Generation 50+ in SL

[Miller Thor]

Does anyone actually think of us older people? To whose forehead is slowly but surely moving up and hair graying in honor? Not everyone wants to walk through the area as a young boy until the end of his life, it just takes days, weeks and months until you find something somewhere by chance and over 5 corners that might be suitable. It's a shame that you do so little for the 50+ generation, which I also belong to, and if you do, there are very few skins and even those are just revised 0815 faces . We older people also have heads of e.g. Catwa only, the Skin- or Hairbase appliers are more than rare for us. Your dear and so well-known manufactures .............. do something for those who do not want to hide their age behind a milk boy face but are proud of their age and what they have achieved in their lives to have.

Maybe my Profilepicture here is an inspiration for you.

Edited January 21, 2020 by Miller Thor

[Peony Sweetwater]

I agree - there’s not as much out there for us older avatars, but with searching out it is possible to get a variety of older looks.

If you’re looking for more suggestions of items you haven’t yet found, there are a number of topics & posts in the “your avatar” section of the forums. This one is worth checking out for guys looking to age, but I notice there are a number of other threads there, particularly for older male avatars.

 

Edited January 21, 2020 by Peony Sweetwater

[Miller Thor]

It's not just about skins, it's also very simple, e.g. a hairbase with a high forehead. You can see everything there is in the photo. There are gray beards in "real hair" more than enough, but that somebody does the work also a correspondingly good looking real hair base ................ you run from Pontius to Pilate and return and try to run only closed doors. The hairbase that I have is actually a white standard layer that I had to colorize gray afterwards via HUD .............. and how does it look compared to the beard? Well certainly not.

Edited January 22, 2020 by Miller Thor

[Raspberry Crystal]

I am developing a theory that the problem of endless youth in SL shops comes down to an issue in the supply chain. Currently, my imagined scenario is that a good proportion of the products seen in this world are made by talented teenagers earning extra pocket money in their odoriferous bedrooms during the time available outside full time education. As, in this case, they would be too busy to observe any other types of human being apart from their schoolmates, and unfortunate examples encountered via 'wewantyourparentscreditcardrussianporn.com'.

Fortunately there are some shops which seem to be free from this (alleged) external contracting, but they take some finding. 

edit: Actually that's not fair, there are many wonderful creators out there and I love their stuff...I have my suspicions about the rest though!

Edited January 22, 2020 by Raspberry Crystal

[Staceybee Nikolaidis]

oh you have hit a chord with me!  I am 54 and am so tired of the endless over sexulaized child avis.  I have been in SL for 12 years and and the at the risk of sounding like and old fuddy'duddy, it was never this bad! LOL!  I want a place to go talk to someone and have a real conversation.   I want help with my av now that I had to have a bi-lateral mastectomy--I want her FLAT.   I miss the times when you could just sit around a campfire or whatever and just talk.  

[Miller Thor]

On 1/22/2020 at 3:15 PM, Staceybee Nikolaidis said:

I miss the times when you could just sit around a campfire or whatever and just talk. 

I also wrote it via IM. You are very welcome to come to our regions with your friends and just relax and chat here as in the old days.

Edited January 24, 2020 by Miller Thor

[Blush Bravin]

I am pleased to see that the new Lelutka Evolution heads have a mature option for materials and a combined tattoo layer to be worn that creates a very nice yet subtle aging quality. There aren't any male heads out yet but when she releases one you might try a demo to see if you like the results. Here's a pic of my avatar who no longer looks 18.

Perhaps people will get the idea that it's the older of us who have the most money to spend in SL. It's happened outside of SL. Just watch how many commercials are geared toward the 50+ generation on tv.

[Maitimo]

Nearly everyone I meet in SL is over 50. A few of them are over 70.

As for mature avatars, Session has a lot of good mature skins for guys.

[rasterscan]

Really glad skin makers are on the case for matures. Lets say a young person tried and loved the game at the beginning, and they were aged 28 years at the time. That player would be ...  44 years old by now. Shows the longevity of the game eh !

[Miller Thor]

On 1/27/2020 at 3:11 PM, Matty Luminos said:

As for mature avatars, Session has a lot of good mature skins for guys

Thanks for the good advice. Now I come much closer to my RL appearance in SL. Except for the hairbase. Unfortunately, this is the only one I have found with a high forehead.

