116: Seven dog years (my first anniversary!)

It was one year ago today -- February 27, 2014 -- that I made my very first post to this blog. I've remarked before that a year in SL is rather like what we call "dog years"; every year in SL is like seven years in real life. I'll celebrate this as my first anniversary, but gee, it sure feels like I've been posting a lot longer.
   On anniversaries, it's frequently customary to look back over the previous year and try to sum it up, and I wanted to do a little of that today. I went back 116 posts to see what I had to say a year ago, and what I looked like, and to me it's quite amusing.
   I've changed my looks, of course -- like so many people do in SL. I stopped wearing my l'Uomo mesh body and went back to a shape that's shorter than most male avs, and more of what I'll call the "chunky hunky monkey" look; I just prefer myself that way. I've changed my hair a couple of times (no, you won't be seeing much of my huge Afro in the future, that was for a 60s look for a party). I've changed my eye colour at least twice, and gone through more chest hair than an Italian waxing salon ;-) I was a lot more fascinated with black eyes and bruises a year ago than I am today. I still have my trademark caterpillar eyebrows, though!
   More to the point, I've changed a lot about what I blog about and why. I seem to recall starting out with the intention of doing a lot more fashion blogging than I've actually accomplished; if you follow this blog, you know I'm not much of a fashion blogger. Occasionally I find a piece of clothing I really like, and that seems to suit me, but for the most part I think I do a lot better as an interviewer than a fashionisto, and since there are plenty of fashion-forward bloggers covering that ground, I'm okay with where I've ended up.

My first published photo,
taken at The Grindery a year ago today

   One of the things I talked about a year ago today was my intention to become a better photographer. And holy moly, was that ever a bad shot I published a year ago. I can see that somehow my chest hair got mixed up with my tank top ... I wouldn't even publish this shot today except to give us all a bit of a chuckle. (These days, I have a policy that I won't knowingly publish a shot where someone is having layering problems or alpha issues with their outfit; I've been too embarrassed too often by that myself to want to document it for anyone for the future.)

I went back to The Grindery this afternoon
and took a similar picture, just to illustrate
the differences a year can make ...

   These days, I have a little bit different philosophy about photography. I realized early on that I was never going to be as good a photographer as some of my friends, and nearly all of my fellow bloggers. Instead, I have decided that my philosophy is that, damn it, I take the same kind of snapshots as a lot of other people -- it's just that I take more of them. I'm a huge Andy Warhol fan, and, looking back at the early days of Interview magazine, that's what he did; he took a lot of Polaroids and published interviews verbatim. I don't know if it's the best policy, but it seems to be mine.
   I don't seem to have any instinctive talent for photographic composition, and I don't own a copy of Photoshop or anything like that; what you see is what I see, and the most I do is set the sun to noon so I can see the details of people and objects. Believe it or not, I don't use poses (well, occasionally, when I find them at a location, or they're built into furniture). I just snap away until I get a picture I like. Yes, it's frequently a bit awkward and a bit naive, but that's the kind of photographer I am.
   As far as interviews go, well, I always ask the same questions; I may branch out a little bit in the future, and I'm thinking of different kinds of interviews for the future, but for now, I think it helps my readers to understand people when they read how my subjects answer the same questions that everyone else has answered. I like talking to people who are DOING things in Second Life, because I think they are people that other residents would like to know about; I'll continue to do that. I'll also continue to try to find unusual places to go and take pictures -- think of it as me trying to find things that it will amuse you to check out on your own.
   I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's been supportive and enthusiastic about what I've been trying to do with this blog over the last year. Especially I want to shout out to my fellow bloggers, all of whom you'll see in the blogroll to the right. Some of those folks, like Eddi Haskell / Ryce Skytower and Ziggy Starsmith and Bock McMillan, have been producing intelligent, high-quality Second Life blogging for longer than my av has been in existence, and I owe them a great debt for leading the way. NakedCarl Paneer and I have become colleagues who seem to cover the same ground, and I thank him for keeping my nose to the grindstone to keep posting. Bloggers like Darkyn Dover, Richmond Damiano, Filippo Bergan / Chary Hera, and Carthalis Rossini spend their time and money making beautiful, intricate images, and I thank them for working at a level that constantly delights me. And bloggers like Ciaran Laval, Hamlet Au, Iris Ophelia, and Strawberry Singh have shown me that Second Life blogging can make people think as well as show them beautiful images. Thank you all, and I recommend that my readers check out everyone in my blogroll. Some of them have become friends as well as colleagues. Every single one of these folks has been an inspiration to me at one time or another, and they're all worth following.
   I also want to thank all my friends in Second Life. There are way too many to name, I'm already beyond my tag limit for this post, and (like an Oscar winner) if I name only a few I'll insult the rest, so -- if you're on my list of friends, in SL or on Facebook or both, thank you. It's your support and kind words that keep me blogging. Thanks for putting up with me pestering you for interviews and photographs and "just a few minutes of your time". Thanks for your comments and likes and thumbs-up on Facebook, and for passing around links on Google Plus, and all your interest and support. Thanks for being great DJs and hosts and designers and landlords and neighbours at 3Bears and everything else that you do. Thanks for telling me about cool things that you think I should check out. Thanks for teaching me how to do cool stuff. And thanks for reading my blog!
   Finally, as many of you know, one other important thing has changed in my Second Life in the last year. I first met Alex Thaub out dancing, and he seemed like a nice guy, and I interviewed him, and we went out on a date, and kept hanging out together -- and now we're partners and we're getting married soon. He's become the most important person in my Second Life and I thank him for his constant love, hugs, support, and understanding, and for realizing that when he pops into the house and finds me chatting with a stranger, it's for an interview ;-) You will all be invited to our wedding in the near future, and I'll be blogging about that whole process. Thanks, Alex, for making this a great time in my Second Life, and thanks for saying yes when I proposed!
   Here's to another year!

