Is Virtual Faux Fox Fur Fashion Still Not Faux Enough?

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion

While real fur fashion items have become politically controversial in the past few decades, faux fur is still popular, especially in Winter. All the better when that faux fur is extra-faux, existing only as a virtual fashion object in Second Life, right? Not according to the swaths of angry SLers who IMed Anya Ohmai about her release for this month's Collabor88 fashion sale. When I saw her plush fox scarf (a must-have item from this month's Collabor88, in my opinion), I assumed that some people wouldn't like it. I just didn't expect the level of drama that Anya shared on her Plurk:

"I just got a ton of people IMing me saying that I'm a fox killer," she wrote the day after the release. Worse still, some were harassing people who bought her well-made, super cheap, mega-adorable scarf. In designing the scarf, Anya even gave it unrealistic proportions so it would look more like a plush toy than a realistic animal. There's plenty of plush animal-inspired fashion in SL, so what's the big deal with this fox wrap? Well...

Unlike plush animal hats, backpacks, or even scarves of any other animal, the history and past popularity of rather gruesome looking fox-fur stoles (which had heads and paws still attached in some cases) means that Anya's scarf hit a nerve. It can be argued that even faux fur (and virtual fur by extension) still promote fur as fashion, but we have to draw a line somewhere. Would you call the creator of this real life vegan wool fox scarf a murderer, and how is Anya's creation really any different?

Whether we like it or not, fur and animal products are a part of human history, and fashion is no exception. Is it better to erase and ignore that chapter of our culture, or embrace and rework it to our current standards? Honestly, there are far more imminent threats to the lives of Second Life's indigenous fauna than this sweet little scarf-- what about virtual leather?

Iris Ophelia (Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[Till Hapmouche]

Great article, Iris! "Whether we like it or not, fur and animal products are a part of human history" is the most appropriate quote I've seen about this whole issue. I'm sure the same people who called Anya (who is very nice!) a "fox killer" also own items in SL or even RL that mimic leather, suede, or other animal products.

Anyway I'm off to go wear my pandafur-lined mountain gorilla coat. Ta ta!

[Pussycat Catnap]

We don't erase or ignore Blackface either - but we also don't emulate it, even virtually.

Though it does bewilder me that people object to this, but have largely given up fighting the 'Gorean' scene which depicts a vastly darker aspect of human conduct.

[Winter Jefferson]

I just wrote an article in an RL mag last month about exactly this; and here was my opening paragraph.

"One of the best parts of Second Life fashion is the fact that pixels feel no pain. Or
if they do, then no one cares. Really! You can peel a baby panda and stuff it full of
flamingo feathers yet no one is going to throw a bucket of red paint over your
Carnage Couture. Skin is always in darling, it just cycles through whatever species
we are wiping out this season. I can't think of a greater destiny for a newborn fluffy
pixel koala than to become my new hat. Let's face it, they aren't a whole lot of use
for anything else, are they?"

Never did I think that someone would really take offense to the most faux of faux fur. People... seriously; find something much more important to get upset about. There's a lot wrong with the real world, GTFO and fix that instead.

[Nok Highfield]

Hmmm. I admit to finding this a little distasteful. However, if it was scripted so it's tail twitched or it opened an eye and stared back at you occasionally, I'd be buying them as xmas prezzies!

But 'fox killer'? Nah. It's just pixels people.

[Adeon Writer]

I've worn a fox pelt every day in SL for the last 5 years and I haven't gotten a negative environmental comment.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong?

[Mark Ciccarello]

SL is positively loaded with people who need psychiatric help, plain and simple. It's one of the reasons I never log in anymore.

[Nebulosus Severine]

This Xmas, I'll be wearing faux dead human baby scarves. It'll be the heighth of SL offensive fashion.

[Lyrical Popstar]

I just don't see dead animal carcass as fashion. I personally don't wear fur in SL for that reason. Whether it's faux or not, it still depicts dead animal to me, and it's just not my thing.