[Maitimo]

2 hours ago, Miller Thor said:

Thanks for the good advice. Now I come much closer to my RL appearance in SL. Except for the hairbase. Unfortunately, this is the only one I have found with a high forehead.

Comparing this with your forum profile pic (which I presume is you in RL) that's a really excellent likeness. 

Maybe need to tweak your shape a little though; your RL pic has a square jaw but in SL it's more triangular. You can adjust that with the shape sliders (Edit Appearance).

Edited January 28, 2020 by Matty Luminos

[MillyWH]

For Women LAQ offers a head that is more mature and on the HUD there is an option to add wrinkles.

 

Izzie's has "age yourself" for a few heads and bodies 0-it has varying degrees of wrinkles. She also offers various body imperfections for women and she has some older system layer options for women's faces.

Flat chest is much harder,  the only modI know of are V tech for Maitreya which is made to make a flat masculine chest. Slink makes a petite chest add on now but I don't know if you can make it perfectly flat . The stores I know that make clothes for V Tech are generally geared toward femboy looks. The Secret Store offers Flat chest options (to go with V tech but the more covered up items you can use with out the v tech mod)

 

I've been in SL off and on for almost 13 years, started in my early 30s and now I'm in my late 40s. My style in SL hasn't changed that much and I've never had a real desire to have my SL avatar look like my physical self.   How I look and how I interact with people in real life isn't who I really am. I mean obviously it's my physical me but I'm kind of llimited by things in how I can look and I am always obscuring parts of my self in RL to be more correct. So in SL it feels like I'm more authentically me.

[Miller Thor]

Thanks for the hint. If you are supposed to recreate yourself, you won't notice it as if someone else sees it.

Edited January 29, 2020 by Miller Thor

[Syo Emerald]

On 1/22/2020 at 9:23 AM, Raspberry Crystal said:

Currently, my imagined scenario is that a good proportion of the products seen in this world are made by talented teenagers

I'm pretty sure none of them are teenagers.

[Raspberry Crystal]

1 hour ago, Syo Emerald said:

I'm pretty sure none of them are teenagers.

The shop owners aren't I'm sure, but apart from those shops making their own meshes which aren't seen elsewhere, do you know who actually makes the original meshes licensed and re-used by so many creators? Do you know where they get them from, if you know that, are you sure that the supplier is not a middle person? Or that those meshes were not adapted from models made to suit another environment? I don't think we do know that.

[Syo Emerald]

2 hours ago, Raspberry Crystal said:

The shop owners aren't I'm sure, but apart from those shops making their own meshes which aren't seen elsewhere, do you know who actually makes the original meshes licensed and re-used by so many creators? Do you know where they get them from, if you know that, are you sure that the supplier is not a middle person? Or that those meshes were not adapted from models made to suit another environment? I don't think we do know that.

But what makes you think "people under the age of 18" are the most likely source of textures and meshes in SL? The pioniers of the SL economy weren't teenagers (far from it, at least for some of the more well known examples) and even millenials are all in their 20s and 30s. And since this topic is about items, that need to be SL specific (skin for example) I do assume the products on the market are all made by creators from SL and not some third party.

[Raspberry Crystal]

Maybe the teenager part was a jokey exaggeration to make a point, my main drift is that I feel a disconnection between the target audience, ie us, and the products that are out there.

[MillyWH]

You can't really look at a product and know how old the person is making it.

 

Take Doe hair for instance the avatars in the ads look young.

I am on my phone and can't get a decent shot of the creator Helywane Vindaloo but she has been a hair creator since I started in SL about 13 years ago. I don't know anything about the person but she is not a teenager at this point.

 

 

Also I am not sure which market your feel is disconnected from the  target audience. Clearly there are lots of successful shops that are not disconnected from their target audience.

 

And a person's age has nothing to do with how their avatar looks.

 

I have no desire to look as young as some things but I am not the audience and don't shop there. But I also have no desire to look or dress whatever is supposed to appropriate for almost 47. 

[Drake1 Nightfire]

23 hours ago, Miller Thor said:

Thanks for the hint. If you are supposed to recreate yourself, you won't notice it as if someone else sees it.

Who said you are supposed to recreate yourself? This is SECOND Life. Be whatever you want. I am rarely human. When i am human, i range between mid 20's to mid 50's, depending on my mood. I started Drake1 to be a child of a friend who couldn't have children of her own in RL. She had a gaggle of kids in SL of all races and genders. Sadly she left and i grew Drake up. 

