Day: November 20, 2021

The 2021 Raindance Immersive Awards Ceremony: A List of All the Winners

I’m a sucker for awards shows (the Oscars are like the gay Super Bowl to me!). So I was in my element as I watched the two-part 2021 Raindance Immersive Awards, which were hosted in the social VR platform VRChat, with audiences also watching the livestream in-world in both AltspaceVR and NeosVR, as well as remotely on YouTube (the videos are below).

The Raindance Film Festival is the largest and most important independent film festival in the U.K., showcasing features, shorts, web series and music videos by filmmakers from the U.K. and around the world to an audience of film executives and buyers, journalists, film fans and filmmakers.

Powered by HTC VIVE’s Viveport and VRChat, this year’s Raindance Immersive (October 27th to November 21, 2021) comprised immersive VR games and experiences competing for jury awards, as well as the Spirit of Raindance Awards, which are selected by the festival team. Raindance is the only film festival in the world to recognize and award VR on such a scale, so this was a major event!

The Raindance Immersive Awards ceremony for 2021 was in two parts. The first part was held yesterday. The cameraman for the event was my friend (and the co-producer of the upcoming second season of the Metaverse Newscast), the talented social VR videographer Carlos Austin.

If you have never visited VRChat, I think that this 1-hour-and-40-minute video is your prefect introduction! You really get a sense of the wonderful variety and diversity of avatars which are available in VRChat, as well as a good look at the Embassy virtual world where the ceremony takes place.

Carlos deftly steers his camera around the avatars milling about and chatting with each other at the very beginning, before the event starts, and it feels as if you were in a cocktail party, overhearing bits and snippets of conversations! I loved it. (If you want to skip right to the awards ceremony proper, it starts at the 27:56 minute mark, and it runs until the 1-hour-and-13 minute mark, followed by an afterparty.)

The awards handed out in Part 1, in order, were (all links go to the description page on the Raindance Immersive website, with a promo video and more information):

The second half of the awards ceremony was today; it was again filmed by Carlos Austin (the awards ceremony proper starts at the 46:50 mark in the video if you want to skip straight to that part):

The awards handed out in Part 2 of the ceremony, in order, were:

From Her to ME: A Gender-Affirming Surgery Fundraiser in Second Life, Nov. 22nd to Dec. 22nd, 2021

A memorial to those transgender people we have lost this year, at the From Her To ME event

Metaverse platforms are natural homes to transmen, transwomen, the non-binary, and the gender fluid, where you have the ability to choose how you are seen by other avatars. Many trans people take the first steps of their journey in a virtual world.

But while virtual worlds can be a haven to transgender people, they are not perfect, either. In November 2017, I wrote an extensive blogpost about how many virtual worlds and social VR platforms still tend to codify the male/female dichotomy as a hardset binary rather than a fluid concept. Still, many people who want to present as a different gender from the one they were assigned at birth seek out metaverse platforms where they can express themselves freely, without judgement or harassment, and where they can help build vibrant, diverse communities.

While I was in the Belle Epoque store in Second Life, doing their 6th anniversary hunt (see this blogpost for a view of some of the many lovely hunt gifts), I came across a poster on the wall which intrigued me, so I teleported over to the event titled From Her to ME, which opens Nov. 22nd, 2021 and runs until Dec. 22nd, 2021:

The From Her to ME event in Second Life s a fund-raiser for Danny, a transgender man who is getting top surgery (here’s his GoFundMe page; he wants to raise US$6,000 to reach his goal).

Up here in Canada, chest masculinization surgery is usually covered by our universal healthcare, but the overall situation could still use improvement, according to CTV News:

Transgender Canadians and advocates are calling on the federal government to implement comprehensive trans and gender-affirming healthcare coverage across the country…

As it stands, all provinces and territories offer various levels of care for transgender and non-binary individuals. But often barriers crop up within the first instance of trying to access that care, an issue advocates say is due to a lack of training, forcing trans and non-binary people to become experts in their own healthcare.

But, while the situation in Canada is far from perfect, it is still far better than in the United States, where thousands of transgender Americans like Danny have to pay out of pocket for often-expensive gender-affirming surgeries, and sometimes resort to opening crowdfunding pages on GoFundMe and similar services in an effort to raise the necessary funds.

Hence, the From Her To ME event in Second Life, where dozens of Second Life content creators are donating all or part of their sales towards the cause. Here, for example, Belle Epoque is selling two complete fatpacks of former gacha prizes, and donating 100% toward’s Danny’s GoFundMe campaign:

There are also special auctions, where the winning bidder gets a rare or even one-of-a-kind item, like this purple fantasy outfit from Belle Epoque, with the proceeds again going to Danny to help fund his top surgery (the auctions start when the event opens on November 22nd, 2021).

Here is your taxi to the From Her To Me event, which starts Nov. 22nd, 2021 and runs through to Dec, 22nd, 2021. Why not pay a visit (they’re already open early, although all the vendor booths are not set up yet), and see if anything strikes your fancy? Your Linden dollars will be going to a good cause!