New World Notes

Women & RL Height Displays Have Been Driving Down the Size of Formerly Gargantuan Avatars (Comment of the Week)

Good alternate perspective from "Irihapeti", responding to my observation that Second Life avatar height seems to have been driven up  by fragile RL male egos:

SL avatars, both male and female, today are on average shorter than they were in the early years. The downward shift began when Linden Lab added inches and centimeters to the height slider. [See above]

Prior to this the slider height was only measured on the scale: 0...100. So most guys not surprisingly set it to 100. Unsurprising as there was no useful indication as to what 100 meant. In-world there was a feedback loop. Avatars are set to 100 > furniture is set for 100. More avatars > more furniture > most avatars > most furniture

It was women in the main, who broke this feedback loop. When they saw that the slider now said 7 feet plus they started to reduce. Their men began to follow them down. People went even lower when third party viewers changed the height slider to measure from sole to top of head. The Linden Lab viewer still measures from sole to eye level.

When I played in the early years I was 185cm[i.e. about 6 feet] by prim measure in bare feet. I was squiddy as, compared to pretty much everyone else adult human avatar then. I am still 185cm. Yet now when at shopping events I am slightly above average in height for a female avatar.

This sounds right, certainly for the fashionista crowd. I think it's likely that both our perspectives are generally true --depending on the SL subculture: That is, average heights have been coming down in social circles where women predominate, while avatar heights remain largely gargantuan where male competition predominates -- think virtual nightclubs, roleplay areas, combat zones. 

Watch: How to Manage Your SL Inventory The Cassie Middles Way

Now that she's back to SL YouTubing especially here on New World Notes, Cassie Middles (please subscribe here!) is reorganizing her massive inventory -- a massive task. Fortunately, she has a system you can follow. Here's a tutorial cheat sheet from Cassie:

The best way I feel, to organize your inventory:

Make categories and sub-categories. I.E Clothing > Tops > Tank Tops, Sweaters, Jackets, T-shirts, etc

Open a second inventory window by hitting the small suitcase icon in the bottom right of your inventory window, opening a secondary one. This will allow you to have your organized folders open, so you can drag folders you want to put away, into those, without having to scroll up and down.

There's also in-world utilities you can use:

Second Life Style Has Been Influenced by Kim Kardashian Long Before She Started Using Second Life in Her Social Media (Comment of the Week)

At the risk of over-exposing Kim Kardashian's Second Life-based social media campaign (then again, isn't over-exposure the whole point?) reader Blaise Glendevon makes a really good observation in response to SLers complaining about it:

I don't understand why so many of you are surprised or put out. The KKW aesthetic has been at the forefront of [SL] fashion and blogging personas for as long as I can remember. A lot of the top 'urban' brands in the events take great inspiration from what the Kardashian-Jenner sisters wear on social media.

That the patrons of this look have taken notice of SL isn't a surprise. That it took so long might.

This strikes me as exactly right. Looking at back at the SL fashion that was popular in the early years (as here and also here), you see quite a difference -- it leaned more toward goth/steampunk, on the one hand, and high-end and uptown, on the other. But Keeping Up with the Kardashians came out in 2007, and in the succeeding years, SL fashion styles have largely followed suit. So that nowadays, my Second Life social feed is swamped by glitzy, urban, highly sexualized avatar images similar to those that the Kardashians have made popular and mainstream since then. Or to put it another way: It's Kim Kardashian's virtual world, we're just logging into it.

Pics via Liz Milan West's Instagram.

Profile of Kim Kardashian's Second Life Social Media Campaign Creator

She's @lizmilanwest on Instagram, lizzylo1212.xue in Second Life and on the SL Marketplace -- and IRL, Johnathan Ramirez, a twenty-something makeup artist based in New York City -- and urban fashion magazine Ozon Magazine has the first interview with him. Interestingly, the profile suggests Ramirez first created a Kardashian-themed brand in Second Life before being approached the actual Kardashian team:

LMW (Liz milan west) cosmetic store was created on SL because I was extremely inspired by Kim Kardashian West’s beauty line along with other people who inspired me in the makeup industry... 

The ideas for the [campaign] images were to “create a world using the Kimoji fragrance in different settings and reflect Kim’s lifestyle”... I loved working on this campaign with Kim and her team. A game that I played normally opened my eyes to so many possibilities….. 

Read it all here. Ramirez also replies to complaints that his avatars depict an unrealistic image ("It’s a 3D inspired animation of Kim Kardashian West. Some of the depictions are exaggerated for fantasy!") and hints that more is to come. As for Kim Kardashian herself, she's still integrating her real life avatar with her SL one -- see above, on the Instagram account for her fragrance line.

Cajsa's Choices: Seven Stylish Second Life Male Fashion Photographers

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

One of the most common complaints from men in Second Life is the lack of clothing and events that cater to them. Some defend the lack of options as the natural result of men’s disinterest in fashion, but that reflects a reality more than twenty years in the past and not the current reality where the growth in menswear outstrips the growth in womenswear. Men in SL are interested in fashion, and thankfully, there’s a cohort of talent male fashion bloggers to guide their way.

