A recurring theme in Second Life: Vanity

[AyelaNewLife]

On 8/31/2019 at 8:59 PM, spincity said:

When I started SL again I decided to get a mesh head, but not a mesh body. I got a lot of messages saying, "I like your head, but you need a mesh body." or "Nice mesh head, I can show you a mesh body. *Enter Mesh body here* is a great one!"  Soon after it went from that to: "Nice head, but you need a mesh, don't you want to be hot?" or "You need a mesh body with that head, look at my avatar, when I come onto a sim, I have everyone looking at me." or (one that made me chuckle) "No man is going to want to be with you, if you don't get a mesh body." 

Has anyone had else this kind of interaction before? 

The interactions you've had are pretty extreme, more so than I'd be comfortable with, but I do get where they're coming from.

SL is at least a partially visual medium, and aesthetics is important to a huge number of us residents. I put many hours of work into my appearance, and I do care about the way I look. It's not much different to the way I care about my real life appearance; except that most of the barriers to looking good in RL have no impact here. When I see someone who clearly does not care about their appearance, it's little different to seeing someone in real life who doesn't care about the way they look; it doesn't make them subhuman or anything extreme like that, but it certainly is offputting.

Using a system avatar is not the same as not caring about your appearance... but there is a vast overlap between the two groups of people, very few people with system avatars (or the free mesh bodies/heads) look anywhere near as good as they would if they upgraded. So I understand where these people are coming from with their blanket "no mesh = bad" rules, even if I don't agree with their methods. There's no reason to be unkind with this; if you've got the most basic of system avatars and you message me, I will reply with politeness and common decency, as should everyone else. Your appearance is a red flag that suggests that we are fundamentally incompatible, but nothing more than that.

[Clara Hollyberry]

On 8/31/2019 at 3:59 PM, spincity said:

Has anyone had else this kind of interaction before? 

Speaking personally, not me, no.  

Those comments you describe sound like marketing ploys or "ulterior motive" riddles from people who either know the target and enjoy messing with them or strategists who are trying to pimp product to people they assume spend big money inworld and would be easily shamed into changing their look.  Shame is a powerful motivator to change looks. I'd say shame walks hand in hand with vanity; the extent to which you can be shamed by someone else ("you look like a whore, try this instead") is the extent to which you try hard (and spend lots of money) not to be shamed by others.  Shame is lucrative and insidious.

I differentiate that specimen of vanity/shame from the creative impulse to play with looks and experiment with layers and fashion art.  That isn't vanity; it's delight in creativity. It's not touched by shame; it's shameless and wonderful to observe.  That's how I see it, anyway.

[LyricalBookworm]

On August 31, 2019 at 12:59 PM, spincity said:

 

Has anyone had else this kind of interaction before? 

I have a few times. I think the one that hurt the most is when I was sitting at the park with my family and I had a child avi come up and tell me that I was ugly. That never feels good in either world does it? I was full mesh looking as I do now. So really we cannot please everyone either way can we? 

I did spend a lot of time on my avi making her look as much as the rl me as possible because this is my social platform. I wanted to feel as much like myself as possible. It became important to look like me even with all my imperfections. Like my freckles that I have and my imperfect nose. The fact I'm really petite and look ridiculously fragile. I did this so my interactions with others  meant something more to me than looks. I went to all mesh because with the huds it was actually so much simpler than the system avi for me. I don't dress for others, but for myself. Perhaps this is a type of vanity. I really don't know.

i judge a person by their personality and actions, not how they look. I try not to judge at all, but I'm human and it happens.

I used to role play avidly here in sl until about four years ago. It had turned into a highschool popularity contest I just wasn't willing to keep up with. When I went to all mesh, the medieval attire options were also very limited. Recently though, creators have come up with some gorgeous options I've added to my wardrobe and I may immerse myself in a role play with my husband if we can find one worth immersing in.

I am sorry you experienced such blatantly rude behavior from others. I think when others lash out like that they are so miserable inside and seeking attention no matter if it is negative or positive. I don't take that behavior as a type of vanity though because it goes deeper than outward appearance and into the person's psyche itself. There is something there that makes them an unhappy person and no amount of outward beauty will fix that.