041: The perfect male avatar?

I've referred my readers to Iris Ophelia's point of view before in this blog. She's a well-known and hugely experienced commentator on both Second Life and other virtual realities.  A piece she published yesterday is highly complimentary of the photographic work of Second Life artist Nomak Nyoki whose Flickr feed is found here; I've lifted his beautiful photograph that you see to my left from her post, to encourage you to see his Flickr for yourself. She says he's quite a stylist and I completely agree.  He really uses props very cleverly to contribute to the atmosphere of his pictures, the lighting is great, whatever Photoshopping there is (I'm terrible at noticing whether or not there's been Photoshopping in a picture, but this looks so darn complete, I think it has to have been touched up) contributes to rather than detracts from the emotions he's evoking with the pictures, and I agree with Iris Ophelia that he's "a force to be reckoned with in the world of men's fashion in SL", although I think I would differ with her about just how much and in what way.

It was the title of the piece that caught my attention, though. "The Perfect Male Avatar Might Not Look exactly Like Nomak Nyori, but it's Probably Very Close". Iris Ophelia suggests that if you wanted to do "a head-to-toe male av makeover" his Flickr stream should be "your number one source of inspiration".

I think the first thing that crossed my mind was exasperation. Frankly, if I met the above young man in real life, I wouldn't be applauding his perfection; my first instinct would be to take him out and get him a sandwich; next would be the number of a good personal trainer. And that's because my tastes run to guys who have spent more years in the gym than this guy would have been alive, had he existed outside SL. I'm definitely aware that there are gay men in SL who would regard this ephebic type as the nearly perfect av of Iris Ophelia's dreams; I tend to not hang around with them and my sense is that they don't make up the majority. When I see an av that looks like this in my usual hangouts, he's usually trying to trip me and hit the ground under me, if you catch my drift. I don't really want to have sex with him and I absolutely don't want to look like him. (Nothing wrong with being a slender bottom; just not to my taste.)

So it's clear that when Iris Ophelia says this guy is nearly perfect, what she means is, "from a heterosexual female point of view". To the best of my knowledge, Iris Ophelia is a heterosexual female and she gets to express that point of view. Gay men of my acquaintance would probably disagree, but that's not the reader for whom she's writing.

What it makes me think, though, is two things.

