But this wouldn't be a very long (or very popular) post if all I had was glowing praise for Linden Lab's choice here, right? It feels ungrateful to say it, but I do still have some problems...

Like a lot of SLers who know just how beautiful SL can look without the use of Photoshop, I've been desperately hoping that LL would just bite the bullet and enlist the help of the massive number of rshutterbugs in the Second Life community. I've been very critical of the images that Linden Lab has been using to advertise Second Life, especially when it comes to the large eye-catching homepage graphics . And finally, after so much collective whining from SL style afficionados, Second Life is being promoted with flawless images from some of my favorite fellow fashionistas, in particular Gogo (aka Gorgeous Yongho/Juicy Littlething) of Juicybomb . Gogo only makes the most minimal touchups on her snapshots, and is always eager to play with innovations like shadows, depth of field, and mesh, so she's an excellent candidate to promote SL with her pictures.

Gogo is pretty adventurous with effects like shadows and depth of field, yet all the pictures of her that are presented are pretty straightforward and don't really flaunt the visual potential of SL. Even more puzzling is the above picture, where Linden Lab Photoshopped her next to a male avatar image of a noticeably different quality. It's a little awkward.

There was also a lot of diversity in LL's previous images, while these new ones are all very straightforward and fashionista friendly. If you're not a fan of Gogo, you may think this is inevitable. Cute blonde girl, normal fashionable clothes, the end. Right?

Not quite. Gogo's actually got a pretty creative sense of style when you go past the surface. She's done plenty of fantasy inspired snapshots and has even dabbled in the vampire look a couple times. Check out the picture from her Flickr on the right if you don't believe me. I don't know if Gogo chose these shots or if LL did, but there's just not as much variety as there could be.

I love Gogo, I lover her pictures, and I even love LL for even trying to please the nitpicking aesthetes of SL like myself. As guilty as I feel for continuing to complain, I see this as a process to fine-tune and perfect the representations of SL on the homepage and beyond. SL can be gorgeous, and that gorgeousness definitely takes more forms than just the flawless fashionistas.

Iris Ophelia (Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.