While womenswear freebies are plentiful in Second Life, it can often be harder to find high-quality men’s freebies in SL, so I wanted to cover a major hunt that is taking place from now until August 30th, 2021, featuring free hunt prizes from dozens of menswear stores across the grid!
The hunt is called the Men Only Hunt, and you can pick up a free HUD at this SLURL (you’ll have to join the Men Only Hunt – MOH group, which is free to join). The HUD contains all the store locations plus hunt hints, simply attach it and you’re all set to go! You are looking for a yellow-and-black bird in each store; when you find it, click on it, and the prize is yours for free!
Today, I wanted to show a few hunt prizes which caught my eye. Most prizes come in what I like to call the “big three” of men’s sizes: Belleza Jake, Signature Gianni, and the Meshbody Legacy male mesh bodies.
First up we have two of the three prizes from DUK, the Jack shorts in blue and the Dheego shorts/swimtrunks in green:
Next up is a pairing of two different Men Only Hunt prizes, the black bomber jacket by DUK (sizes: Belleza Jake, Signature Gianni and Geralt, Legacy, Heracles, and Slink) and the grey jeans from CHEERNO (which come in sizes to fit Gianni, Jake, Legacy, and Enzo bodies).
From EVOL comes this wonderful Torei hoodie, which comes with a HUD with a mind-boggling array of options (you can even tint the drawstrings!). If you get nothing else from the Men Only Hunt, please pick up this generous gift!
The hunt prize from Nero N7 is this black top and matching shorts, with a white stripe (sizes: Signature Geralt and Gianni, Belleza Jake, Legacy, and Slink):
The final hunt prize I wanted to share with you today is this shiny crown from Birth, which comes in both static and spinning versions! Be king for a day 😉
If you are tearing your hair out trying to find one of those yellow hunt birds in one of the stores participating in the Men Only Hunt, here’s a pro hunting tip…in the Firestorm viewer, if you press Ctrl-Shift-R, it will turn on wireframe mode (which is essentially X-ray vision). The yellow birds pop out and are much easier to find! Press Ctrl-Shift-R again to toggle it back off. (If this feels like cheating to you, then don’t use this tip.)
There was a time, back in the day (ohhh, let’s say, May of 2006) when a Second Life avatar named Anshe Chung graced the cover of Businessweek magazine, which told the story of how she became the first online personality to achieve a net worth exceeding one million US dollars from profits entirely earned inside a virtual world.
It can be argued that this Businessweek article, and the resulting media attention it caused, was the spark that ignited a period of explosive population growth in Second Life, as people realized that they, too, could earn money on Second Life, and they began joining the platform in ever-increasing numbers.
In particular, between late 2006 and early 2007, dozens of real-life companies and brands decided to set up shop in Second Life: Dell, Toyota, Nissan, Sun Microsystems, IBM, even American Apparel and Playboy. Unfortunately, this corporate heyday did not last long. By the end of 2008, most real-world corporations were pulling out, not seeing the benefit (i.e. profit) in running operations on a virtual world, especially during a somewhat brutal recession.
And, for a long time, burned by their initial enthusiastic foray into Second Life, most real-world brands pretty much steered clear of virtual worlds, leaving them to the mom-and-pop stores, the individual content creators who were able to make a go of it.
Well, I am starting to notice the beginnings of a new trend lately: real-life brands are starting to enter into partnerships with social VR and virtual worlds once again. Is this the start of a new trend in marketing?
Two different news items, about two completely different types of partnerships, crossed my desk yesterday, one for Bacardi rum and the other for Coca-Cola, which tickled my fancy and made me laugh (hence the clever title of this blogpost!). Both are instructive examples of how such corporate partnerships have evolved and changed since the Anshe Chung summer of 2006 in Second Life.
Barcardi and Sansar: The Casa Bacardi Virtual Island Festival
Bring home some Caribbean vibes and get grooving to your favourite beats at a music experience like never before.