The first is that -- well, what I thought of was an old Simpsons episode in which Lisa is reading a thinly-disguised version of "Tiger Beat", with floppy-haired adolescent singing stars on the cover talking about what qualities they liked in the girls that they dated. Lisa Simpson's magazine, though, was called "Non-Threatening Boys". And that's what I see all over Nomak Nyoki's Flickr stream; non-threatening boys. Wide-eyed waifs like the one above, complete with purse dog. Epicene fashion model boys. Boys with edgy tattoos styled to look "street", but with precise and precious hair and accessories that suggest to me that if street violence was imminent, we'd hear a high wailing noise as the owner of those high-tech headphones headed for the hills. What it all boils down to is One Direction with a couple of extra tattoo layers.

Now, I'm trying to be funny about it; really, there's nothing wrong with liking non-threatening boys. It's just that, in the context, it's kind of like going into World of Warcraft and complaining that it's too violent. In the realm of men's fashion and accessories, Second Life is beautifully focused upon making male avs who look like muscular street thugs, and I see it everywhere I go. In fact, the more I hang around in non-gay spaces, the more I see it. Guys in SL, straight and gay, like to be eight feet tall slabs of rippling muscle, with long unruly hair and biceps that could crush a beer can. Or, as Iris Ophelia's only commenter (at this point), one Pussycat Catnap, says, "the usual T-Rex arms I see on male avatars". Which the lack of, in her view, boosts him "10 notches on the respect dial"; apparently her arm candy shouldn't have, you know, actual arms.

So, there's a serious dichotomy here. Guys gravitate towards looking a certain way in SL, and women apparently want them to be -- exactly the opposite. They don't want a man who looks strong enough to change a tire, they want a guy who carries a shoulder bag and a Boston terrier. Trouble is, there are tons of stores where you can buy rolled-up T-shirts (and the requisite biceps to go inside them), and not all that many malls filled with designer beanies and bucket hats. Men are voting with their wallets to look like what they want to look like and, believe me, it is very, very rarely that a man's consideration of personal appearance include how well his tuxedo's boutonniere will match his girlfriend's evening gowns or toe polish. Ain't gonna happen.

If Nomak Nyoki gives styling information for the stores where he got that antique flight jacket or filigree necklace or hair with the tire tracks shaved into the sides, I'm thinking that those stores are not selling a lot of stuff to male avs. They're possibly selling more to female avs who give this stuff to their male associates, hoping that they'll upgrade their look instead of wearing the same outfit over and over and over. I have to chuckle, because I think many straight guys think that the ability to wear the same outfit over and over is a benefit; they don't like shopping and once they have a look they like, there's no need to tamper with it, is there?  So that's why Nyoki is a fashion force to be reckoned with; I think he's selling lots of stuff to women to give to men, or to audibly wish that men would buy and wear. But Iris Ophelia uses the phrase "head-to-toe male av makeover". I suspect that the reaction would be a lot different if men were asking women to have head-to-toe makeovers to please them, starting with those big fake boobies and hooker heels I see at a lot of parties.

My feeling is that if women in SL are looking for non-threatening boys to take to social events, what they should do is collude in pairs, create a slender, well-dressed, and non-threatening male alt and take turns being the other's male escort. Which is a weird idea, if you come to think of it, that the only way a woman can get a man to act and look like what she wants is if she gets a girlfriend to dress up like one. Is it that what women are really looking for, is another woman with a convenient penis? That is a discussion I cannot even undertake, being woefully philosophically unequipped; I'll defer to any woman's interpretation. But it's interesting to think about from the point of view of a gay man.

The second point is more tenuous. When Iris Ophelia tells me that I need "a head-to-toe male av makeover" so that I can look like a gaunt, twee, and overly-tattooed teenager -- with the understanding that straight women will "boost me 10 notches on the respect dial" if I do so -- well, I can chuckle and move on; I don't really give a shit what Pussycat Catnap thinks of the size of my arms. But I think what's going on here is complicated. What I'm hearing is the subtext that female heterosexuality is the dominant paradigm in Second Life, and if you don't meet straight women's expectations of your looks and sexuality, then you need to change until you do.

