Does appearance matter??

maybe...

It's not really being shallow to judge people on secondlife by their avatar... It's not like rl where youre born into a body, but you choose your own, and what you choose says a lot about who you are...

Bahaha, touche!

I used to have aluminum spikey hair and a monacle made by Barnesworth Anubis that had so many tiny chainlinks in the prims that it would sink a sim when I arrived at a club. I had aluminum purple pants and stuff. I noticed I wasn't getting asked to dance. So then I had a complete make over and got blonde hair brom BAZ and a sort of Dutch/Viking/Russian kinda face and a suit and snakeskin boots. I noticed people still hated me for the forums but sales picked up especially among women of a certain age. Then I recently got decked out in what can only be described as a Russian boyar's robe created by Osprey Therein (I think he meant it to be an elf get-up but...)...then I asked him to make me some valenki type felt boots with the fur trim that would match the Russian boyar thing and he whipped something up in a jiffy then by the time I put on more elf stuff I so kicked ass that people flew from miles around just to look at me, I had more IMs on than I could handle, sales out the wazoo, traffic, movie deals even.

However, deep down I am still a cranky asshole

I went round as Barbie for a week. I had some stick for it but I kept winning competitions

sure, that is true! but we all have different sides to our personalities and curiosity and even reasons for being in SL.

What is key, in my opinion, is how the avatar acts rather than what it looks like, I'd rather hang out with a polite and fun generic looking newbie than an arrogant finely polished avi anyday!

But if your SL Avie looks like you do in RL (ok except height, everyone is freakishly tall in SL) this crime is?


I will admit to really being sick of the blond hair, blue eyed, tanned avies, but this is peoples second life and they can be whatever they want.

Am I the only one who made a meterstick and adjusted my av's height against it? I do wonder sometimes.

Um, back to the original question that started this thread... if the vendor were present and their av was radically different in theme than their goods, I'd be interested and might ask about it, depending on whether we got into enough of a conversation that I thought it might be acceptably polite to do so. But I think I'd judge the goods for themselves, based on my previous SL behavior. I usually do comment on and admire unusual avs... but what counts as "unusual" has changed for me somewhat over time. (Furrys don't count anymore, unless they're very different from any I've seen yet.) I'm less likely to comment on something I don't care for, but I paid the full L$25 to positively rate an alien robot with flamethrower arms, so my tastes are pretty broad.

Possibly I should have positive-rated the fellow I mentioned earlier, just for originality or bravery, but we were headed in opposite directions and chance met, so I didn't have a lot of time to think about it....

neko

I'm there Beryl...

It is shallow if you assume that someone who chose not to be beautiful is somehow not as good. As if that's all anyone should aspire to be. Assuming that Beauty=Good is shallow, unless you're picking out some bling for yourself.

I'd dance with you if you were the ugliest avatar in SL, your words are beautifull!

Heh! Thanks Daz

How creul some ppl can be ... i never take in to consideration how some one looks ..... you just go ahead wearing what you like ... to heck with every one else ... you wear what you want and let no one tell ya any different .. this is a place where you can be who ever you choose to be ... its what inside that counts not for what you wear ... that person must be high on them selfs or some thing .. God all adults here just stop it ..... let ppl be who they want to be .... i go to a regular to a goth look .... to a disfuctional elf sometimes .... this is a place where i can be all those things i can not be in real life .... if fact the crazier and weirder you look the better ... in my book ... )) Be cool and take it easy hun things will be all good

Dont let no one tell ya any different

Peecs out ... chill and havea cold one for me ..

The think appearance would affect sales only in certain extreme circumstances. Maybe an 800lb person selling diet products might not work. Or a leper selling beauty cream.

HA if thats the case and I am a babe WHY DON'T I SELL MUCH STUFF

Its probably because I am fully aware my stuff is amateur, and there are plenty of ppl out there with much more detailed and fantastic goods, that is fine with me I am no wizz, and I just make things for fun, not expecting to make a living out of it.

Personally the only ppl I wouldn't buy from are ppl that I hate with a fiery passion, and would not want to subsidise staying in SL, but then there aren't many ppl I hate with a fiery passion that make stuff anyways

It is awfully shallow to not buy something becuase of their av's looks, but meh, what can you do! we all have opinions

Personally tho, appearence is important to me, I spend my days shopping and socialising and want to look like a babe, so if Daz thinks I am, MY WORK HERE IS DONE! WOOT

Don't care about appearance. I rather judge people on behavior and personality, but even then if your product is nice I think it wouldn't influence me much.

Well, if you are in the escort service, then heck yes you better look good or have a clientel with certain appearance fetishes.

Otherwise, I really don't see how people can make that kind of shallow descision. Personally, if you have a product I want, I couldn't care less what you look like...heck I might buy something from you if you JUST BECAUSE you looked like a troll! (I wear my orc avatar alot, so I'm kinda biased on that lol)

I've often found that most folks who have odd or weird avatars are very creative, generous, and interesting folks...tho there are some I've met whose personailities are just as bizarre as their avatars.

Anyway my point is you can NEVER judge an person by it's avatar alone. If that old geezer or fang-mawed ogre is selling something I want, I'm gonna buy it from them.

just my 2 lindens


EDIT: Just thought of something....one reason why I would not buy something because of their avatars appearance....if they are selling avatars that are just cruddy and poorly made....that'd be about the ONLY reason

Hmmm, Interesting, who was the presenter again??

And yes the latter half of that is quite true I could give primary examples but then again I dont want to be biased..

Shadow

o0 Erm, I was in no way saying any thing like that... "Judging" people is not horrible. We all make judgements every time we see any one, or any thing. All I was saying, is that in SL you get to choose every single aspect of your appearence. Those choices say a lot about a person. I didn't mean "pretty avatars are, liek, kewl3r peeps" or anything like that, I was just saying that it's impossible for your personality to not be reflected on your avatar.

(yes yes, dead post, I was looking for an old post I made, found this thread, and really didn't want this kind of misunderstanding left alone... please dont ban me XD)

I wasn't attributing that mindset to you, Branduff. No worries there.

Since this thread got dragged up again I'll say that appearance absolutely does matter - but in a much subtler way that seems to be attributed here. For me it's not a matter of whether an av could be considered beautiful or ugly, whether it is human or other. It's more a matter of subconsious cues that have been built into the av, that in looking at a human in RL tell you volumes about their mood and personality, but in a virtual space can be misleading.

There's a certain fashion designer well known for very high-quality work, but any time I looked at the sales images I was off-put. It's not because the model is unattractive, but because she looks like she is scowling.

This is a hard thing to measure, since it's a matter of millimeter-size adjustments in facial expression or body posture, but these cues are very important to us in RL, so I'm not surprised if they affect how others percieve our emotional states and likeability here too.

Someone made my AV for me. I thought I looked a little a cuter Mark Cuban, but I went with it. Then I got a skin and new hair texture (not prim hair), eyepatch, and now I look like... Erik Estrada.

It works. People still buy my crap. (No store, people just see my stuff and go 'ooh, shiny!' and buy it off me.)

Of course appearance counts here just as it does in First Life. If i was shopping for a pretty outfit and came to a shop with a salesgirl dressed all in black with 100 prim hair and 10 inch heels I would run for my life. I know I have described 90% of SL females but that is a different story.

I know that we operated a successful shop based on an image which was sexy but not sleazy but everyone to their own tastes. Sleaze seems to sell well in Second Life.

For sex yes, for shopping no