Honestly, I wish the dead animal look would just die altogether. I don't understand why people wear them around their necks, on their purses or coats as trim, or hang dead animal heads on their walls in their homes. What's fashionable about death?

[Eve]

ah ... i have thought it was a synthetic fur ... grrrh ! ^^

[elizabeth (16)]

foxes are furries

furries are real

in sl

[Nanu]

who said the fox is dead?

[Ole]

i thinK on the pic - there are two very good reasons to get rid of the fur for sure, onLy sayin' :)

[Scree Raymaker]

Crap, it looks like PETA's batshit supporters are in SL.

[Sheree Whitfield]

@Mark Ciccarello, you're the one who needs help, boo.

Check yourself.

[James Schwarz]

Y'all need to sit your basic behinds down. That stole is fabulous!

The people who buy and wear them enjoy it and it really does looks divine.

Your yapping ain't gonna do anything or change anyone's mind about them, nor is it gonna stop the sales of this fine piece of PIXEL accessory.

Oh, and I know all y'all own a bunch of leather boots and bags and whatever in and OUT of Second Life.

So, please.

Stay pressed!

[Natali]

Anyone with an overabundance of time and concern for pixel animal rights is more than welcome to come protest on the plot next to mine where my neighbour keeps his twenty or so horses in corrals so small you couldn't swing a cat. It's shocking!

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

Boy oh boy I'm enjoying this discussion.

/me calls over all my colleagues in Sociology and says "Step right up! Get topics for a new article right here!"

PS: Ole is correct.

[Shockwave Yareach]

People who can't distinguish that SL is completely fake and nothing you see here is real, have more important things to worry about than faux virtual fur in SL. Really. They should be focused on bringing Col. Mustard to justice for that horrific murder of his with a candlestick in the library. Why aren't these people out trying to capture Valdemort and making him pay for all his killings over the years instead of worrying about those wee virtual foxes killed to make the virtual furs? Why do they permit Oliver to suffer poverty and steal for his food?

Aren't virtual human lives more important than virtual animal lives?!

[jo yardley]

We don't have this silly problem in 1920s Berlin, back then fur was ok and so it is in our sim.
This winter people will be walking around covered in dead animal, just like every winter.
Nice and warm.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

It's ugly and gruesome. I wouldn't wear it unless I were trying to portray the sort of barbarian who wraps her bloody nature in the trappings of civilization, at which point it'd be a tell-tale indicator of the inner life of the wearer.

In real life I love fur. I especially love warm fur, which is why I enjoy it still attached to the living creatures to which it belongs.

[John Branch]

Good grief.

[foneco zuzu]

Now any can see why i beleave Sl can really replace rl in our minds:)

[master shake]

I think that this is awesome, and it has inspired me to go out and buy a real fox coat tonight, just to spoil myself.

The best part about fur is that they kill it through anal electrocution. God that gets me hot.

[Orca Flotta]

I guess, what this all boils down to is the basic question: How immersed are you? Are you a casual person who doesn't take anything in SL serious and sees the whole thing as a game or are you trying to hold on to a certain standard of ethical hygiene?

In RL I'm not a animal lover but also I'd never wear furs. OTOH I'm wearing leather pants and boots and use other items made from leather. My avie in SL thinks and acts the same (a frigging wonder LOL). I just hate the image of a dead animal, with head and paws still attached, dangling from my neck, for no special use or reason. It creeps me out. So my avie would never wear such crappy shit. But I'd never protest any fur-wearers, their bad taste is their own business.

And I can totaly understand animal rights activists to be opposed to pixel furs in the same way as to the real stuff. Because the light-hearted way in which the affair is treated in SL speaks a big deal about the real characters behind those fashionistas. They are stupid and selfish; we knew that already, even before they chose to knot a dead creature around their neck. And the way in which they just swat the animal lobbyists off speaks volumes about their egomanical views and ignorance.

Same as with weapons. Stick a pistol in my face and get ready for some offensive unquotable replies from me. I guess the casual way in which brutality and warfare is seen in SL, incl the more than stupid reasoning that "it's just pixels", is far off. It's not the way in which grown up responsible humans should be reasoning.

