Owner gave a free week to everyone, yet some sad, petty, spiteful person posted the free password to a hacked password site, causing the free week to end after 3 days because of overwhelming traffic. One person spoiled the whole thing for everyone. Think about it. Get over these human failings. Better yourselves as people and do something good!
   
   
And another one gone, and another one gone,
Another one bites the dust.
-Queen, Another One Bites The Dust
   
  Spammers and Flooders have been a problem with the Internet since it became a public place. Spammers are people who post advertisements for whatever it is they are pushing through e-mail or newsgroups. One of their common tactics is called flooding, in which they send tons of advertisements at the same time, so you can't help but see them. This is like a tv show containing 45 minutes of commercials and 15 minutes of program. The BEA's user gallery has a limited amount of space for the users, and a bit more for the members. If you are a member, wading through the spam is just a minor irritation, but the continuing flow of spam pushes the pics non-members want to see out of reach. The spammers also use tired pics that everyone has seen before. Mr Boobaholic pointed out that spammers could post a link to a site next to the pic, so that floods of pictures are not needed.

The spamming has lately sunk to new levels, in which completely off-topic pictures are posted with links. This has driven away many artists; they no longer post their art and feed our fetish. Some artists have taken to posting morphed pics at thumbnail size in an attempt to make a point to the spammers, but I feel this does little good. All the spammers care about is getting you to visit their sites and pay them whatever they can get out of you.

Speaking of floods, I find Alicia posting a bunch of off-topic, unmorphed pictures of herself as thanks to the artists to be a quandary of sorts. Thanking the artists for their hard work and donations to our fetish is a good thing, but posting a bunch of pics and shoving out on-topic content is a bad thing. My suggestion to you, Alicia, is to post one pic with all your thanks in that post, and to include a link to a page where any morpher interested in your pics can download them.

I would like to thank all the regular posters who show restraint and post 5 or fewer pics a day. I very rarely visit any of the spammers' sites. They should not be supported, and if you do visit their sites, please e-mail them that their spam is not wanted! I also feel that the Owner needs to moderate the gallery, or to start banning the spammers's ISPs, especially the off-topic ones. Spammers are a curse and plague on humanity, and on our fetish. They should be shunned by everyone!
   
   
Which way are you going,
which side will you be on?
Will you stand and watch,
while all the seeds of hate are sown?
-Jim Croce (deceased), Which Way Are You Going?
   
  It is so very frustrating to see a community that shares a single interest bicker and fight and kill the very thing that drew it together in the first place. For that reason, I have pointed out the bad attitudes that I have seen, and have stayed out of the public discussion for fear that I would just start flaming everyone. It takes a great deal to anger me, yet this in-fighting and nastiness does it so easily.

We forget that there are people just like us on the other side of any flame war, with feelings just as valid as ours. Closed-minded attitudes --people unwilling to see the other side-- will hold back growth and kill us all in the end. Do we really want to see our fetish go away? Think it is unlikely? Consider how many artists no longer produce BE art: Ratchet, Rasputin, The Inflater, EMT, Dr Enlarge, Max C, Bawookles, Vitamin C, Spike, RisCC, William G, JS (who just scans now)... and there are many others that I have not listed. Again, Do we really want to see our fetish go away?
   
   
"Ride, boldly, ride!" the shade replied,
"If you seek for Eldorado."
-Eldorado
   
 

Imaginos

p.s. I would like to thank everyone who gave me feedback on this article. You know who you are, and you have all been of great help. I would also like to thank, in advance, those who take the time to post feedback to the general forum after reading this essay in BEhavior.