Edited September 2, 2019 by LyricalBookworm
To apologize for the novel...eek.

[Rolig Loon]

I have never tried to make my av look like anyone in particular, least of all my RL self.  I do take some small pride in having gradually tweaked my appearance to be pleasing to my own eye, which is really the only one I care about.  I spent many years getting my classic appearance "perfect," and would have gladly kept myself looking that way after I converted to a mesh body.  Since that was unlikely, I started all over again.  After three years of poking, I think my mesh av is now "perfect" again -- just a different perfect. I still don't look like anyone in particular, but I like whoever I am.  Mostly, I like looking better than I did when I was less than half my RL age today.  I have never heard a snotty comment about my appearance, but I am poised to ignore it completely if I do.

[Selene Gregoire]

18 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

I have never tried to make my av look like anyone in particular, least of all my RL self.  I do take some small pride in having gradually tweaked my appearance to be pleasing to my own eye, which is really the only one I care about.  I spent many years getting my classic appearance "perfect," and would have gladly kept myself looking that way after I converted to a mesh body.  Since that was unlikely, I started all over again.  After three years of poking, I think my mesh av is now "perfect" again -- just a different perfect. I still don't look like anyone in particular, but I like whoever I am.  Mostly, I like looking better than I did when I was less than half my RL age today.  I have never heard a snotty comment about my appearance, but I am poised to ignore it completely if I do.

 

[Maitimo]

21 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I have a Disclaimer in mine..

It say's,If you IM me,you have to give me all your RL stuff.

 

hehehehe

I ran into someone inworld a few days ago who pretty much said that. She included her RL Amazon wishlist in her profile and seems to fully expect people to buy her stuff off it, in return for the priviledge of getting a response from her.

She wasn't even attractive (greed begets ugliness).

[Rolig Loon]

@Selene Gregoire  A favorite poem:

Dilemma, by David Budbill

I want to be 

      famous

so I can be

      humble

about being

      famous.

What good is my

      humility

when I am

      stuck

in this

      obscurity?

[Ceka Cianci]

8 hours ago, Matty Luminos said:

I ran into someone inworld a few days ago who pretty much said that. She included her RL Amazon wishlist in her profile and seems to fully expect people to buy her stuff off it, in return for the priviledge of getting a response from her.

She wasn't even attractive (greed begets ugliness).

It's been so long ago that I put that in mine that I forget the reason why..

I think it might have been because of a bunch of threads popping up about people with ridiculous disclaimers about having the right to share IM's if someone IM's them or something..

Yea,that's it..Because rather than ask for permission people felt they could just take permission..like we can make up our own laws lol

It kind of made me feel like making a parody of them.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Ceka Cianci

[spincity]

On 9/2/2019 at 11:38 AM, AyelaNewLife said:

The interactions you've had are pretty extreme, more so than I'd be comfortable with, but I do get where they're coming from.

SL is at least a partially visual medium, and aesthetics is important to a huge number of us residents. I put many hours of work into my appearance, and I do care about the way I look. It's not much different to the way I care about my real life appearance; except that most of the barriers to looking good in RL have no impact here. When I see someone who clearly does not care about their appearance, it's little different to seeing someone in real life who doesn't care about the way they look; it doesn't make them subhuman or anything extreme like that, but it certainly is offputting.

Using a system avatar is not the same as not caring about your appearance... but there is a vast overlap between the two groups of people, very few people with system avatars (or the free mesh bodies/heads) look anywhere near as good as they would if they upgraded. So I understand where these people are coming from with their blanket "no mesh = bad" rules, even if I don't agree with their methods. There's no reason to be unkind with this; if you've got the most basic of system avatars and you message me, I will reply with politeness and common decency, as should everyone else. Your appearance is a red flag that suggests that we are fundamentally incompatible, but nothing more than that.

Do I have permission to use your reply in my article?

[spincity]

On 9/2/2019 at 5:18 PM, LyricalBookworm said:

I have a few times. I think the one that hurt the most is when I was sitting at the park with my family and I had a child avi come up and tell me that I was ugly. That never feels good in either world does it? I was full mesh looking as I do now. So really we cannot please everyone either way can we? 

