Quote Transmitted Disease

Quote Transmitted Disease (abbreviated QTD) is a term made up by Gaians during an event that happened when two Gaia developers were playing a prank on one another, it escalated to a point that even the community was soon involved.

History
It began on February 15, 2011 when developer Panagrammic posted a message in the Dev Notices thread stating that a fellow developer, DARKNRGY, was feeling unappreciated because his DARKNRGY dolls on the marketplace were priced so low. Panagrammic encouraged Gaians to Booty Grab and buy the dolls or post on DARKNRGY's profile to show their appreciation for his work on the site. The dolls were quickly bought and comments followed, the developers feelings were expressed by the profile message: "I WILL GET YOU PANAGRAMMIC *SHAKES FIST*". Although done in a joking manner the reaction from Gaians was mixed, some finding it amusing that the request was fulfilled and that staff were showing their humors side, others finding the Dev Notice being used for a non-site related update to be poor work ethic.

The two developers went back and forth with their antics and at one point Panagrammic (or perhaps another developer using his account) dressed up as DARKNRGY and even posed as him. While praise and criticism continued among Gaians between Gaia Community Discussion (GCD) and Site Feedback (SF) forum, DARKNRGY soon one upped Panagrammic by creating a red text overlay that read " I love Justin Bieber ", this text covered his avatar while visible in forums. After three hours Panagrammic created another post wherein he apologized for the light-hearted prank and that it wasn't an attempt to manipulate the marketplace, he made it a point to return to the previous information-dense, non-humorous format in dev notices.

However by the 16th the developers humor was more apparent when [NPC] Bildeau, a robot character, made a cameo appearance in the thread stating the latest legitimate site update along with his humor-module being turned off. This was due to Gaians who debated that Gaia Staff were human and not robots and they should be allowed to express their humor without harsh criticism. By the 17th the red text that once plagued Panagrammic had spread to Gaians, showing that the prank among the developers was not yet finished. The red text would overlay on avatars when the avatar that had the text was quoted, the text prank spread quickly through the GCD and SF, making its way to the Chatterbox (CB). This was also met with mixed reaction though largely positive as Gaians tried to figure out how it functioned, their curiosity was answered when [NPC] Cindy Donovinh made a cameo in the thread to report that there was an outbreak of Bieber Fever, and that it would be over in a few hours. However, a cure was made to speed up to process when Gaians were given inoculations which functioned the opposite of the red text, upon quoting an (Inoculated) Gaian the red text would be removed. The whole event ended around midnight.

Trivia & See also

 * Quote Transmitted Disease/Dev Notices
 * Before the the dolls were bought by various Gaians the SDPlus Real S09 DARKNRGY lowest buy price was in the 20k range.
 * Some took the message from Gaia Staff as a form of Artificial Inflation, something that is largely frowned upon.
 * Panarammic explained that there is inside joke at the office about the marketplace value of various SD dolls.
 * Justin Bieber is a Canadian pop-R&B singer.
 * The disease was given various nicknames by Gaians; B-Virus and Bieber Fever being the most common. The term B-Virus was meant to parody the G-Virus, a disease that is largely responsible for the creation of zombies on Gaia.
 * Before a cure was created, it was thought that quoting someone without the red text would remove the text, this was false. Another theory was that equipping an Animated Item would remove the text, this was also false as it only rendered it invisible, however this lead to some Gaians to trick others into quoting them, thus infecting an unsuspected Gaian.