Vanity Fair

I think that @JacksonBollock's comment about SL being a "waning cash cow" is right on the money. I also agree that if/when Linden Lab decides to shut down Adult content/regions, that will be the end of Second Life (perhaps not immediately, but it will definitely hasten its end). Ironically, one of the reasons that the adult/sex-oriented virtual worlds struggle is that they cannot hope to compare with Second Life. Here's a quote from a blogpost editorial I wrote about it back in (checks date) 2018: ---start quote--- The biggest problem is that many of these newer adult/sex-based virtual worlds simply cannot compete with everything that the entrenched front-runner Second Life, with a 15 [now 20!]-year head start, has to offer: - SL now has extremely attractive, realistic-looking mesh avatars (male, female, and any mythical creature you could ever dream up), with a near-endless array of avatar customization options (hair, clothing, shoes, accessories, etc.). You can outfit your avatar to fit into any style or scene! No other virtual world can compete. - In-world stores and the SL Marketplace sell tens of thousands of different animations (dance, cuddle, sex, etc.); again, there’s something to suit every taste. Again, no other virtual world can compete with the endless selection. - Finally, Second Life offers hundreds of adult locations, many staffed with dozens of avatars who are ready, willing, and able to roleplay sexual scenes (via chat, voice, even webcam!). Again, no other sex-based virtual world comes even close. Now I want to assure you (despite SL’s reputation in some quarters) that you can easily enjoy and appreciate Second Life without setting foot once in any of these adult areas. You can easily set up your client software to avoid showing adult-rated places to you under Places search, for example. But they are there, if you are curious. And some of these places are quite popular. Frankly, sex is one of the reasons that Second Life is still as popular as it is, for a certain minority of visitors. ----end quote--- In fact, I have often wondered what would happen when Second Life does shut down. What other virtual worlds would benefit? Somebody on this thread joked that we need to set up a system so we could find each other in other worlds if this should happen, and honestly, that's not such a far-fetched idea!

Yes, I have fiddled with the limit on the number of avatars drawn, even taking it down to its lowest level. It still crashes on my mid-range iPad (not sure of the version number). I've also set the draw distance down to its lowest level, it still crashes. I do now have a newer iPad Pro 11 for work, which I could install the mobile client on, to see if that works any better. Honestly, part of the fun in being in a crowded club or shopping event is to see what other avatars are wearing, and do a right-click/inspect to see who made an item of apparel! That is probably always going to be a desktop PC endeavour, never a mobile one!

Lumiya, alas, only worked for Android devices, never for iOS. (And no, I am not going to change.)

As I mentioned, you have to be able to park your avatar in the club to listen to the music stream, and whenever I try to connect to a busy club via the mobile client, it crashes. So no, you currently cannot use Mobile and listen to a club's music stream—unless that club is pretty empty. (Believe me, I've tried!)

I am currently beta testing the iOS Mobile client (I have one avatar who has a Premium Plus account, not Vanity), and I can tell you that the client crashes consistently on my mid-range iPad whenever I teleport into a region with a significant number of avatars (like a busy club or a shopping event). I can confirm that it already works well for group chats, or IMs with people nearby. In fact, it already does a lot of things well, but I would think that getting it to work in places where there are a lot of other avatars is critical to Mobile's success. As for "nobody asked for," well, I have been waiting for 17 years for the ability to lie on my sofa with my trusty iPad and log into Second Life! Mobile is a dream come true for me, even with its current limitations. But I'm an old fart now, and I have no clue how well younger generations of users (the Roblox/Zepeto/TikTok crowd) will take to SL on mobile. It will definitely appeal to the IMVU/Avakin Life crowd.

Don't feel bad...I didn't know about it, either, until somebody told me that you could set up a signature line!

Well said. Second Life is my preferred way of dealing with nasty, brutal reality. It's my creative outlet, my escape hatch. I can get into the zone and forget about everything else that might be bothering me. I suspect that SL probably has about 5 to 10 years of life left in it, unless whoever owns it at the time decides it's time to pull the plug. But I don't want to spend my time in SL worrying about its future end. I just want to enjoy it as it is, now, today. We have had people exclaiming that such-and-such or so-and-so will mean the end of SL, and guess what? We're already making plans for the 21st birthday celebrations. Second Life has had an amazing run, ALREADY, and anything after this is just the icing on the cake.

