Alt Avatar Blogger Ball!?

Avatar Blogger Month

Agnes and I were talking about June is Avatar Blogger Month, and she had the fabulous insight,

What if your ALT avatar is more interesting than “you” are!?

Alt Avatar Blogger

So we’re adding a new option to Avatar Blogger Month: Alt Avatar Blogger Month. Let’s say my avatar is “Vaneeesa,” and as SaveMe Oh can tell you, I’m a very boring avatar. Writing 30 posts in 30 days might be as hard for me to write as it would be agonizing for you to read, but WHAT IF lurking inside my boring avatar-self is the fun, exciting, inquisitive, dynamic, playful, curious avatar Mariko!?

One Halloween when her friend Willow just wanted to wear a sheet over her head for a costume, the great philosopher and culture theorist Buffy Summers noted,

You’re missing the whole point of Halloween Will – it’s come as you aren’t night – the perfect chance for a girl to get sexy and wild with no repercussions.

Setting Up Your Blog

So now awesome alt avatar Mariko can do Avatar Blogger Month. How does Mariko blog it? Well that’s up to you, and Mariko of course, and BTW, we can help. Mariko could get her own fresh, new, WordPress or Tumblr or Blogger, etc blog. That’s the nicest from a letting Mariko be herself perspective. That way she has no baggage from her boring “main avatar.” Mariko can pick her own blog look. And she’s not “outed” by being on the same blog as her main blogger. If you want help starting a new blog for your Alt Avatar Blogger, or if you’ve never blogged at all, just give a shout out in the comments below and we can totally help you get set up. Whether “Mariko” is a flesh-and-pixel avatar who walks around some virtual world, or just the inner alt-avatar voice who goes with Main Avatar on their adventures, I leave that up to you. For a few of you it might be a chance to explore a different lifestyle, or a different virtual world.

Add Author?

Even so, I might advise against starting a new blog. It’s a great idea. But we’re so drowning in different places to go on the web that I worry about fragmenting your audience by creating too many different places each with a little content, instead of building up a larger body of work. One solution is to create a 2nd “author” on your existing blog. So just as you see at “Written by Vaneeesa Blaylock” at the top of this post, it could also say “Written by Mariko Mori.” Again, if you need any help adding a new author, just shout and we’ll guide you through – it’s easy! 🙂

My Secret Blogger!

What if you don’t want to add your Alt Avatar Blogger to your main blog because then it will be obvious they’re you, and you’d like to let them fly under the power of their own wings? In that case, why don’t you do it here on iRez. We’ve currently got 36 contributing authors. Mostly avatars and a few fleshvatars even! It won’t hurt us to add a few Alt Avatar Bloggers, and you Main Avatar’s identity will certainly be secret since you’ll have the coverage of so many other contributing authors. If you’re interested, drop a comment below.

Lollygaggers

I should also give a big shout out to the awesome group Lollygaggers of Lollygagger Lane. Agnes and I attended their very fun Alt Avatar Ball this week and that may have helped Agnes to think up the idea of the Alt Avatar Blogger. Also Agnes is planning to organize an Alt Avatar Ball for us at LEA11 in the near future. More on that soon!

Your Blog; Your URL!

Finally I encourage you to make Avatar Blogger Month yours! 30 posts in 30 days really isn’t hard. Well, it might be hard if you think you’re writing the great novel and require yourself to write 1,000 words a day. But that’s not necessary at all. 100 words a day is great. Or less. Or maybe it’s not a WordPress-Tumblr-Blogger “blog” at all, maybe your “blogging platform” is Instagram or Flickr or something else. Instagram is my current obsession and peeps like Connie Arida have been doing about a photo a day on Flickr for ages. For sure do Avatar Blogger Month in the size, format, and frequency that suits you. But be sure to drop your URL below, so we can add you to the Treadmill / Flatscreen Workstations at Avatar Blogger Crossfit at LEA11! BTW, if you have virtual world pix on your laptop and want to get them over to your mobile to upload to Instagram, give a shout in the comments, I can show you a super-fast & painless way to do it with Dropbox!

Parties!

KICKOFF PARTY
• Friday 31 May, 5-7pm SLT / Saturday 1 June, 1:00 – 3:00 BST
@Avatar Blogger Crossfit @LEA11 in Second Life

FINAL CELEBRATION
• Saturday 29 Jun, 5-7pm SLT / Sunday 30 June, 1:00 – 3:00 BST
@Avatar Blogger Crossfit @LEA11 in Second Life

• various other excitement to be announced!

LEA11 / Alice in Cornelland calendar

NOTE: all times are GMT! For BST (British Summer Time, eg London) add +1. For PDT (Pacific Daylight Time, eg San Francisco, eg Second Life) subtract -7. So the Avatar Blogger Month kickoff party listed for Saturday 1 June from 0:00 – 2:00 would be 1:00 – 3:00 in London, and 5pm – 7pm Friday in Second Life.