[shockwave yareach]

@Orca: The point is, there are no animals harmed (virtually OR really) in the creation of ANY clothing in SL, regardless of what you are (or are not) wearing. To take the attitude that everyone in SL has to follow YOUR standards because YOU don't like X means that everyone else has the same right to demand that you conform to their ways of thinking.

You don't like my baby seal slippers? They are no more made of baby seal than my feet are made of flesh; look closely. Other people's rights do not extend to my virtual appearance, my dress, my land, etc. If one doesn't like what I wear, tough -- I may not like what they are wearing either. Difference is, I don't think I'm the grand poobah of the internet and can tell other people what to wear. While I don't go out of my way to be offensive, I don't give a hoot what super-sensitive people think either.

No matter how you slice it, it IS "just pixels", even if the image they portray disturbs you.

[James Schwarz]

@Orca

Keep crying!

[Kalia Meiklejohn]

I think some of you have trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy. You make believe it to be in bad taste, but no animals were harmed in the making of that scarf. Trust me, no really, it's not real!

Are teddy bear scarfs offensive? Are those damned plush animal hats offensive? If so, then I would advise psychological treatment.

And for the record, I don't wear real fur and I believe strongly in real animal's rights. I just know the difference between real animals being harmed and a pixel creation of a cute FAUX fox scarf.

Get off your high horses.

[Ryker Beck]

I'm curious to know how many of these self-proclaimed faux animal rights activists have what I can only describe as virtual puppy mills (just, you know - with chickens, or horses or bunnies or meeroos in this case), set up on their land.

Think of the bunnies. All the poor, poor bunnies... that you're keeping starved, pregnant and cooped up in a pen with dozens of others... all for the sake of creating that ONE diamond in the rough that could potentially net you a few thousand linden.

You're all HEARTLESS. Abusers of virtual animals, the lot of you. You should be ASHAMED.

THINK OF THE BUNNIES.

PS: Seek therapy. Cuz y'all clearly need help.

[Iris Ophelia]

I'll admit there is a line after which animal products in SL bother me too, but this scarf is far from crossing it.

The difference between Anya's scarf and a fox stole is equal to the difference between a teddy bear and a taxidermied bear. Taxidermied bears have a significant (and ongoing) history as cruel decor, but teddy bears are still universally adored. Anya's scarf is also very stylized plush, not a recreation of a fox carcass. I guess I'm just too fashionista stupid to see how this situation differs. :o

[Chance Abattoir]

This article is the proper way to troll. Recognize.

[Ordinal Malaprop]

Whilst I am not bothered one way or the other by dead virtual foxes around one's shoulders, it is a little unusual to see so many Residents saying so forcefully "it's only pixels, it doesn't mean anything" with respect to Second Life.

[Adeon Writer]

It's a virtual stuffed animal, not a virual dead animal.

The only change I would recommend OS maybe a stitched mouth and tag on it's rear to emphasize it's just a toy.

[shockwave yareach]

Ordinal: Well, it IS just pixels. The reactions people have to the pixels is the issue here. Some people think they have the God-given right to not be disturbed in the great big world, and thus everyone and everything must cater to what they and only they believe is good and bad, right and wrong, clean and dirty. I say FI to that. What I wear is my business. So long as I'm not violating the TOS or doing/wearing something the landowner objects to, everyone else can keep their nose out of my personal affairs. And I in turn won't tell them how to live either.

Even if what the pixels portray offends you gravely, they ARE only pixels. And what they represent does not exist, has not existed, and does not exist. No MLP will be appearing at your doorstep to ask you for apples no matter what you saw in SL. No unicorns are going to take RL liberties with you, and no dragons are going to foul your bird bath in RL.

It

Is

Just

Pixels.

Even if you don't like the picture the pixels form, it's not real. Your emotions and reactions are your problem and your business, not all of SL's.

