Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style
Second Life user and virtual fashion photographer extraordinaire Xantheanne (whose blog we're big fans of here on NWN) noticed something unusual on her Facebook feed earlier this month. A promoted post from something called "I Love New Year Club" was advertising something rather unclear with some truly original copywriting and a picture clearly taken from Second Life.
"Your Own Virtual Baby! Meet husband, new comrades, have virtual baby, create your super look and more. Play Now!" My super look? Who could resist a pitch like that?
Of course when Xantheanne clicked the post, it shuttled her straight through to IMVU, a platform that most avid SL users have little love for (though it's provided us with more than a few trained, talented virtual fashion designers over the years.)
As for Qastelis.com, the URL given at the bottom of the post? Well...
No answers there. Unfortunately this is only the latest misleading ad to take advantage of the abundance of good-looking Second Life screenshots on the internet, and if you're on Facebook fairly often you've probably come across a few yourself. If you're curious: Xantheanne did the leg work and discovered that the image stolen in this case is originally by Jayda Renee Sapphire on Flickr.
It's perhaps just a teeny tiny bit ironic that a platform notoriously strict about accounts dedicated to virtual identities is host to so many scammy virtual world ads promoting themselves with stolen SL images. The next time your avatar's social media account gets banned for being 'fake', think back to this and try to at least have a dry little laugh about it.
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I know the original photo too. It was taken and used for that ad without permission.
Posted by: Marianne McCann | Tuesday, January 20, 2015 at 03:14 PM