Be what you want, search the MP for skins, mod your shape how you want. You don't have to be a carbon copy of your RL self. Personally, i find that boring as hell. 

[Raspberry Crystal]

@MillyWH it seems like you've been lucky enough to find what you need. I would like to be able to look my age, and nice! This is really hard to do.

[Elena Blossom]

Hello everyone. I'm jumping a little bit late here, but I think it's such a great topic, that needed to post. Back when I started in SL 11 years ago, age was my main concern, since I felt SL was so 'young' oriented to me; then better skins and textures were developed but the 'forever young' feeling was still there

However, I think that has change a lot lately. Skin appliers include the option of adding some fine lines or even wrinkles (please see pic below); there are plenty of great quality stores with everyday and more casual clothes, beyond the club and super-mini-ultra-so called sexy-outfits; and some hair stores include huds with grey hairs

Also, I've found music clubs and events with a mixed of different generations, which I think is the ideal, where everybody can share their RL age or just run a younger avatar

Some people go by their RL age and some decide to choose a younger age, whatever they enjoy more. What is great, is that now SL is covering both choices

 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Elena Core

[Raspberry Crystal]

@Elena Core I'm really hoping for more choice now we have BOM as my understanding is that we can re-use well made skins from previous years. Your avatar really does look lovely. Ideally I'd like something a little older but still as pretty.

Just plucking a well known celebrity face at random; Looking like Jennifer is still a fantasy but she is nearer to my age, I don't have her clothes budget in real life, and I'm sure she looks a lot rougher when she gets up in the morning , but the virtual fantasy me has similar but invisible stylists and house cleaners. 

I can't imagine Jennifer turning out for a shopping trip wearing tiny cut off shorts and a bra made from electrical tape and I really don't know if it is an age thing, or a me thing, but I don't want to do that either!

[Elena Blossom]

1 hour ago, Raspberry Crystal said:

@Elena Core I'm really hoping for more choice now we have BOM as my understanding is that we can re-use well made skins from previous years. Your avatar really does look lovely. Ideally I'd like something a little older but still as pretty.

Just plucking a well known celebrity face at random; Looking like Jennifer is still a fantasy but she is nearer to my age, I don't have her clothes budget in real life, and I'm sure she looks a lot rougher when she gets up in the morning , but the virtual fantasy me has similar but invisible stylists and house cleaners. 

I can't imagine Jennifer turning out for a shopping trip wearing tiny cut off shorts and a bra made from electrical tape and I really don't know if it is an age thing, or a me thing, but I don't want to do that either!

Totally agree, Jennifer is like perfection!!!! 

My graphic card is quite crappy and does not capture all details, but the hud Im using can even turn you into a Nanny, 

About clothes, I have been lucky to find stores that do design for us, classy but comfortable. 

[MillyWH]

On 1/30/2020 at 6:48 AM, Raspberry Crystal said:

@MillyWH it seems like you've been lucky enough to find what you need. I would like to be able to look my age, and nice! This is really hard to do.

I had type out a whole response and then I didn't post it I guess. 

 

There are some ways I would love to look like but I can't find things I like in SL to do that so I've given up or just wear the few things I have when that mood strikes.

 

But I understand because in real life I have a horrible time finding clothes that I like the style and color and can afford. Rarely do I get all 3 mostly I get one of those.

I also don't want think of my avatar as having a RL age but I don't think of anyone's avatars in terms of RL age. Plus I'm terrible at judging ages in real life and Im routinely mistaken for being younger than I am (and always have been which is kind of nice now but sucked when I was in my 20s and people thought I was in my teens). So my perception of all that is skewed.

 

Aside from that I've seen another thread talking about the lack of clothes for a mature look and how everything shows tons of skin. It got m thinking about starting a thread for posting about places to find these things. And pictures of looks etc but I didn't know if that would be ok or what to call it. Because there may not be a lot of stores where the majority of the clothes fall into this category but there are stores where you can find things that would work.

 

[Raspberry Crystal]

2 hours ago, MillyWH said:

Aside from that I've seen another thread talking about the lack of clothes for a mature look and how everything shows tons of skin. It got m thinking about starting a thread for posting about places to find these things. And pictures of looks etc but I didn't know if that would be ok or what to call it. Because there may not be a lot of stores where the majority of the clothes fall into this category but there are stores where you can find things that would work.

That sounds like a nice idea. I can't think of a good thread title either!