And—as I have recently written on my blog (address is in my signature line)—one of those major moneymakers, Blueberry, is at the very least hitting pause on its SL operations, and at worst, is possibly leaving SL completely for greener pastures (namely, avatar customization in Roblox, Zepeto, and soon SnapChat, all three of whom, with their millions of users, absolutely dwarf the user base of Second Life). The smarter companies are already starting to look at more lucrative alternative platforms for their work. (I'm not gonna link the blogpost, you can find it easily enough)

Wow, how did I not know that VRChat had partnered with Tilia last December. Playing catch-up now...well, this is certainly interesting! Fun fact: my blogpost about hidden adult content in VRChat is, far and away, the most visited blogpost on my entire blog, after almost seven years of blogging. (It also helps that it's very high up in the Google search results when you look for "vrchat adult," which apparently, a lot of people do search for...who knew?? )

Well, I mean, Linden Lab also had ambitions for Sansar, and we all know how that went. After changing hands several times, Sansar still has a very small but deeply committed user base, but it doesn't seem to matter how well it shows itself off (and I will still say that Sansar is the most beautiful social VR platform)—everybody would rather hang out in VRChat or Rec Room instead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I have completely given up on predicting what metaverse ventures will fail and which will succeed.

As someone who’s been beta testing mobile SL, I’d say we still have a ways to go before it’s in regular use. Pinning “mainstreamness” on mobile is a gamble that may not pay off.

Tilia really tried to sell its services to other (non-Second Life) apps, with limited success. So maybe this is a good thing, who knows. I doubt this means a shutdown of SL anytime soon, it’s still a reliable cash cow for Linden Lab and its investors. What really hurts is the exchange rate when converting from many countries’ currencies to and from U.S. dollars. The Canadian dollar, in particular.

I gotta say, one example of a newer store that is just killing it with mesh body support is Carol's Store. I like the fact that I can buy an outfit and it comes in both Inithium Khara and Maitreya LaraX mesh body sizes (which are the only bodies Vanity Fair wears nowadays). I can kill two birds with one stone!

Ooh, I *like* this theory! And I have often thought that BumbleBee is eerily similar to Blueberry (albeit with a more muted colour palette).

I have updated my blogpost with a link to the contact form on that website, thanks Stephanie! I must confess that the almost complete lack of mention of SL on the House of Blueberry website is ominous. Perhaps Mishi and her crew looked at all the work required to upgrade all their Lara apparel to LaraX, and decided it's just not worth all the rerigging work? Aside from a few fatpacks under New Releases, and a few Valentine's Day offerings, and one Christmas/winter offering in the TSS section outside the store, there's precious little LaraX apparel. Another thing: if Blueberry is indeed leaving SL, who will be stepping up to fill the void? I know that both Addams and BumbleBee are busily releasing new LaraX content. Carol's is also busy putting out LaraX stuff. And a few stoes, e.g. ViSion, are actually adding LaraX to some of their existing offerings, which is nice (e.g. you can request a redelivery of the Mell outfit (jacket, minidress, and boots), and the updated package includes LaraX sizes, which is nice! I wish more designers would do this.

Yes, I noticed that the House of Blueberry website barely mentions Second Life AT ALL! Also, on my blog (see my forum signature for the address), my most recent blogpost is my editorial on this topic, dealing with both specfics (what you should do if/when Blueberry shuts down), and what it means in a bigger-picture way. Check it out! 🙂

Question: I am following up on the notice which was posted to the Blueberry group as follows, especially the final part, which was not included in the Facebook message which started off this discussion thread: ----- i fam ❤ I’m very sorry to say that I will be taking a break from SL. Blueberry does not plan to release any new items for the foreseeable future. At some point, I will share an update. Right now I need this time to reflect. I do consider all of you berries as my forever family and I am eternally grateful for your support and understanding. Thank you for all of your love. Please send all questions regarding credit to blueberryxx in a notecard and any other questions to https://rb.gy/5g ----- The URL in the Blueberry group message I quoted above use a URL shortener service, and it seems to lead to an error page (I assume Mishi's message was too long and got cut off); does anybody know what the correct URL is supposed to be? This might be important for people who want to ask questions. Thanks!