[Ordinal Malaprop]

Shockwave: The point being that, for years, people in SL have been saying "it's not just pixels" in response to thousands of dismissive or abusive posts about how SL is meaningless computer play. In fact, the biggest proponents of "it's just pixels" in SL have been griefers, who clearly don't even believe it themselves (if it was just pixels and didn't matter, they wouldn't be able to annoy anyone by manipulating those pixels, and that would be no fun).

"It's just pixels" is like "it's just letters" or "it's just neural signals" and isn't really something to base an argument on. "Wearing a virtual fur for fashion purposes in SL promotes fur as a fashionable item generally and thus also the RL fur industry" is a _rational_ argument, even if I don't think it's a very _good_ one; personally I think that, while the fur industry is pretty awful, the effect of SL fur-wearing on that is practically non-existent and outweighed by its value in self-expression, for instance. But that is not based on "virtual things don't mean anything".

[Arcadia Codesmith]

If you parade naked through a PG sim on the pretext that it doesn't count because it's just pixels, that excuse is not going to wash when your bare ass is banned.

If you roast fetuses on a stick in public, you're making a statement, and it is, "my goal is to shock and upset you". It's not "I don't care what you think", it's "I deeply about what you think because I get off on your anguish. cry moar plz."

When you're deliberately setting out to upset people, just admit it. Don't try to pretend they're inferior for being upset when you do something you know will upset them. Own your own social deficiencies.

[QueenKellee Kuu]

I can put in any kind of numbers into the edit window box. I can apply any sort of texture to that. And I can call it anything I want.

No matter how much I say it's made of aged plush velvet with fine leather trimmings, it's not. We all know this. We all go along with this game. Until it's something we disagree with? Then we want to pretend that suddenly it IS THE THING?

No.

It's just vertexes in space linked together to create a shape that has texures applied. It's made of the same things that our skyboxes and sex beds and necklaces and mesh boots and sim surrounds and everything else in this land is made of.

Again: If you have a problem with this, the problem is yours. Not the creators, not anyone else's. There's loads of stuff that I don't care for in SL. I don't engage those, buy those things, go to those places or involve myself with people who partake in them, but it doens't give me any right to tell those people or the creators of those products that they should be ashamed of themselves or tell others what they can and cannot do.

Boobies in PG sims is something else entirely. There are community guidelines about sex in SL. A faux faux fur stole doesn't even register in that league of things.

[Ordinal Malaprop]

"Then we want to pretend that suddenly it IS THE THING?"

Sorry - was there anybody who was actually saying that a fox mesh was a real fox? I must have missed their comments.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

If you have the right to make a statement, I have the right to say, "Ick. I hate your statement."

The right to expression (to the extent that it's not pure illusion in any privately-owned environment) does not include the right to be insulated from criticism of your expression.

If you don't like the criticism, don't make the statement.

[shockwave yareach]

@Arcadia - well, that would be violating the TOS, now wouldn't it?

My clothes, my business. You don't like it, feel free to say so. I'm just as free to not care. If SL is "Your World, your imagination" then you're going to see some things you like and some things you don't like. So do I -- the metaverse is rife with things I'm not fond of.

But I don't force my ways of thinking on others unless they are on my land. Freedom isn't freedom from being offended. If that's what you want, then hide on your parcel and never set virtual foot from it. But so long as I don't cross the TOS nor the sensibilities of the land owner where I am, what I wear is my issue. How you react to it is your problem.

As I said, I don't try to offend people. But I'm very much a fan of individual freedom and nobody has yet proven that any harm can come to anyone here short of lost money and hurt feelings. I have a live and let live attitude, and I don't care what trampwear others care to be seen in public in. Thus I have low regard for those people wearing dental floss as pants telling me how offended they are at what someone else is wearing. Pot, meet kettle -- Kettle, pot...

[GetaGrip]

I am more offended by people who dress as furries in SL than someone who wears a prim animal on their neck...lols.

[QueenKellee Kuu]

Yes, they are saying IT IS THE THING, by the nature of the argument.