Which is, of course, what straight and gay women have been putting up with for years, I gather, and in real life is responsible for a thriving breast implant industry, billions of dollars worth of cosmetics and dyes, and the Jimmy Choo empire. The thing is, though, that Iris Ophelia is a thought leader among men and women who want to see virtual realities change to be more accepting of women on their own terms. She likes to play various violence-based RPG-style games on an equal basis, and, to paraphrase, she wants to be the player who rescues the helpless male just as often as she is rescued by him, no fear no favour. And I applaud that; I think all games should be welcoming to all people, no fear no favour. She also wants women to be treated with respect within the game environment and in the spheres of comment and analysis that surround it; again, I'm with her. She's an insightful analyst of games and her voice should be heard equally and without sexist cat-calling. She wants equality, but this kind of article is telling me that she doesn't return it; she can be herself, and I need a makeover.

The tenuous point for me here is that there seems to be a vague underlying assumption here that SL is somehow a "women's game", and that what women say goes; male avatars are subject to the female gaze, and if they don't meet expectations, then they've somehow transgressed and need to be "made over" -- and, as near as I can tell by the visual differences between my av and Nomak Nyokim's, emasculated. I have to admit, I might be reading too much into a couple of paragraphs of commentary; it could be that Iris Ophelia merely wanted people to look at some interesting photographs and chose her story hook poorly. It's been known to happen. But it's often when we are careless and unguarded that we express our inner truths.

I think it's clear that SL has a higher percentage of female players than RL, and I think that the economy of SL is based on women buying virtual hair and clothes. I think that because there is no violence in SL, and more of a focus on creating an attractive avatar, it has some perception in the non-gaming world as being a "women's game" in the same way that World of Warcraft is perceived as a "men's game". But I know that Iris Ophelia will tell you that World of Warcraft is not a men's game, because it's actually about the skill-sets of the players and the social interactions necessary to make things happen as much as it is killing monsters. Well, it works the other way around too; Second Life is not a women's game, because it's actually about the skill-sets of the players and the social interactions necessary to make things happen.  I'm not taking this point further than I think it deserves; I don't really think that a lot of people within Second Life think of it as a men's game or a women's game. I don't like what she said, and I don't like what it implies, but I don't want to beat it to death when it may have been less than fully thoughtful.

So at the end of this trail of logic, I'll leave it to my readers. I was going to ask for input about what makes an avatar "perfect", but truly I think that has almost nothing to do with what the avatar looks like and everything to do with the human behind the process. And in that respect -- we're all perfect.

036: An interesting thought from Iris Ophelia

Iris Ophelia is a well-known and hard-working blogger -- both a good writer and a good thinker -- in the areas of gaming and virtual world style; she's affiliated with blogger Hamlet Au in his New World Notes blog, which I think is one of the crucial resources for anyone interested in thinking about Second Life. (It's in my blogroll to the right.) Her latest post there is so interesting that I thought I'd refer you directly:

Does Second Life have a class system? Spoiler: "Yes."

It's a brief piece (citing the thoughts of SL designer Aranel Ah somewhere in Plurk; I don't Plurk) but I can sum it up more briefly.  She says, does SL have a class system? Yes, and it's based on money and talent. If you have talent at something that is part of SL -- "build, design, script, perform, anything" -- then you will "gather a following". Since most people in SL conflate appearance with experience (and, in my experience, also with skill at using the tools), people who have money can experiment with their avs, buy expensive stuff and look great, and people do them the credit of thinking that they have the same kind of talent that talented people use to design their avs. So if you have either money or talent, you rise to the top of the system in SL. And if you have money AND talent, my extension goes, you rule it.

Now, I think there is a great deal of truth in this. I have met people who have both money and talent and, believe me, they are the ones who really are having fun in SL. Just because you have money doesn't mean you can't actually be talented at an art that is valued in Second Life. And, yes, people with talent are lionized in Second Life; people like to be around them because they do interesting things. People with money who put it into having a great-looking av and being a great host at a private sim -- believe me, people like to be around them too, even if they only manage to get a group of talented poor people to play with them ;-).  Being "the host with the most" is a talent too, and a very pleasant one to have among your acquaintance.

