Second Life Shopping -- Again, and again, and...

I have been so busy with this and that -- working, dipping in and out of various social media platforms, enjoying the fine weather now that summer is finally showing its warm face -- that I have had no time to post in my blog.

I have, however, found time to shop in Second Life.

I have no rational explanation for this.




Smashing dress, though, eh? ;)

Backdrop and pose are courtesy of Katicus Sparrow!

More shoes, more clothes, more shoes...

It's a sickness, I tell you.



But don't I look adorable with my new cherry platform pumps, 40s-style suit, and new hair? ;)

Second Life Shopping Addiction

My name is Chloe -- sorry, no, Jen -- and I'm a Second Life shopaholic.

My first few times in Second Life I played it cool, stuck to the freebies and dollarbies and demos that are abundantly available.

Then my friend Katicus took me to a shoe store. The Shiny Things Boutique. It was amazing... feats of impossible engineering, shoes of magnitude and variety all but impossible in the real world, all for the low low price of a few hundred Lindens... I couldn't help myself -- I bought three pairs of gorgeous shoes, and I figured that was it.

But no, then I had to have outfits to go with the shoes...

First it was the search for the perfect black dress to go with my black stilettos:


Then I snatched up a cute schoolgirl outfit to go with my sapphire retro wedges:


Now I can't stop!! More clothes, more more more!!

Tonight is another After A Fashion shopping trip. This time the whole focus is on shoes!! Which no doubt will lead to the purchase of MORE outfits... OMG, I can't wait!!

By the power of... Me.

This article neatly describes the implications of what happened to Digg this week. In the world of social media, the balance of power is squarely in the hands of the users. Social media business models are dependent upon users, well, using -- and everyone knows it, from the users to the smart execs like those at Digg, who clearly recognize that to kowtow to legal precedent in this matter means death to their business.

Maybe it's my commune upbringing, but I can't help but see parallels with political theory, specifically the rise of Communism in 1917 and the peace movement of the 70s. One famous slogan of that movement is "what if they gave a war and nobody came?" (I think my hippie parents may have had a bumper sticker to that effect.) My anarchist husband would no doubt explain more eloquently than I can that governments need citizens just as social media platforms need users. The significant difference being, of course, that most governments (excluding those that are new and therefore highly susceptible to coups d'etat) have elaborate systems in place to force citizens to put the interests of the government ahead of their own.

Will this ever happen to Web 2.0? Will access to these platforms become so ingrained and essential that the idea of effecting radical change upon them becomes anathema to the users? Or will the reverse happen, with users calling the shots and businesses changing their models to keep the masses loyal?

In political theory, there's usually one catalystic event that triggers mass uprising and revolt, one "we're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore" moment that forces change. There's already an undercurrent of resentment against DRM and the ongoing Google/YouTube copyright debacle. Maybe that issue will be the focus of the next tipping point for change. Gosh, I hope so.

...Oh, and a cute belt, too!

The lovely Kate's comment on my last post reminded me that I'd forgotten to even mention the cute multi-colored snakeskin belt pack that I'd bought at Shiny Things, one of which Chloe is modelling in the photo below. A pack of 6 or 8 (I forget) thin wrapped belts for (I think) L$250 -- bargain!!

Cruel Shoes vs Cool Shoes

I'm so loving my shoes right now! I'm wearing my newest acquisition, an adorable pair of bubblegum-pink canvas stacked platform stilettos. They make my already-small feet look even smaller and super-cute!

Unfortunately, while I am busy spending long minutes gazing lovingly at these shoes and turning my feet this way and that to further admire them when I should be working, my feet themselves are not similarly enamoured. No, my feet are not happy with being squeezed into new shoes that pinch and are really too high; and they are rebelling by going numb, and slowly taking my calves with them.

You see, I have high-maintenance feet. Sure, they are small and cute; but they are also a bit too small at size 6 for my 5-foot-8 height. Compounding the body-mass-to-foot-area ratio problem is the fact that I am not a thin girl. No, my body type is the kind usually generously described as "curvy" or "voluptuous" -- and I don't mean that in the Maxim magazine sense of "having big boobs"; I mean actually curvy, as in big boobs, lovely round belly that I could use to fake pregnancy in order to get preferential transit seating (not that I would ever do that!), and bubble butt worthy of J.Lo. Also I have abnormally high arches.

That's why I love shoe shopping in Second Life. Not only are the shoes on offer super-cute, boasting creative designs rivalling anything I've coveted and/or bought in RL (and happily unhindered by the laws of physics as in RL), but they always fit because you can change the size of your feet, and no matter how far or how long your avatar walks, your tiny SL feet will never get tired!

Thus far I've only gone SL shoe shopping once, to the Shiny Things store in SL with the always-awesome Katicus Sparrow and a couple of new friends, Catherine and Melanie, but I already feel the addiction growing. Must...have...cute...shoes...

Here's a pic of Chloe sporting her new look, plus cute shoes!

Feeling the Love

I have comments!! And not just from anyone -- the supremely cool Kate Trgovac of mynameiskate, Eden of Bargainista, and Michael Seaton of TheClientSide. In other words, basically the stars of my "I heart" section to the left there. The cream in my coffee. The filling in my Oreo. And they're reading me!! I'm feeling the blog love, I tell you.

Also feeling the love for facebook (aka crackbook) these days. Every time I log on I have new friends -- sometimes folks I've met in reality who've just jumped on the facebook train, sometimes folks I've met purely through our common facebook connections; occasionally, like today, someone I used to hang with in high school, roughly 17 (!) years ago, manages to find me and we reconnect. It's like a little friendship hit in the middle of the day! These moments are the food pellets that keep me pressing the new media buttons, to use a hamster analogy.

So now that I know people are reading me, let me ask: what are the food pellets of new media for you?