It’s not just the numbers on the end of names that can throw you off, but the ones who try to use l33t sp34k or mix and match capital & lower case letters to try and get attention. Saw someone the other day who was named ‘D3MoN’ (which uses both strategies, ugh) and I just couldn’t get myself to take the guy seriously.

These days, though, if it’s simply a name like Lilly’s or Gany’s I don’t mind. It’s the ‘sexyluva69′ and the ‘CanYouHearMe Snoring’ (real Av name!) ones that make me groan. I know that it’s your world, your imagination but if you want to do anything in SL like designing or some such, you may wanna make an alt with a more “grown up” name.

I didn’t know that either, but I’ll bet a lot of people are going to be making even more judgements about people based on their names now.

I’m also guessing that noone told Forceme Silverspar before she chose her name too.

Tell your friend to put some pics there occasionally I hook people out (Ozzy and Tigre are about to get a call) for posters in the store. If she doesn’t have any of my skins she can always take some pics using demo so I can see the potential. I usually provide what I want them to wear anyway.

Some folks (oldschool RP crowd, some gamers, etc) look at themselves as filling out an identity when faced with the ‘character generation’ process, something they use to present themselves and also judge those around them. Other folks just wanted an easy account name to remember.

The latter crowd didn’t mean harm by it, they’re just… new to the culture, as it were.

For better or worse, the ‘We’re From The Internets’ people look at numbers in names (or businesses with yahoo and gmail email addresses for that matter) as a sign of unprofessionalism or just sheer amateurism. Not to be taken seriously.

I’m not innocent of this and it’s not my intent, but I also don’t see it going away. I see it becoming more widespread, to be honest.

As the virtual economy becomes more meaningful, having an ‘unpresentable’ username is going to hinder you from getting very far in it as facial tattoos might in the real one.

The reality may in fact be that “everybody” wants to be a model, and anyone can be (after all, a couple of clicks and you’re perfectly outfitted), that there is simply far too much competition and too few legitimate agencies, and neither avatar would find it as easy as she thinks it is to break in (and, from stories from other aspiring models, I would say this is more likely the case). In fact, the only thing that makes one person stand apart from another (you can always have a list given to you of things to acquire, after all) is your name. And agencies may find names with numbers, quite simply, unprofessional- if they’ve got a number of applicants for a single position who seem qualified, it’s an easy way to start trimming people from the pool.

As to the modeling, watching two friends of mine struggle with the same thing, I came away with the impression that the way to succeed in SL modeling is to be friends with the store or agency owner, or pay money to go to one of the schools that claims they will place you. Freelance modeling takes a huge time commitment and is not often successful, from what I saw. I would think that if your friend *is* a nice person, in the end she wasn’t discriminated against b/c of the numbers, but rather she lost out to people who play the game better or are more connected (just like RL too).