Pet Peeve #4

I have a list of Pet Peeves on my SL Profile, and I’m guessing that I’m going to eventually dissect most of them here in my blog.  Maybe it will serve as some sort of therapy.  Maybe after talking them out with myself I could say… ” eh.. that’s not so bad, I can delete that one.”    So today I’m going to tackle #4:

4. Guess I am an avatar snob. So people that hit on good looking avis, but don’t do anything about their own and scream ‘shallow’ at those that do.

I want to point out that the key thing here is that ending part “…scream ‘shallow’ at those that do.”    If you don’t want to do anything about your avatar, or want to sit there and claim you want to be liked for your brains, that is perfectly fine.  But don’t shun me (or other people), or call me shallow because I do fix up my avi.  So for the record, I am not shunning a less than perfect avatar, or a noob avatar, which by the way have come a long long way from what us SL Old Timers called a “noob” avatar:

Meet The Noobs, ca. 2006

Yes, I spend L$ on my avatar, it doesn’t mean that you have to.   I want to say that I have personally experienced this more than once, making it a valid rant and pet peeve, but the first time is always the best (unlike some other things in life), and the most memorable.  What had happened was that some noob in a freebie tux IM’d me to hit on me.   He looked JUST like the guy in the picture above, only in a tux.  No biggie, no harm.   I tend to respond to these things as a way to break the ice and don’t necessarily respond to the “hitting on” part.   I sorta field that type of thing and often pretend “I just didn’t catch that”.  At first it was okay.  The conversation seemed entertaining enough, casual, easy.  SL blah blah blah, do you know of places that blah blah blah?   That type of stuff.   I’ve also put in quite a bit of time at Help Island in my day, and, despite my rants, I enjoy SL very much, and do not pass up the opportunity to help someone new gain their footing in this vast prim wonderland.

Now, this a RANT, so you know that things did not remain pleasant.  Far from it.  Things got pretty silly.  Correction, things got pretty STUPID when this “gentleman” (What? He was wearing a tux!) began to demand that I address him a certain way and adopt certain poses while in his presence.  Like WTF?  We were having such a nice conversation and out of the blue, BAM, I’m supposed to call him “Sir”, emphasis on the capital “S”.

Okay, some of you might be thinking that I really should to stop going to these places, but we are not here to discuss my penchant for going to “inappropriate” places.  Focus, people!

So, at first I tried to laugh-off these things as if he were just joking. The guy was obviously new and had spent all his noob days in some BDSM hang out and all he had managed to learn about SL was online BDSM Lifestyle Protocol, so I didn’t want to just jump down his throat, ya know what I mean?  With this in mind I tried to kinda nudge him away from that and simply chat.  Well, that was just not going to work.   I was reminded that I was being disrespectful by not addressing him as “Sir” or giving in to his demand that I drop to my pixels knees in front of him.  Needless to say he blew a prim gasket when I told him, in the clichéd ‘no uncertain terms’, that I was not his submissive nor did I intend to be, and that if he was incapable of simply having conversation with me then I would close the IM and he could go on his merry way.  The “gentleman” got so bent out of shape that he went on this long, wordy spiel in which he ACCUSED ME of being shallow.  He CLAIMED that I thought myself some sort of SL Princess (THOUGHT?  Obviously, he did he not know who he was talking to) who would not kneel to him because HE ‘looked like a noob’.  I was a disgrace to all submissives and women everywhere (Be Still My Fucking Heart).

I want to note that I do realize now that perhaps this was not his first attempt at picking up  his own little virtual sex-slave, and he had probably been turned down for his appearance by someone (or 2 or 3 someones) a bit more callous and not as nice as I (WHAT? I am nice!).    I also want to mention that his appearance was never brought up during OUR conversation–at all, nor whether I considered myself submissive or was entertaining the notion of latching myself to a Dom so he could get me a nifty, scripted, prim collar.  (Being such a Princess, any of you entertaining this idea need to keep in mind I need one that’s at least L$600, a freebie just won’t do).

I then proceeded to tell him that if anyone was shallow in this conversation it was he.  That he had IM’d me first, and he had done so because he had been attracted to my avatar’s appearance.  He did not know me, and had no way of knowing if I even spoke enough English to hold a conversation.  My Avi was HAWT, period.   She had long, flowing, expensive, red, flexi-hair (from Sirena, I might add, all the rage in that day), had an amazing premium skin with freckles and all (Celestial, thank you very much), and a top-of-the-line AO that made her stand and walk all sexy and stuff.  On top of that, I added, I did not see him going after the poor noob chick in the purple sweater (see picture above), the one with the AOless-constipated-penguin-walk and system hair, and demand that SHE kneel at his feet.  He responded with a lengthy rant that I can’t remember because frankly, I did not read it.

By the way, I rarely mute someone.  I’d much rather let them wear themselves out and waste their time typing and typing and typing and attempting to CAPS LOCK me to death, and wondering if I’m even reading it because they are not getting a response from me.  When the IM tab stops flashing I simply close it.  Oh, you told me, huh?

Sometimes, like now, I think back in a not-so-fondly-manner and wonder what happened to him.  I wonder if maybe, feeling so shunned by me, SL Princess, he just took his constipated-penguin-default-walk-pixel-ass (and he was in a tux, so all the better), and simply walked off into the sunset never to be seen again.

So let me say this.  I will be honest.  I like eye-candy as much as the next person, I am not gonna lie and be all hypocritical and act like I’m better than anyone else because I say I look beyond that Belleza skin.  And while there are some really great “freebie” skins, hair and clothes out there and there is no reason for anyone to walk around looking broken, premium skin is not a pre-req for RP with me.  I have mentioned before that I come from chat room RP–we had no visuals beyond the imagery that formed in our head according to our fellow rp’rs descriptions and bios.  I later RP’d in The Sims Online, which looked like The Original Sims (not the new nifty Sims with appearance sliders) and if any of you have ever played the Original Sims or were in TSO, you would know that you really didn’t have but a handful of avatars to chose from, and the only thing that made you unique and set you apart from all the other cookie-cutter sims/avatars was your name, what you said, and how you said it.  We all LOOKED THE SAME.  So I will say it again:  what works for me the best is the written word.  A HAWT looking avi perks interest, no lie, but then they go and type something like “U got a fine a$$”.  Then it goes something like this:

See what I did there? Capital “S”!!

On a side note,  here’s a challenge for all you fashion bloggers out there, a great freebie look.  Everything on your avatar must be free, off the marketplace with links on the blog. If it’s already been done then link me please!

So now that all that is said, I hope you realize that my rant is about true snobbery, and that goes two ways.   The noob-looking avatar looking down on the premium one who gave in to the SL peer pressure to look hawt, and the ones that think themselves so hot that they WON’T RP with someone because their avatar is not premium.  Or maybe what it really is about is someone transferring their RL insecurities and feelings of inadequacy to Second Life, and taking them out on others, which to me is true snobbery.   Fuck if I know.  I don’t claim to be a psychologist (just an SL Princess).  Just sayin’ have fun and don’t hate on me because I made a pretty avi that you obviously liked looking at it and now you can’t touch it because you are a douchebag or an asshat–not because you didn’t have a few thousand L$ to splurge on a skin.

And you know what?  I’ve had some great RP with noobish looking avatars.  So you lose again.  Give it a shot.  It only feels kinky the first time.

In conclusion, I’m not deleting this Pet Peeve from my profile.   #4 stays.

But what happens when an avatar is purposely not hot?  That, gentle readers, is the subject for another rant.