Ian Dark blogs at El Eterno Resplandor. His pictures are casual, slice-of-life photos–a man enjoying himself about town and SL. I like his attention to the background. His style is very casual and relaxed, but he gives his pictures life with well thought-out settings and vignettes with him surfing, playing basketball, and just having a good time.

Roy Mildor blogs at his eponymous blog. All his blogs are titled with inspirational quotes such as “Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent……!”  His photos are varied, from portraits such as this one to gorgeous black and white photo that opens this article. He is experimental, trying out different styles, black and white, color, and experiments with light, action shots, portraits. His photostream is fun and filled with variety.

Many more metaverse males below!

SL Fashion Bloggers Rarely Criticize Badly Optimized Products Because They Usually Get These Products for Free (Comment of the Week)

Good point from reader Myndy Heartsdale on why SL fashion/accessory bloggers rarely criticize products they blog for poor optimization and other technical flaws. Part of it is because they're mainly using these products for solo fashion shoots, but there's also a subtle incentive at play. As Myndy puts it:

One little thing that's not mentioned: many bloggers get the product for free, then they speak positive things of it; so far I have not seen a blogger criticize a product because of their possible issues.

"That is absolutely true," concurs SL blogger Chic Aeon:

"But bloggers DO HAVE A CHOICE in what they blog... It is OUR credibility on the line too. So when readers figure out that we blog everything from "deeigner VGY" even when there are obvious mesh issues, you can't move in it at ALL etc. -- then our fans have our number and likely won't be reading much of our musing in the future."

Chic's own blog has a good recent example of praising a new product (above) while also gently pointing out some issues:

Second Life Fashion Bloggers Don't Care About Optimized Products Because They're Mostly Used in Solo Fashion Shoots

Good point from reader "Seph", responding to my suggestion last week that Second Life's many fashion bloggers should point out when an item has poorly textured mesh or other problems, because performance is just as key a selling point as the way a product looks. Not so, Seph argues:

This is out of touch.

A Second Life product is much more likely to be bought for a blog post, a Flickr photograph or just to lounge around with at 10 FPS chatting or roleplaying than it is to have any use at 30-60+ FPS.

Second Life designers don't build towards the same use cases as videogame designers. Stop assuming ignorance where a much more obvious explanation exists. Designers don't build towards the debug panels they build for the THOUSANDS of blog posts and photos shared every week, not for the few situations where 60 FPS would be nice.

Now that Seph puts it that way, this sounds largely correct. The vast majority of SL-based images on social media seem to be fashion pics with a single avatar, usually taken in a virtual studio, sometimes with a RL backdrop (as above, randomly pulled from Flickr), and often with heavy post-processing. In other words, most avatar accessories don't really require optimization, because they're not typically used in contexts where optimization matters all that much.

Even if that's correct, however, I'd still say SL bloggers should point out bad optimization:

SL Avatar Body Survey from Top Fashion Brand Dominated by Maitreya

Mishi Akin, owner of the massively successful virtual fashion brand Blueberry, recently ran a survey among her subscribers, asking them which mesh avatar body they use.  2879 customers responded (a very impressive data sample), and the results (above) are striking:

They show an overwhelming preference for the Maitreya body sold by Onyx LeShelle. In Mishi's survey, respondents could choose more than one body ("they could choose all if they wanted to", she tells me), but even then, Maitreya was far and away the clear choice.

Her reason for conducting this survey also provides insight into the state of the Second Life avatar economy: "I check to see if another body rose in popularity more than the six I design for," she explains, "so I can optimize my products. For example, if a new body was more widely used than the least used body on my design list I would replace it with the new body."

She tells me she conducted a similar survey 2 years ago, and the top choices are unchanged from what you see above: Maitreya, Slink Hourglass and Physique, and Freya, Isis, and Venus from Belleza. Or to put it another away: Three SL avatar body brands overwhelmingly dominate the market. This is partly due to what's called vendor lock-in: Once you buy a product that's dependent on specific accessories, it's very difficult to switch to a competing product.

But why is Maitreya far and away the market leader? Mishi has a fascinating theory there:

Get Free, Full Permission, Bento Hand Poses for SL Avatars from Emiliana

Now that the SL grid seems to be stabilized after this week's epic DDoS attack, I can finally post about this free offer from Emiliana, one of Second Life's best and stylish fashion photographers: Basic but beautiful Bento-based hand poses -- free, and full permission. Click here to get them from her in-world store.

Created in Blender, Emi is offering them to replace the default poses. "There just seemed to be a need for them," she tells me. And really, they're just basic so I'd feel bad charging for them. I've bought a few cute hold-able things over the past few months only to find that there weren't Bento poses in them. I wondered if maybe they couldn't find any, so maybe this will help."

Of course, like the street and technology, Second Life finds its own uses for things:

A Decade of Virtual Fashion in Second Life, Documented by Strawberry Singh

From 2008 to 2018, Strawberry Singh has created a history of virtual fashion in Second Life, noting all the technical milestones which improved the graphics and physics of outfits along the way. (I'd also love to see an analysis of styles as they've evolved over the years -- maybe in a follow-up, he hinted.)

But what's Strawberry's own favorite year in virtual fashion?