Blog Stats: Search Terms (November)

Thanks to the wonderful magic of WordPress, subscribed users have the ability to check a handful of useful statistics relating to blog view and search terms. How people are finding your blog and where they’re clicking when they get there are the sorts of information that are at your fingertips. Blogger users, you’re at a disadvantage.

I can’t help but chuckle sometimes at the search engine terms that people use to end up here. And some of them you just end up thinking, ‘whaaaaaaaaaaaa?’. Our very own Sylar Boyd ’s (pictured above) name appears at least once a day on the list of query term. For those of you who can’t get enough of his ass, don’t say I never gave you anything.

Here’s a list of the most notable ones for the month of November (favourites in bold). Enjoy.

armidi / armidi hair / armidi Poynter / armidi sl / armidi second life / buy The Poynter armidi • black pimp • beefcake • curvy penis • danae kamachi • DAVID HASSLEHOFF • dude off campus • Emilia redgrave designer in SL • FREE BEER FOR GIRLS • gay hairstyles • ghetto hairstyles • girls and guys together doing things • his red undies • how sell shapes sl • killian klein second life • Lady Killer Clothing • maledom • Mellow Poppy • men with sideburns sexy? • mollie broek • paulie • paulie shore photoshop • photoshop gender swap • pimp sweater • redgrave, clothing / redgrave second life • second life GENDER SWAPPING • second life sideburns • second life fuck room • “second life porn” • second life underoos • sl dating / sl dating do’s dont’s • sl male hair elvis • sylar boyd / Sylar shirtless • taoist clothes • Thurston Howell the III • true stories – mens locker room antics • van halen shirts • Wifey second life / wifey sites / wifey intervew • world class ass • world class blow • y me up u

Commentary: Barriers to Fashionable Maledom: Lazy Men (Part 2 of 2)

« Read: Barriers to Fashionable Maledom (1/2)

Today’s post is a follow-up to yesterday’s post, the subject matter of which was inspired by concerns brought to the attention of the Y Me boys by marketing savvy resident Tymmerie Thorn.

Whereas Part 1 focused on elements relating to the shopping environment, Part 2 focuses on the target of your gifting: the “unfashionable” partner or spouse. /rant on.

Let me start by offering my deepest condolences to all the girlfriends (or boyfriends) of partners who have not even the slightest tinge of fashion motivation. One of the reasons, from my perspective, that fashion for the SL men’s market does not rival the women’s is because most men in SL behave as they do in first life when it comes to shopping. One word: lazy.

When buying what you want or need is a simple click away, as is the case with SL, there’s no excuse. I don’t know what this says about the state of mankind, people. Get off your duff, click the SLUrl and spend 2 to 5 minutes looking for the item that caught your eye. There’s no need to spend countless hours window shopping or aimlessly wandering around a mall or retail district. It really doesn’t take that much time. Furthermore, what the hell do you think OnRez (formerly SLBoutique) was made for? Get on it already.

I digress. If you are too lazy to shop OnRez chances are that you’ll be too lazy to read this, but I will, nevertheless, provide some advice that men seeking good finds and who don’t want to spend tons of time on the pursuit of virtual fashion may find useful:

Commentary: Barriers to Fashionable Maledom: Gift Giving (Part 1 of 2)

Read: Barriers to Fashionable Maledom (2/2) »

Not long ago reader Tymmerie Thorn of the Girl Wonder Speaks blog left us a comment outlining her frustration with buying clothing items as gifts in SL for her boyfriend in particular:

I have an article idea for you – help me to figure out why, why, why it is nearly impossible to buy gifts or shop for men in SL!! Why the hey is everything NO-TRANSFER? Just as in RL, IMHO men generally don’t like to shop. My SL boyfriend has even gone so far as to ask me to buy him some things when I shop and he will give me the $Ls.

Also, I love buying gifts for SL friends and my boyfriend. No-transfer makes this nearly impossible. Stores like MUSE have a gift option that send an item directly to the recipient – which would be great except for the umpteen times the recipient has deleted the inventory offer because he did not recognize the sender. Sometimes the items get sent before I have a chance to let him know a gift would be arriving. I have spent countless hours, emailing vendors trying to get items sent as gifts – super frustrating experiences.

Bottom line: men’s fashions would sell a lot more if they were transfer. I think SL is not that different from RL in that respect. Really, if you think about it, our fathers would still be wearing the same underwear they had in 1969 if it weren’t for our mothers. (Now, for some reason SL has tons of UNDERWEAR that is transfer – but at a certain point I simply cannot give a SL friend yet another pair of Superman Underoos…it sends the wrong message, you know?) Thanks!

