Transcription
So, you guys seem to really like the videos where I talk about certain Roblox avatar trends. I already covered a video about the dashy trend. I think that was about a month ago now. So, let's talk about this realistic avatar trend that's a bit weird. I don't know if it has an official name, but people are calling it the IMVU takeover.
So, this trend is relatively new, I guess. I think it's been a thing for maybe around a year, maybe a little bit longer. It's kind of hard to tell right now. I could explain what this trend is. For those of you that have heard of IMVU before, you probably already know. But yeah, let me just show you.
I actually saw fellow YouTuber Highly Wanted talking about this back in March. Yeah, a few months ago. He said this outfit is exactly what's wrong with Roblox. And to be honest, guys, I don't think he's wrong. So, look at this thing, right? This is like a hyper realistic Second Life, maybe IMVU, maybe even Sims style avatar, but on Roblox. Yeah, thanks to public UGC, this has become a bit of a trend. And what's crazy about this is this is one instance where Afro has sort of become popular because a lot of these characters are made off Afro bundles and they're just combined with layered clothing and several UGC accessories to make these really sort of unsettling weird humanoid characters, I guess, is a good way of describing them.
So, I could be wrong, but I believe these characters sort of originated from an old game called Second Life. And here is what the Second Life website looks like all the way back in 2004. Yeah, Second Life is a really old game. It's older than Roblox. I'm going to be honest, it's got like a really sort of unsettling creepy vibe. And that creepy vibe is not purely because the game's kind of old. If you guys go on YouTube and watch early Second Life documentaries from like 2004, you will see a lot of weird stuff. People doing yoga, people getting married, weird like daycare stuff. I really hope this doesn't become the future of Roblox because yeah, Second Life has got a few oddballs playing it. This game is flipping weird.
And then the more up-to-date version, IMVU, which did actually come out in 2004, but Second Life was released in 2003. So IMVU was sort of known as like the less popular, slightly more modern version, but over the years, this did overtake Second Life, and it is a lot more popular. You can see here the number one 3D avatar social apparently. Well, I guess not for long because apparently a lot of people from this game have moved over to Roblox. And as a longtime Roblox player, yeah, it is definitely weird to see. I never would have imagined that.
Now, I would show you the IMVU website, but it is 17 plus and it might be something weird on there. So, I'll just show you a few character examples. So, you see these avatars here. This is basically what the guy remade in the screenshot in Highly Wanted's tweet. He remade an IMVU avatar on Roblox. And because of public UGC and stuff like that, these players are getting them really accurate. Like I've seen some screenshots and it's kind of hard to tell it's Roblox. It's becoming a bit weird, right?
One of the most popular celebrities to play IMVU was probably XXX Tentacion. He posted this back in 2016, so 10 years ago now. His IMVU account, he was a 28-year-old guy called Makeel Hill, and that was his character. Clearly based off himself, but yeah.
Now, I saw a reply to Highly Wanted's tweet from this person called Luna, and she said, "These type of players are usually in dance games like Salon De Fiesta." So, I guess we're going to check it out. We will definitely take a look in a minute. But yeah, just off the bat, my first thoughts about these avatars is they are pretty hideous. Honestly, I bet Roblox absolutely loves this. Like, I could just imagine David Baszucki being so happy about this for a few reasons, right? These people are buying Afro bundles, but not only that, quite a lot of the IMVU players, they are moving over to Roblox because yeah, that platform is kind of expensive. So Roblox is kind of like overtaking all of these 3D virtual world games and stealing up all their players. But a lot of the people that play those types of games, well, they're a bit odd. And seeing these characters on Roblox is just very strange to me.
I honestly think with Roblox avatars, right, less is more. I find personally that I was able to be far more creative with avatar designs and even video content when public UGC wasn't a thing because it's pretty obvious that all of these IMVU avatars are a result of the public UGC update. Before then, making characters like this would have been impossible. I know people used to try and make these characters in 2018 with all of that weird like uncanny valley stuff, but mostly that was just screenshots in studio. I don't even think they used to make games out of them back then. But well, here we are in 2026 and there are full games, full characters and everything. So, um, yeah, I guess we can go and check it out and see how weird it is.