By being angry at a faux fox, they are acting as if it's the thing. What else is the explanation? Because it's only the actual real death of a an actual real fox that is actual animal cruelty. forming a prim into the shape of a fox and wearing it around the neck causes no real death, no real harm of any real alive foxes.

If we reserve the same anger for the thing and it's artful interpretation (what this is) we are treating them as if they are the same. To me, this is the same as someone having equal anger at someone writing a fiction story about a murder, as someone actually committing a murder for real.

[Hikki-chan]

This is the most pathetic group of losers I have ever read about in my life.

[Mark Ciccarello]

@Sheree Whitfield and you know this how? I'm perfectly comfortable saying that people who get bent out of shape about dead animal pixels, among other SL drama, could benefit from counseling.

[Inex]

Just want to take a moment here to mention that regarding this case it is 'just pixels'. When a person says ' It isn't just pixels' in my opinion it's regarding the avatars. Avatars aren't -only- pixels, there's someone behind every avatar.

There's no fox sitting on a computer. It is just a cute cuddly scarf and I bow to Anya, I am loving that plushy thing <3

[Shamrawk Bailly]

Mkay...this is just ridiculous. IT IS A TEXTURE ON A SCULPT IN A WORLD THAT, WHEN THE COMPUTER IS OFF, CEASES TO EXIST FOR ME. I bought this, its cute. Anya is an amazing designer. Would i walk around IRL wearing a dead fox? No. Real animals are real, fake animals in a pixelated world...are fake. Do we see where i'm going here? Like it or not, it is no one's right to tell anyone what to create, what not to wear. It is THEIR Second Life, not yours. You don't like it, you don't wear it/buy it/whatever.

Again, this whole thing is just absolutely ridiculous and I feel horrible for the creator for getting bashed at by people who have nothing better to do than go all mob-crazy about fake things in a fake world.

If this disturbs you so much, perhaps you should just go ahead and delete SL, because in comparison to the things I've seen and heard in the 6+ years in SL...this doesn't even blip on the bad-ness radar.

[Nebulosus Severine]

As promised - Faux Human Baby Scarf!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nebulosus_severine/6518836541/in/photostream

You're welcome.

[Myf McMahon]

@ Nanu: You think it might be pining for the fjords?

@ Everyone else: We're seriously getting worked up about a virtual stole, that looks about as real as Basil Brush? Really?

Seriously, anyone who would question the morality of this item, anyone who would imply that the maker or wearers are somehow lesser people than themselves; I sure hope you've never sat down and played a violent video game. I sure hope you don't breed virtual animals and keep em shoved into the smallest possible parcel you can manage. Seriously, if you cannot immediately see the difference between what people do in a computer game and what they do in real life, then you should turn off your computer, disconnect your isp and never log on to Second Life again.

[Qie Niangao]

"In designing the scarf, Anya even gave it unrealistic proportions so it would look more like a plush toy than a realistic animal" and hunting trophies are always better the more they look like Bambi.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Nobody gives a shit about dead pixel foxes, so get off of it.

No, this is about deliberately causing grief to other people, then acting all smug and superior about it and condescendingly suggesting that they seek help, because you "get it" and they don't.

If you honestly don't give a damn what other people think, I can recommend some excellent single-player virtual environments that would suit you better than an open virtual world.

Otherwise, don't be all injured when people get in your face for stupid, thoughtless or provocative behavior. You chose to make the statement, you live with the backlash. Asshole.

[shockwave yareach]

@Arcadia: Then do not likewise get all injured when we suggest you find a mental hospital for mistaking a virtual item which does not exist and will not exist for something real. And likewise for the arrogant assumption that everything someone does is solely to push yours and other people's buttons.

We are minding our own business. You should do likewise -- nobody is making you buy or wear the fox fur or anything else. If you seek a world where nothing can offend you and nobody can disagree with you, then YOU are better suited to the single player video games. Those of us who grok that nothing inworld is real (except the players on the other side of the avatars) have been getting along with most people in SL for over 5 years now, and we need no lessons from you on how to coexist with the wide variety of people inworld.