Casa Bacardi is a whole new virtual world on Sansar, with an epic stage for your favourite artists to perform on, games to play with your friends, hang out with them, play cocktail games and meet new people. Enjoy all of this and more from the comfort of your home along with your favourite Bacardi Cocktails.
You can even design your own look and express yourselves through your avatar before you land on Casa Bacardi Island. Festival fashion doesn’t go away, you know?
Find liberation from the real world on a virtual Caribbean island. Teleport to Casa Bacardi this Rum Month!
Performers at this event include a mix of afrobeat, hip hop, electronica and dance music artists:
Tesher
Divine and the Gully Gang
MC Altaf
Tsumyoki with Kidd Mange
Natasha Diggs
Gauriwho
Tickets are quite inexpensive, only US$1.99 for a concert pass, and US$2.99 for a concert pass plus a limited after-party event (you can pay via credit card or PayPal).
Coca-Cola, Tafi and Decentraland: The Friendship Box NFT
In a piece of news which I somehow missed, Coca-Cola entered the ultra-trendy NFT space with a limited-edition auction, partnering with the Tafi avatar creation system and the blockchain-based virtual world Decentraland (NFT, of course, stands for Non-Fungible Tokens, the concept that blockchain-based property is a unique, distinguishable, indivisible blockchain-based asset which has some sort of monetary value, usually denoted in a cryptocurrency like ETH/Ethereum).
Coca-Cola is not the first big brand name to jump into Decentraland, of course; not too long ago I wrote about how Sotheby’s set up shop. It would appear that the current unabated frenzy over blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs is bringing together some rather unlikely bedfellows!
Tafi announced today that it has partnered with Coca-Cola® by designing virtual wearables for Coca-Cola’s first-ever non-fungible token (NFT) collectibles offering in the “metaverse” to celebrate International Friendship Day on July 30th, Coca-Cola will be auctioning an NFT loot box on OpenSea, that contains Tafi-designed digital apparel that can be worn forever in the virtual world of Decentraland.
Tafi, a leading designer of avatars and digital wearables, is a digital strategy and development partner with Coca-Cola. Tafi worked alongside Coca-Cola to produce the NFTs, as well as Virtue, the agency by Vice, who developed the initial concept. Details of Tafi’s involvement in Coca-Cola’s NFT Lootbox can be found at https://maketafi.com/coca-cola-nft.
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Coca-Cola collaborated with designers at Tafi on all the NFTs including the branded wearable apparel. Auction-goers can bid on the Coca-Cola Friendship Box, a reimagined version of Coca-Cola’s highly collectible vending machine, itself an NFT, and once opened there will be three one-of-a-kind digital assets to own:
• A custom Coca-Cola Bubble Jacket Wearable – a futuristic jacket – is illuminated with effervescent fizz, purposely designed with subtle nods to Coke’s nostalgic delivery uniforms. It also will include an unlockable version that can be worn in the Decentraland 3D virtual reality platform. Inspired by metaverse trends and utility, the jacket features the Coca-Cola color palette, fusing the metallic red of the aluminum can and caramel brown of the delicious drink.
• The Sound Visualizer captures the experience of sharing a Coca-Cola using instantly recognizable audio cues: the pop of a bottle opening, the sound of a beverage being poured over ice, the unmistakable fizz and that first refreshing taste.
• The Friendship Card reimagines the design of Coca-Cola’s famous friendship-inspired trading cards from the 1940s for the digital world. The cards bear the “Symbol of Friendship” moniker.
This one-of-a-kind loot box contained some ultra-exclusive items, including a puffy jacket which can be worn by Decentraland avatars, and it sold for a whopping 217 ETH (which works out to about half a million U.S. dollars)!