So, I found the game Salon De Fiesta 2. The weird thing is apparently the original got deleted. So, I don't know what was going on in this basic looking dance game for like, you know, the entire game to get banned. But I was looking at the server list and look at this. This just doesn't look like Roblox to me, man. Look at these avatars. This may sound stupid, but it makes me a little bit sad in a way. The Roblox we grew up with is pretty much dead. It's gone. It still feels weird to me that people can make like full-on characters like this, like weird freaky humanoid things. But yeah, let's go and jump into the game anyway.
Oh god, here we go. Right, so I'm on an old account. Oh my god, this is lagging. What is going on? One sec, guys. Sorry. Yeah, I just have to wait for that to load. Look at these flipping characters, man. Yes. And if you're wondering, I am on an alt account. I just didn't want to join this on my main. Mainly because I didn't want to be spotted on this game. It's kind of strange. Uh, and also I didn't know how dodgy it was. But let's go inside the building. Let's see what's going on. So, what do people even do on this? They sort of just like dress up as IMVU characters and then dance. Is that really it? I wish I could play the music now. It's like so earpiercingly horrible. You wouldn't believe it. Obviously, it's copyrighted though. Yeah. So, what do people even do? Just dance like this all day synchronized? What is the point, man?
All right. I joined a new server to see what's going on. They're just doing the same thing. How do people play this? Oh god, look at that. Botched plastic surgery. Yeah, I don't know about you guys. I don't like these avatars. How much do they cost anyway? We've got to find out. So, they're probably going to be pretty expensive, right? How much is this guy's character? 2,700. Jesus. So, these guys are paying like what? 30 quid, maybe around 25 quid for an IMVU style Roblox avatar. That is kind of like shocking. A bit more expensive than I thought. But yeah, as I say all the time, UGC is expensive these days.
I did just join quickly on my main to see what they were saying in the chat, you know, if there was anything weird going on. And to be fair to them, no. Well, most of it was in a foreign language, but I kind of expected some weird stuff to be happening, but no, it looks like it was fine. These guys don't really do anything. They sort of don't talk about anything. They don't do anything in the game. They just do like synchronized dance moves AFK. And I thought Pet Simulator players were stupid. Like, this is something else. These guys need sectioning or something. Oh dear.
Now, I was going to check out another game because apparently quite a lot of these IMVU people also play Catalog Avatar Creator. I did join a few servers and I couldn't see any. But I did search IMVU on the like, you know, creator avatar marketplace and there was a lot on here. I can see where they get their ideas from. Most of these avatars were like over 30k. So that suggests people are not necessarily buying them. They're making them in Catalog Avatar Creator like just for the fun of it. I guess it's become some sort of hobby for some people just making these avatars on Roblox. They don't even necessarily play games. They just like building them, which I guess is fair enough.
I'm kind of curious to see the age rating on this game. Oh, 13 plus. That's interesting. I guess it's kind of fine though cuz it's mostly just dance moves, right? Still a little bit weird. That may be about to change though. I was sent this news from Row News like a few days ago. They said starting May 19th, so in a few days time, any Roblox game that qualifies as a social hangout and has free form drawing or includes content on sensitive issues will only be playable to players aged 16 plus. Previously, it was set to 13. So there you go. The game I just played, the IMVU hangout, whatever it's called, that will definitely be classed as a social hangout. So yeah, maybe it's going to be restricted to 16 plus. And honestly, I think it probably should.
Now, just before we finish today's video, I want to show you guys this because I found something really interesting. It's a YouTube video uploaded 2 years ago about the game we just played, Salon De Fiesta. And the game never used to be full up of IMVU avatars. Look, they used to be normal Roblox players playing this thing. Wow, that is fascinating. That is absolutely crazy. Yeah, look at this. It's the same game. So, over time, it's just been overrun with like IMVU stuff. How bizarre is that, guys?
So, there we are, guys. Another new avatar trend. This one, in my personal opinion, even worse than the dashy trend. But I do understand why people are making these avatars because yeah, playing IMVU, that game flipping sucks. It does seem easier for them to play Roblox and it's a bit cheaper as well. Don't be mean to anybody that chooses these type of avatars. I just want to make that clear. It's their personal choice. Roblox allows them to do it, right, with all the updates. So, yeah, they can if they want. But it does make me sad, though. The era of innocent Roblox avatars is over. That's it. Finished.