[Susan]

Picture in SL a male av fucking a child av on a fur rug.
Its just pixel sex.
The child av is operated by an adult.
Its consensual.
But hell they shouldn't have killed the animal for the rug.

[Pussycat Catnap]

"@Orca: The point is, there are no animals harmed (virtually OR really) in the creation of ANY clothing in SL, regardless of what you are (or are not) wearing"

Its not about what is actually harmed, but about what kind of message is being promoting.

Its much Gorean violence against women - sure its fake in SL, but it promotes harmful conduct, glorifying something reprehensible as glamorous. Very different from say, a war movie or a movie like Amistad.

A fox fur stole is a promotion of something that is an absolute form of evil. And this is why, even in pixels, it can offend many.

[Pussycat Catnap]

"I'm curious to know how many of these self-proclaimed faux animal rights activists have what I can only describe as virtual puppy mills (just, you know - with chickens, or horses or bunnies or meeroos in this case), set up on their land."

It looks like most of the angry irrational "activists" around here are not the people who are saying this thing sends the wrong message, but the people glorifying how they have managed to offend others.

A message does not have to be the actual thing to communicate its message. The only people around here with this "confusion" that this is real seems to be your side sitting there tossing out all that animal-lovers-are-nuts-hate.

[Harlow heslop]

What many of you ignorant individuals don't realize is while you are protesting over effing pixels, someone's feelings and reputation are being slandered. Someone who is creative and from what I've gathered a very kind person. Dont you have anything better to whine about then defend a PIXEL fox scarf? Obviously even your second lives haven't helped you acquire any sort of life. Ffs people. Get a grip.... And go eat a damn hamburger.

[Amy white]

To be honest it's not like it's a unique or original idea or something that has never been seen in sl before.
There was a fox stole made last year by &bean
And there was a jewellery shop which I won't mention as she deserves no credit.
I don't get all the fuss.
It's pixels.

[shockwave yareach]

@Pussycat: So we should ban everything which you, I or someone else doesn't like? I guess then we'll be banning all of the following from SL because someone doesn't like it somewhere:

* Furries
* Sex - all of it
* underaged avatars
* All politics
* All Religion
* Music, since every style has a critic somewhere
* Representation of any real place
* Representation of any place from any fictional work

etc. etc. If we ban every single thing that someone somewhere doesn't agree with, nothing will be permitted in SL at all. No more sex. no more games. No more dances (Ask Baylor university its stance on dancing.) In fact, because Islam forbids any representation of any person, no more avatars at all! You'll be permitted a pre-approved lot of 8 bit videogame characters you may choose from and nothing more.

I would not like to live in your perfect, pure, safe-from-thought world, virtual or not. If seeing the odd tacky outfit or gorean slave collar is the price I pay for my own individual freedom to build and do what I like, then so be it. If other people dressing as they like is too much for you to handle, then I suggest SL may have too much freedom for you.

[Orca Flotta]

See, that's where you totally misunderstood me, Shockwave. Haven't I written that I'd never protest fur wearers? Neither in SL nor in RL.
I just find it terrible taste and the argument that it's just pixels shows a very shallow mindset. It doesn't disturb me in the least, thanks for your friendly faked concern.
But I never thought of myself as the grand poobah of anything and neither do I try to tell others what to wear.
I just find it a really tasteless look and same as you I don't give a flying fuck about what super-unsensitive peoiple think neither.
You think I got an attitude? Your problem.
You think I want you to follow my standards? I couldn't care less.
Just wanted to let you know that I think all fake fur fashionistas are dimwits. Is it maybe you being super-sensitive about my way of thinking?

[Alia Baroque]

I just love your last line:
"What about virtual leather?"

This same topic touches other aspects and choices each individual makes in SL, from clothes to personal lifestyle. It will always be, and as a creator you often have to deal with not encountering everyone's happiness about your creative choices, and sometimes being attacked even over your private choices. This is a price to pay for freedom and being allowed different opinions, and afterall a small one for the amazing possibilities SL gives.