I think it's safe to say we've lost, or maybe never had, a real focus on where our interests and desires lay. A 'soft' sexuality? Or 'x' rated stuff?
I'm keenly aware we've served a purpose of sorts, the readership have made it clear we've been invaluable for new players, and for old hands re-aligning their SL's, in areas such as lingerie and pubic hair. But we can't exist as a SL lingerie blog, and even less as a SL pubic hair blog.
The pages read suggest that's an ongoing thing, as new players come on board and search for specific items they require for their avatar. But the fact is that 'sexuality' is, in the context of this board, becoming narrower. People don't read the stuff on homosexuality. Maybe it's time for someone out there to start their own blog focussing on the gay scene in SL, because as sure as hell my audience isn't interested.
And we've polarised opinion with the 'x' rated stuff. Some people like it (a lot) and others loathe the in-your-face approach. Maybe SL isn't ready to grow up to its sexuality yet.
So...I need to re-think this blog, and with it maybe my own SL.
Ella's departure for a new venture, focussed entirely on one aspect of the broad church of SL sexuality -naturism (and Ella would maybe argue that's not even sexual)- makes me think something was lost with her going. I can't replace authors as good as her at the drop of a hat. I can't offer the photographers regular work, nor even Mal if I'm honest, and lingerie is a staple of the SL design world.
I've had a sneak preview of Ella's new venture, too, and I believe it already looks a million times better than this blog, with a much more talented writer at the helm. I'm not bitter about her leaving, I'm glad her talents were recognised by others and she has moved onto something that looks like it will be a great success (and looks wonderful). Diane, too, had kind of moved on, taking commissions for SL photography work here and there, and branching out from the little arena of work we offered her. Marlene, too, has moved on, beginning here as a 'lesbian affairs' writer, before RL kicked in with illness that she overcame, but then re-aligned her RL focus, and now spends a lot of her free time working with a breast cancer charity. We wish her continued good health, and happiness with Lizzie, who recently became her SL partner after some drama en route to finding SL contentment with another. I've had this crew assembled for the best part of two years, but SL and RL moves on. I'm not sure I've the energy to assemble a new crew of writers to fill the gaping holes left by their departures (or part-departures). Vaj's current RL work circumstances up to and over Christmas mean she'll be a rare visitor to SL, let alone to the blogosphere.
As a result of this, I've decided to largely park and rethink this blog between now and Christmas. Of course there'll be the odd Mal post (or one or two from myself, Christmas is a time for a lot of SL sexy lingerie), but for now I'm going to 'disband' the remainder of the crew for six weeks, until the new year. We'll come back with a new design and outlook, I promise, and a more tightly defined focus on where this blog is headed. Currently, my thinking is that we're maybe going down a lingerie/sexy clothes route, and blogs such as these already exist and do it better than we ever could. I won't be taking that route. It's boring, to me, and if that's the future, the 2ex will cease to exist.
'X' rated stuff? You don't seem overly excited by it. It's something I thought would be popular, but I seem to be wrong. Honey and Rosemary's pages aren't being visited that often. Explicit stuff isn't that exciting to the readership. This, surprisingly, doesn't appear to be the future either. Davlos's work has been a breath of fresh air, both to me and to you, but again I can't run a blog dependent on his contributions, although his report from 'the commune' remains a very popular post, and I suspect has led to a lot of visitors to the sim. A success story, certainly, but what I regard as successes are becoming fewer precisely because we aren't sure ourselves where our focus should lie.
I don't know. Maybe the blog has served its purpose and run its course. For now, not 'goodbye' but 'au revoir', and I'll be posting again in the new year, even if it's only to close this blog. As Mal (maybe) or Vaj or whoever provide material, I'll pop it up here, but I won't be contributing much myself.
Ems
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