@Dreamer Pixelmaid and I were chatting about the Skin Fair yesterday....and I had to laugh when she called the Genus Morph head the "Ms. Potato Head" of mesh heads! So true! I believe the full package (with all the available options for ears, mouths, noses, eyes, etc.) comes to L$7,650 (that's the 50%-off price during the Skin Fair), but if you're one of those people who buys multiple LeLutka heads to get different looks because you can't mod the nose or mouth enough, it kinda pays for itself. It's essentially the same as the cost of two full-price LeLutka heads. I finally upgraded Vanity Fair from a Catwa Kimberly head to the new female Era2 head from LAQ (currently using the Sophia skin). The HUD's not perfect, but I just love the level of detail on the UltimateHUD skins! There's a new free freckled Era2 UltimateHUD skin gift called Elowen at the LAQ booth at the Skin Fair.

True! And we have all those old SLUV skins sitting in our inventories to play around with!

Yes, it's now clear that replacing Isis, Venus and Freya (which was popular) with the GenX line was a tactical mistake on Belleza's part. I've also heard complaints that you can't make the GenX arms more muscular/fuller, which is always a pet peeve of mine, along with avatars with too-short arms!

This is probably the most authoritative list, in my opinion. I was going to post this myself in answer to the question, thanks for saving me the trouble, Rowan! Among my small army of Second Life alts, the most popular female bodies I use are: Maitreya Lara (I only buy during the 50%-off Black Friday sales every year) and the Maitreya Lara-compatible LucyBody Atenea; Kalhene Erika (including Zero and Zero Plus); and Senra Jamie, which I find I am using more and more recently. I also picked some Inithium Kupra bodies for L$1,000 each during last summer's one-hour flash sales, and I currently use them for four of my alts (one was a replacement for Belleza Freya). I also have a small number of female alts still using the MeshBody Classic and various Altamura freebies (notably Juliet, which was a Valentine's Day gift many years ago), but I am slowly replacing them over time! I've only upgraded Vanity Fair to LaraX so far (I was briefly flirting with Inithium Khara, yet another L$1,000 flash-sale buy, and I love it, but it's still too hard to find clothing for). Then Maitreya released LaraX, and I was like, SOLD! For male bodies, I have 3 Belleza Jake, 1 MeshBody Legacy (which I won in their launch raffle), 1 Signature Gianni, 1 Aesthetic Enzo, 1 Anatomy (for my drag queen avatar, who also switches between a variety of female bodies), and 1 Inithium Kario (another L$1,000 flash-sale purchase), and the rest all use either MeshBody Classic or Senra Blake. I think that Senra Blake might become THE default male mesh body on the grid, since it is increasingly difficult to find clothing that fits the L$1 MeshBody Classic.

I personally have never understood the attraction of breedables, but hey, I applaud the people who discovered that there was a business model there! More power to them. Grab that coin, girl!! 💰💰💰 What I find amusing is all the places that sell breedables like KittyCats and such. I wonder how many of them actually make money off of it (as opposed to just enjoying them as pets).

This, 100%!

And yes, the recent 99%-off sale at LAQ got my attention! I landed up buying a number of heads for a number of my alts that had a different look to them from what I've seen elsewhere on the grid. Any yes, that particular sale was a smart move, since it raised awareness of the LAQ brand! Here are two examples of heads I bought during that sale from LAQ, Bree (top) and Rain (bottom):

This. THIS! One category of freebie that this fashionista will pick up for EVERY. SINGLE. ALT. is free/cheap Bento mesh heads, because you never know when you are going to want to switch heads, and it's nice to have options. (I also tend to pick up free skins, particularly if they come with the body skin, OR use the Velour body skin tones. I don't bother anymore with any freebie skins that require me to purchase a non-Velour body skin separately.) So yeah, I went a little crazy last December, picking up the free/inexpensive heads from LeLutka, Akeruka, and LOGO. Somebody could write an article in a business journal about how Catwa was overthrown by LeLutka as THE mesh headmaker on the grid. And, I must confess, after fighting with the HD lips and lipstick HUD for the umpteenth time with Vanity Fair's signature Catwa Kimberly head, I paid a visit to LeLutka to pick up some demo heads to play around with. You best believe that Vanity, when she buys a new head, will be buying full-price at LeLutka! That's the beauty of freebies; you learn how to use the product, see how much easier it is to use (better than the competition), and then, when you're ready, the sale is made! For example, I was stopped in my tracks when Genus released the new mature men's M002 head at a discount at the current shopping event. I have an old wizard avatar, for whom this would have been *perfect*, so I picked up the demo, along with the skin, to try it out. I eventually decided not to buy it, HOWEVER, the fact that I even considered trying it at all was informed by my previous good experiences using the free Genus 4K head on several female alts. Giving away a free head is a savvy marketing move to get market share.