Hello World

“Hello World” is the default blog post on any new WordPress site, but it felt like an appropriate title for my first entry.

My name is Carl, but my avatar is known as DJ Stuart Dumpling. The name dates back to a time in Second Life when users had to choose from a predefined list of surnames. My sense of humour immediately jumped to “Stew Dumpling,” and before long, Stuart Dumpling was born.

I DJed and roleplayed heavily in Second Life between 2007 and 2011/12. You could probably say it became almost as much a part of my life as my "first life." During that time, I met a lot of people, including a few friends I am still in touch with today. Eventually, work and family commitments took over, and I gradually drifted away from the platform.

Over the last 14 or 15 years, I have been busy raising my two children. For the past five years, I have also been DJing in the virtual world of GTA V within a roleplay community, something I have enjoyed immensely. Just like in Second Life, I have made genuine friendships through that community, and thanks to Discord, many of those friendships continue through daily conversations.

So the obvious question is: Why? Why come back to Second Life?

Honestly, I missed the people. I missed the creativity that simply is not possible within the world of Grand Theft Auto. I missed the feeling that there was always something happening, somewhere to explore, and someone to meet. Something kept drawing me back to this virtual world.

My first stop was The Crack Den, a place where I had spent a significant amount of time roleplaying various characters. One of my favourites was a member of an AC/DC tribute band. Looking back, it was absolute madness. We actually toured around Second Life performing shows. Crazy times, but incredibly fun.

At the same time, I quickly realised that because I still actively roleplay in GTA V, I did not really have the mental energy to dive back into roleplay in Second Life as well. This time around, I wanted the experience to be more social. As someone who does not exactly spend weekends clubbing anymore, Second Life gives me a chance to enjoy that atmosphere again, just virtually.

Then came my avatar.

Opening my old inventory was genuinely horrifying. It became immediately apparent that between 2007 and 2012, I had absolutely no regard for folder management. I found folders inside folders, inside folders, inside even more folders. It was chaos.

My solution was simple. Everything went into a folder called Old Stuff, and I started fresh.

From there, I began visiting active clubs, looking for venues that might be recruiting DJs, and generally enjoying conversations with people from all over the metaverse. During one of those conversations, I casually mentioned that I had returned after such a long absence. Not long afterwards, I received an IM from Doreen Elytis.

What I did not realise at the time was that Doreen is an exceptionally talented content creator. She took the time to explain just how much Second Life had changed over the previous decade, introducing me to concepts such as mesh bodies, modern skins, HUDs, and the countless other advances that had happened while I was away.

At first, I thought my avatar looked reasonably decent.

Then I looked at the photos on her website.

Suddenly, I realised I had a lot of work to do.

Doreen connected me with several experienced male avatar owners who shared advice and recommendations. Around the same time, I also discovered Primfeed. Through Primfeed, I connected with Matt Cloud.

After receiving a completely unsolicited cold IM from a returning resident who clearly had no idea what he was doing, Matt somehow did not run away. Instead, he generously shared landmarks, styling advice, shopping recommendations, and one particularly strong piece of advice:

Always get the demo first.

How he immediately knew I was an impulsive buyer remains a mystery.

Armed with a style card from FUOEY (see below), I suddenly felt as though an entirely new world had opened up. I am a sucker for a good shopping list, and I started working my way through it. While I did not purchase every item on the list, I absolutely followed Matt's advice and tried the demos first.

Slowly but surely, piece by piece, I began building an avatar that actually felt like something.

And honestly, that journey has been one of the most enjoyable parts of returning to Second Life.

Once I was happy that I had the setup I needed, I topped up my account with some Lindens and went shopping for real, working my way through the list like a personal shopper at Harrods.

One thing I immediately appreciated about the "new" Second Life was no longer having to rez every single item just to unpack it. It is such a simple change, but it makes the whole shopping experience infinitely better.

With everything unpacked, I started building my avatar properly. First came the body, shape, head, and skins. The face looked great, but there was one problem. I had an annoying seam around the neck.

I tried everything I could think of. Neck fixes, neck blends in the body HUD, adjusting settings, and generally clicking anything that looked vaguely relevant. By the way, nobody warned me there would be so many HUDs.

No matter what I did, I could not get rid of that neck seam.

Eventually, I turned to the Second Life Discord community for help. Someone suggested a command that toggled something called BOM. To this day, I am still not entirely sure what BOM actually does, but I typed the command, crossed my fingers, and suddenly...

BAM.

The seam disappeared.

Everything matched perfectly.

Success.

With the body finally sorted, it was time for a little retail therapy.

A healthy amount of Lindens found their way into the coffers of Deadwool, where my first purchase was, naturally, a Hawaiian-style shirt. Priorities, after all.

That quickly snowballed into jeans fatpacks, ankle boots, a hoodie, and a cap. Once everything was unpacked, organised, and fitted correctly, I completed the look with a pair of sunglasses and a body tattoo.

For the first time since returning, Stuart Dumpling was starting to look exactly how I wanted.

So in short I went from this:

To this:

Hello World!