- Tymmerie Thorn

Miss Thorn grew weary of waiting for Sylar to tackle the issue and posted her perspective, “There is No Underwear Fairy”, on her blog (where she reamed us just a bit before getting into the meat of the matter). Before she becomes more irate and threatens to break into the homes of the Y Me Boys and mess up our places, I gotta address this one. I don’t like people touching my stuff. But Brad does like strange women in his house. Apologies, Tymmerie, you left us with much to consider.

From my perspective, there are two barriers here: (1) ineffective means by which to give gifts, and (2) lazy men. This post will address the former within and the latter subject will follow in a post tomorrow.

Feature: Dirty Little Secrets

I was checking my email today when a Google Ad caught my eye. It advertised a site called Anonymous Voices, “the place where you can say things you shouldn’t say in front of your mother or anything else on your mind”. Spill the beans all incognito-like for the world to see. I am an avid Dan Savage fan (got hooked in college). There’s no way I could pass up that kind of entertainment.

I read the first three most recent confessions and laughed so hard that there was no way I couldn’t share it. I Twittered the URL and kept reading much to my chagrin. I read on about much more risqué subject matter. I didn’t know there were that many grannies that [censored] their early teen grandsons in this world. But it was too late. I had already let the cat out of the bag by sending out the info to my Twitter network with my endorsement, calling it my new favourite site.

Apparently, several were highly traumatized. I’m so sorry. Guilt-ridden, I made my own Anonymous Voices confession.

Some of you may be familiar with similar sites like the Apology Blog, Passive Aggressive Notes and I would be remiss if I left out the rants and raves of The Best of Craig’s List.

We’re human. We all have this pent up emotional shit that we keep internal on the day-to-day. Maybe you can release some of that anger/frustration/turmoil by way of an anonymous post on one of these outlet sites.

[Edit] Aenea brought this additional site to my attention: PostSecret. She says, “There are really powerful sentiments in these. The fact that the phrases are so concise makes them more powerful, I think”.

Commentary: Rezday Love

Well, it’s been a year since I’ve been “me” in SL. ‘Though there have been ups and downs I’ve been blessed to have met some really interesting personalities who, regardless, have been consistent in my SLife – a few of whom I consider to be “cross-platform” friends who I hope to meet in the flesh someday. You know who you are and I appreciate your support. Your encouragement has enabled me to put myself out there – write a little and hopefully make people laugh and bring them some sort of new awareness (I do love dorking out and making people laugh).

Memorable moments have included working with the talented staff of Men’s Second Style and PWND Magazine, in addition to being an active member of the Shopaholics of a Cause/Cure for SL Relay for Life ‘07 (we raised over 1,000,000L at our first event!). Those were productive times.

Watching friends start their own SL businesses and express their creativity has also been fun and exciting (Sylar, when the hell are you going to start yours? It’s been sitting there all rented out and empty for weeks).

Memorable conversations have included:

• A “stimulating” talk about methods zoologists use to ensure white rhinos don’t become extinct (I wouldn’t spend years becoming a doctor to do that).
• Discussions while buzzed on Monster energy drinks (PG18+).
• Learning about bonobos.
• Anything involving shopping and products.
• The parry and thrust of usual endearingly abusive dialogue with friends.

I can’t wait to see what I have in store for myself for Year 2.

Interview: “Wifey Love” takes on Tao Takashi

Not long ago I asked Miss Puma Jie if she would be willing to interview Tao Takashi, the father of the World of SL and Fashion World of SL feeds, on behalf of the Y Me boys. Mr. Takashi’s sites draw the energy of hundreds of resident-driven blogs/sites into unified feeds. It’s pure genius.

Despite his name he’s not an East Asian monk. In his first life Tao lives in Germany and spends his time programming and creating web applications for a company that he co-founded. In SL he has dabbled in just about every aspect of content creation with architecture, clothing design, building, event planning, machinima, photography and scripting all listed in his lengthy resume.

Anyone who knows Puma know that she is usually the conversational wooer – she smiles, she dances and she strokes your fragile little ego until you gaze at her in admiration. But in this instance Tao turned the tables with his creativity and intellect, leaving Pujie in awe. Topics range from Tao’s own participation in SL to issues of legality in virtual worlds.

- Catero R.

Puma Jie: Is your real name Tao? Or you a Taoist? My questions will start off light :-P
Tao Takashi: No, it just did fit quite nicely with this last name I choose for whatever reason
Puma: How did you hear about SL?
Tao: I was watching rocketboom.com quite frequently for a while and in October 2005 they had a story about Second Life™ where they interviewed a resident. After that I wanted to at least check it out because I heard that you can build stuff in there. Later I found out that that resident was Maxx Monde who is now my neighbour in SL.
Puma: So, it was just pure curiosity … same as me. :-P