Let me be clear; she talks about money and SL class at greater length than I have, and you should read the article. Iris Ophelia is not being a snob. She's a talented observer of virtual lifestyles and she says this is happening; it's not because she happens to benefit from it, since she's talented and smart and looks great, it's because it's really there. I know my American friends will insist loudly and at length that THEIR social structure contains no classes. "This is Amurrica! We don't have classes!!" My experience has been that they will then immediately proceed to detail the social class structure that rules their lives, in great detail, with great precision, and a subtle command of its finer points; they just won't call it a class structure.  It's a "hierarchy" or "the natural order" or some such. I'll let them live with their dreams LOL.

The thing that interested me about the article, though, was something that Iris Ophelia either overlooked or assumed that everyone was on the same wavelength about. If you're on the top of the class system in SL, what is it that you get, or what happens, that is different from people at the bottom of the class system? Why would it be worthwhile to be of an upper class?

I took an inventory of what she actually said in the context.  You will "separate yourself from the herd"; "gather a following". You will "move up the social ladder." Looking like an experienced player is a good thing; you will increase your "progress and status". "Other players are much less likely to write you off at first glance."

But I found a phrase that I think cuts to the heart of what she's getting at; you'll be able to "find your place". And I'm reassured by this; I think this is much more egalitarian than the caste-like system that I, and I'm sure some of my readers, immediately thought she might be suggesting.

If you "find your place", it means that you find your place among a group of people who are like you, whom you like, and whose company and pursuits you enjoy. This is not about a group of people being "better" than each other; this is a kind of sortation process. If you are a talented designer of virtual furniture or skins, you will enjoy hanging around with people who design virtual houses or tuxedos, to exchange information and share a common enjoyment. If you are a person of limited or fixed means who is looking for inexpensive ways to enjoy the game, you will enjoy hanging around with other such people to exchange information and share a common enjoyment. The problem in Second Life is to find other people who are like you.

In real life, this sortation process is helped by visual signals that are both unambiguous and universally understood. You have a BMW, she has a wheelchair, I have a Harley, and each of those things says something about the way we live. I'm not saying that those three people cannot understand each other or be sympathetic to each other's issues -- I'm merely saying that if you have a BMW and I have a BMW, or you have a wheelchair and I have a wheelchair, it will be worthwhile for us to get together socially. And I can see if you have a BMW or a wheelchair, or both. So I look for people who look like me and have the same physical trappings as I do.

In Second Life, the physical signals are changed by the nature of the environment. You may be a man in a wheelchair in RL, but in SL you can be an eight-foot goddess with hair to the floor who likes to wear ball gowns and go dancing. And many people in SL, as is perfectly their right, don't like to share information about RL. So how is someone to tell if you have a BMW, or a wheelchair, or a Harley, or a tractor, or a city bus?

Iris Ophelia seems to be saying that looking as little like a newbie as possible -- whatever that means -- will move you up the ladder. And at the top of the ladder are people with money, or people with talent, or people with money and talent. If that's what you're looking for in your virtual friendships, then I think she's saying you have to look like those people. You can either do that by spending a lot of money, or by figuring out how to achieve a hot look for less money. (People with talent do it all the time -- a teenage Madonna started fashion trends for things like rubber and leather jewelry that were copied by people who could have afforded diamond tennis bracelets.)

So what do people look like when they have money and talent?  This circles back to a conversation I had in a club the other night with a stranger -- who had been in SL for less than a month. (I'm pretty sure English was not his first language.) He started talking to me, he said, because I looked different than most of the people in the room; I looked "complete". I was kind of kidding him along and said, "Well yeah, I have the usual number of hands and feet." "No, no," he said, "You look like SOMEBODY. Everybody else looks like ANYBODY." Well, of course, I was foolishly pleased and gave him the LMs for some really good skin shops where he could start the process of looking like somebody. Bless his pixels, he's on the right track, and he gave me the way to express it. Looking like a newbie means you look like anybody. Looking like an experienced resident means you look like somebody.

So I've taken Iris Ophelia's clever observation one step further. There is a class structure in Second Life, and it's worth knowing where you fit in it. If you do, then you will find other people who are like you, who will become your friends, and who will increase your enjoyment of Second Life. And the way to give people signals as to where you fit into it is -- look like yourself, and look like somebody. I'm currently doing that by paying very little attention to what most of the people in bars look like; I'm trying to create a personality that is distinctive and that you can figure out by looking at me. Then other people who are the same class as me will find me, and I'll find them. And we all will have more fun!