I did spend a lot of time on my avi making her look as much as the rl me as possible because this is my social platform. I wanted to feel as much like myself as possible. It became important to look like me even with all my imperfections. Like my freckles that I have and my imperfect nose. The fact I'm really petite and look ridiculously fragile. I did this so my interactions with others  meant something more to me than looks. I went to all mesh because with the huds it was actually so much simpler than the system avi for me. I don't dress for others, but for myself. Perhaps this is a type of vanity. I really don't know.

i judge a person by their personality and actions, not how they look. I try not to judge at all, but I'm human and it happens.

I used to role play avidly here in sl until about four years ago. It had turned into a highschool popularity contest I just wasn't willing to keep up with. When I went to all mesh, the medieval attire options were also very limited. Recently though, creators have come up with some gorgeous options I've added to my wardrobe and I may immerse myself in a role play with my husband if we can find one worth immersing in.

I am sorry you experienced such blatantly rude behavior from others. I think when others lash out like that they are so miserable inside and seeking attention no matter if it is negative or positive. I don't take that behavior as a type of vanity though because it goes deeper than outward appearance and into the person's psyche itself. There is something there that makes them an unhappy person and no amount of outward beauty will fix that.

Do I have permission to use your reply in my post? 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

On 9/2/2019 at 1:44 PM, Rolig Loon said:

@Selene Gregoire  A favorite poem:

Dilemma, by David Budbill

I want to be 

      famous

so I can be

      humble

about being

      famous.

What good is my

      humility

when I am

      stuck

in this

      obscurity?

This reminds me a lot of my response whenever I read about medieval anchorites and ascetics, and how famously "virtuous" they were.

Well, big deal. Stick me on top of a pillar in the middle of the desert wearing nothing but a dirty loincloth, and I'm sure I could manage being pretty damned "virtuous" too! What choice would I have? (Except, I guess, for impure thoughts: I'm fairly sure I'd still have those. Oh, and bad language. Anyone who easily takes offense to that would probably want to keep their distance from me.)

I remember one story -- I don't remember which particular stinky, unkempt hermit this was, offhand -- about an ascetic who, having lived in the desert, far from temptation, for something like 40 years, at last announced that he had "achieved" a perfectly virtuous life, free of sin.

And, of course, in so doing immediately became guilty of pride and vanity.

[Rolig Loon]

6 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I remember one story -- I don't remember which particular stinky, unkempt hermit this was, offhand -- about an ascetic who, having lived in the desert, far from temptation, for something like 40 years, at last announced that he had "achieved" a perfectly virtuous life, free of sin.

And, of course, in so doing immediately became guilty of pride and vanity.

That story line is one of the themes that keeps me coming back to Hesse's Siddhartha, which I re-read at least once a decade.  He shows how easily (and enjoyably) one can slip back and forth over the line between piety and sinfulness.  It's a wonderful reminder of what fun it can be to be human.

And then there is H.R.R. Tolkien's lovely allegorical tale, Leaf By Niggle, which illustrates how easy it is to be unintentionally thoughtless. If I had to pick two books that have been touchstones in my adult life, those would be the picks.

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Rolig Loon said:

That story line is one of the themes that keeps me coming back to Hesse's Siddhartha, which I re-read at least once a decade.  He shows how easily (and enjoyably) one can slip back and forth over the line between piety and sinfulness.

Yeah, but he missed just how much more enjoyable it is to stay on the sinful side.

[Rolig Loon]

Oh, I dunno.  The arc of the story is toward enlightenment, but he never quite gets there.  And he does seem to have some fun along the way.

[Luna Bliss]

32 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Yeah, but he missed just how much more enjoyable it is to stay on the sinful side.

The problem is, there comes a time when the "sinful side" starts to feel untrue, and if truth is important to you the "sinful side" doesn't feel enjoyable anymore   

Edited September 8, 2019 by Luna Bliss

[AyelaNewLife]

On 9/8/2019 at 7:10 PM, spincity said:

Do I have permission to use your reply in my article?

Sorry for not noticing this until now;

Yes, you do