Back in June I fell in love with The Body Co 's beautiful black skin line, Chocolata , and used it as an opportunity to discuss the mistakes that many designers and developers make when creating darker toned skins. Although many commenters chose to focus on my choice to wear the same shape I always wear ( a "white" shape) while modelling this skin, this post also provoked an interesting discussion about race in virtual worlds, and that's a topic that fashionistas and gamers alike don't discuss often enough. Frankly, many comments raised better points than I did in my article, so they're well worth the read (especially if you're a skin maker!)

In the spirit of all this year-end summarizing, I've gone through every post I've written since this time last year to single out the 5 most viewed/shared/commented on. Some of them may surprise you (and some totally won't), starting with...

4. Three Second Life Marketplace Banners That Get Under My Skin (And How I'd Fix Them)

I evidently wasn't the only person who facepalmed at the marketing images Linden Lab chose to highlight on the Marketplace. From awkward image staging to downright tragic Photoshopping, these images hit more than one nerve. It's painful to see such unflattering images of our favorite medium, especially given the incredible images that residents themselves can create in Second Life (without employing Photoshop at all in many cases). Here's hoping that LL will take advantage of the massive pool of talented users for their visuals in 2012...

3. Is It Wrong to Secretly Gender Bend? And Other Thorny Questions for Avatar Alts

I suspect that everyone who has been in SL for any length of time has come across some drama over someone with alternate accounts (or "alts"). The ability to become anyone or anything almost immediately, combined with the attitude that many residents have that SL is "just a game", has lead to some very unique social situations. There's a lot of gold in the comments for this post, offering a lot of personal perspective from many different sides of the issue that should be a valuable insight for anyone in SL... or on the internet, for that matter!

2. Three Reasons Why I Hate the Weird (and Weirdly Popular) World of SL Avatar Morphs

If you don't remember this particular rant, allow me to summarize: Morphs are nightmare fuel and nearly all of them look terrible. Thankfully, the vast majority of you seem to agree. Of course when everyone agrees, conflict must arise elsewhere. Is it copyright infringement to manipulate an image with your SL face? How much do you have to change before the image effectively becomes yours? There's a reason that intellectural property law can be tricky to pin down in this age of remixes and mash-ups. While we may not be able to agree on what is and is not IP theft, at least we can agree that morphs are super creepy.

1. Is Virtual Faux Fox Fur Fashion Still Not Faux Enough?

You had to know it was coming. This post about how a cute plush scarf incited shoppers to attack each other (and the designer) for their taste in virtual accessories exploded practically overnight. Though the controversy about this item hasn't kept me from wearing it, it has given me a chuckle every time I see the Google ads on the side of the page...







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.