K guys, I'm going to teach you how to make friends on SL. Its surprisingly easy to be cool on SL when you make sure to stick to a few guidelines I have formulated:
1. BE A CREATOR!! - This one is almost mandatory, which is why it comes first on my list. Automatic respect points, no doubt. And don't get me wrong, you don't have to actually make things people would buy to be able to claim you're a creator... just make sure you have a general understanding of how to use position, rotate, etc, and then throw something in your profile about it. For extra points, make up a hip name for a store and saying its "coming soon."
2. DEFAULT PICTURE - Have a heavily photoshopped picture is necessary. One of the best tips I could give you that a lot of "cool" people forget to follow, is: always make your own picture and always "photoshop" it. By photoshop, I don't mean you actually USE photoshop.... I mean you use picnik.com (or similar) and up contrast and saturation. Using all of their free effects only helps as far as street cred is concerned. The last and most important step is to put a line in the 2nd life text box that says "profile picture by [you]" and then advertise underneath about how you can make profile pictures. Give credit where credit is due... when its due to yourself at least.
3. LEGIT PROFILE - 2nd life tab, first line [if it's not your imaginary store name or sassy checkbox row about being single or taken], you need to write "IMs are capped". Maybe you're IMs don't get capped? Who cares... no one will question it because you are a CREATOR. Either way, the fact that your IM's would get capped implies that you are too popular/important (even when offline) for SL to handle your message load. But lets be serious, you are never offline so its really not an issue; its all about appearances.
This next one is tedious, but it has to be done sometime right? You don't have anything better to do so lets get started. If your "picks" section has actual landmarks to places you like, delete them all right now. Picks in SL is for listing your friends (not necessarily your best friends, but those with the best pictures/avatars). Feel free to be extra generous using different symbols from all different font types--the more the marrier! The point of this section isn't ACTUALLY to give credit to your friends or have legible words, the point is to make whoever is viewing your profile develop as many questions as possible (better chance that they will IM you asking for tips--btw, read on to my IMing bullet point before attempting to communicate back with one of these people). Also, definitely don't forget to add a pick for your store.
1st life tab. This tab isn't as important. It's not really important at all.... everyone on SL who isn't trolling has an avatar that is more attractive than their real self. However, adding something here that SHOULDN'T go here can make this section more important than it should be (in a bad way). The safest thing you can put here is a quote to the effect of "SL and RL do not mix" or "*.:.tHis iS As cLoSe aS YoUr GonNa GeT**:..". Putting up another picture of your avatar in the 1st life section is a good way to help people forget about 1st left and there is less of a chance they will think to ask if they can see a picture.
4. INFOHUBS - Infohubs are great places to stand and wait for people to be impressed be your profile. Chances are, none of these people are as hot as you (even if they really are)... because lets face it, you wear Curio skins and Fri.day hair and thats about as hot is it gets, therefore EVERYONE will be impressed by you. In general, you are always going to want to put up a front and act like you are too busy to actually hold a conversation. This accomplishes a few key things: It won't reveal the insecurity level that is not up to par with your avatar's appearance, it will lower the chances of someone asking for a RL picture, and it makes people wonder if you're adding a new shape or freebie template t-shirt to your "store".
For those of you who feel to need to participate in local chat, make sure you first get a feel for the popular opinions and make sure what you say will be along the lines of what most people will agree with. Most times, you can just repeat what someone smart just said in slightly different wording and people will respect and offer the same sentence, typed out in yet another new wording. This is perfect for getting ideas on how to be successfully social in the future. For example:
SMART GUY: If someone plays the same gesture 3 times, I mute them. It gets rather mundane...
YOU: I can't stand gestures. I mute and derender people who spam them.
OTHER SMART GUY: Gotta love the mute feature!
SMART GUY: Mute is my best friend :D Anyone who doesn't use Emerald is a noob and idiot.
JAYY MOTHMAN: Hey will you all kindly shut up please. No one cares.
(at this point you are going to want to stop typing, and probably teleport away. Use this tactic generously in any situation that may turn ugly are draw attention to yourself by someone who will call out your bullshit)
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