Now I can tell you one thing for damn sure: no matter how luxurious and glossy that Coca-Cola puffed jacket may look on the OpenSea marketplace (and you can check out the fancy animations here), it is not going to look anywhere near as good when your avatar wears it around Decentraland! The current state of graphics in Decentraland looks like this, in case you needed a reality check:
The current state of avatar fashion in Decentraland: your glossy, expensive Coca-Cola jacket is not going to anything like what you see on the OpenSea marketplace.
Perhaps I am not the best person to explain all this, because frankly I am still mystified as to why people would want to spend outrageous sums of money on NFTs, except perhaps for bragging rights. However, it is clear that blockchain, crypto, and NFTs are not going away anytime soon (although they will not doubt continue to fluctuate wildly in value). I just report on what I see, safely from the sidelines.
And I repeat my usual warning: do EVERY. SINGLE. SCRAP. of your homework before investing a penny in any blockchain/cryptocurrency project.
Are we seeing a renaissance in such partnerships between real-world brands and social VR platforms and virtual worlds? Who knows. But it is fascinating to watch!
I am happy to report that I have been able to visit my mother and stepfather in their seniors life-lease condo across town, give them big hugs, and even stay for supper! And last week, I finally went and got my hair cut, something I have not done since January of 2020! Yes, I am no longer rocking a ponytail!
Things are slowly, very slowly returning to something closer to normal. I’m still working from my apartment four out of five days of the week, however, and my library remains closed. My university is planning to offer a hybrid of remote and in-class learning come September (classes with fewer than 20 students will be held in person, with face masks and social distancing, while larger classes will continue to be held online and remotely).
However, the Manitoba government will begin to lift some restrictions starting next Saturday, given that our vaccination program is proceeding swiftly, indeed ahead of schedule! CBC News reported today:
As of Tuesday, 80 per cent of eligible Manitobans ages 12 and up had received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the news release said. The province expects to reach 75 per cent with two doses within the next week.
Those numbers were set out in the province’s reopening plan as targets for the Labour Day long weekend in September.
It’s clear that COVID-19 still has the capacity to throw a few curve balls at us. Stay healthy, get fully vaccinated, stay home if you can, and stay safe!
Many people in Second Life choose to set up a virtual home for themselves, creating a house and garden that would be impossible (or impractical!) to have in real life. There are hundreds of SL home-and-garden enthusiasts who showcase their design work via a blog or a Flickr photo account!
This blogpost is an update to one I made last Christmas, when I first moved into a community run by Bray Preston-Rising, which I have written about previously on this blog, called Bray’s Place (SLURL; website). In my 14 years of visiting thousands of Second Life sims, I have never received such a warm welcome, or encountered such a wonderful community!
Unfortunately, Bray has suddenly taken seriously ill, and as a result, Bray’s Place Blues club will close immediately, and the Bray’s Place sim will close on August 11th, 2021. I wanted to take the following pictures to remember this place, before it is gone forever!
Here is what my Second Life home looks like inside, plus a few pictures of the front patio and the back yard. Please click on the pictures below to see it them in a bigger size and get all the detail! I am quite happy with my little virtual home! (Now, if I could only keep my real-life home as neat and tidy as this!!)
Be sure to read the spines of the books in my bookshelf 😉
I will attempt to update this blogpost later with some details on where you can pick up my home decor; much of it is from Apple Fall (particularly the living room and kitchen). The magnificent Queen Nefertari bust on the coffee table in the final picture—something I could never hope to own in real life!—comes from the Archaeology gacha at Silas Merlin’s store and gallery (here’s the exact SLURL). The wonderful planetary orrery on the kitchen table actually works, and it is available for only L$10 on the SL Marketplace! (I found it while cam-snooping through someone else’s house, always a guilty pleasure!)
OPEN HOUSE: And if you’d like to pay a visit yourself, you’re in luck! I am holding an Open House until August 11th, 2021, when Bray’s Place sim closes. Here’s your taxi! The welcome mat is always out and Blues Music Fan Radio is always on! Please note that there are NO adult/sex animations of any kind in any of my furniture 😉 so behave yourselves!
