So I was dropped a link to read about There.com closing, and I was like YAWN “Wasnt it on the brink of dying 6 years ago?” Cuz that’s about the time I jumped off that ship.

Back around 2004, Second Life opened its doors to Thereians. And the flood of residents leaving that virtual world were offered the small luxury of creating an avatar with the last name of Thereian. Designer greats like Starley Thereian and Lost Thereian came out of that woodwork and were prolly among the pioneers that blew up the fashion biz in SL. As in, made awesome stuff some would punch their mama in the ovaries for. Maybe I exaggerate. I miss their presence in SL.

I also came from There. I didn’t do much in that place save flutter about on hoverboards, hoverpacks, and the dune buggys or whatever they were called. Operating those things worked better in that game than in SL.

I won’t be surprised if SL’s management made the decision to entice the residents from There again. It’s been done before. As of this post, there’s still 72 Thereians in SL.  Sadly, I have no pics from There.com since they died along with my 2004 PC.

Here’s a thing that I’ve noticed since the “boom” of the SL blogosphere … just how far does a fashion blogger have to go to appease a reader? And why is it that just because someone blogs about fashion there’s a sudden sense of entitlement on some readers that they must have every thing they see itemized and offered up for consummation?

Urgh, are these big words? I tend to get wordy when I type, I guarantee you that when I talk in voice, it’s like Rainman on crack. But back onto the topic before I wander off into “this one time in band camp” territory.

Cuz to me, it’s practical that if someone blogs about a bunch of hairstyles that they would then list down the hair they blogged about in the credits along with the LM’s to get to the stores. Simple enough. I’ve posed for a few pics before and while I do find the whole process of listing the clothes I’m wearing tedious, I think it’s fair to say that if I’m modeling an outfit, that I include accessories that complete the outfits. That includes jewelry, shoes, hats. But there’s some things that I just don’t feel like including in the credits.

Like, my shape, the skin, the eyes, the eyelashes, the tattoos, the sculpted ears, these are things I’m not privy to mentioning. I’m sure it’s not a real big secret to a savvy shopper, so I’m not doing it as if I’m being all secretive. I just think it’s invasive. Is that weird? Like if I read a fashion mag in RL, they’re not listing down the brand of eyelashes the model’s wearing or where she got her personal tattoo from. Not unless it’s a whole article focused on the makeup then I’d see the brands mentioned. But I don’t notice it mentioned all the time when just focusing on clothes.

So whenever I see someone honing in on a friend, asking, what’s your eyes, what’s your eyelashes, which makeup of that skin are you wearing? It makes me cringe inside. It’s kinda like asking them to go into appearance mode and telling everyone what her torso numbers are. It just kinda reached beyond what she blogged about which was like an outfit or something not even fashion-centered.

Crafting a look for your avie, I always felt was a personal journey and the most freeing thing about SL. Which is prolly why I stayed in this place for so long. So yeah, the act of copying another’s look from head to toe tends to frustrate me. And for the rest of us who are regular residents on the grid, we can always say “no” to anyone trying to pick apart our appearance preferences.

But I get the feeling that if any bloggers tried that, they’d be bludgeoned to death in public. I feel bad for them. It’s a competitive world. How do you stay relevant when left and right are twins of your avie? And it sucks that the vibe I pick up from some persistent folks is that once someone starts to blog about SL fashion, they are no longer private individuals but just brands up for dissecting and duplicating.

This might seem so irrelevant but one day … you might hear a story about someone going psycho-scalper on a blogger cuz she failed to mention where she got her weave. And the tragedy of it would be it was 100% true. Believe me … Individuality is still good thing.