Two years ago, the first post was published on Slmen.
So much has happened since then! I’m almost ashamed to look at those early posts. I had no idea of the subtleties of SL lighting and wasn’t really aware of all the features available in the snapshot function.
I started Slmen to help men find cool clothing and accessories, show them put-together outfits, and to give homage to the designers who were adventurous enough to create men’s apparel. I say adventurous, because due to the male avatar specifications, creating for men is quite a challenge (tell me about the wide feet, a mesh done initially for female avatars, not really convincing when applied on male shapes). Plus, lets face it, the market for men’s fashions is way narrower than women’s, which isn’t really an incentive to design male apparel! All these facts led to the point where it was quite challenging for male avatars to look good at the end of 2006. Things have dramatically improved since then with many more designers on the scene and an amazing improvement of the quality of clothing and accessories. We at Slmen are proud to have played our little part in this expansion, promoting the work of more skilled established designers and helping emerging new talents.
We’ve done it our way, being as objective as possible, avoiding an excess of praise and reverence that often makes paying customers cringe, but still being respectful of the hard work designers do, standing by our beliefs about perms and quality, daring evaluation on items because not everything is worth everything and paying customers have the right to know that. We’ve done it honestly, spending all the time needed to make clothing and accessories look their best, without hiding flaws or retouching pictures in any way. We’ve done it trying to show a palette of styles (not wide enough, I know!), putting aside our own preferences and personal taste to focus on what is interesting to show. We never forget we stand at the customers’ side when we are doing our work. It seems our average 98,000+ readers/month (generating 390,000+ page views/month) feel that way and appreciate it!
Thanks to the wonderful fashion, skin and accessory creators who make our avatars look so good, to the pose creators who make them so expressive (and hell, how could attire look gorgeous on avatars without proper poses to make them come alive?). Thanks to those who were patient enough to work for Slmen during year 2008: Nuno McCullough; Domch Raymaker, who always brings a dash of fantasy; and Perry Proudhon, whose constant help and support are so precious to me. Most of all, thanks to you who stick with us so faithfully and spend a bit of time reading Slmen. We wouldn’t keep it running without you guys!
After the cut, you will get Slmen’s stats for 2008 and an FAQ attempting to summarize the most frequently asked questions we received in world, in comments or by e-mail.
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