AUTUMN AND WINTERY-NESS ABOUNDS!

Thanksgiving is coming up soon and Christmas is just around the corner! ^//0//^ Because Stardoll released the new Harrod's wing in Starplaza, it's filled with many season-matching fashion (but all rather pricey and only available in stardollars u__u). It'll be very fun mashing up different looks together, no? :3

MISS STARDOLL WORLD 2012

The yearly Miss Stardoll World contest is back around again! As per usual, everybody is quite excited about it--you can see the enthusiasm everywhere. Game/Guestbook/Chat advertisements, broadcasts, people trading rares for votes for themselves and/or others...it's actually rather infectious. I have no idea who will win this year, but one way or another, I say let the best dollie win!
Bright16 (who as you all know is my sister and helps me out on this blog a lot) is going to run for at least Semi-Finals, and I would be most happy if you could take the time to vote her MSW! ^__^ I've never ever seen a boy dollie win MSW before and I'd find it very inspiring! ^^ Happy voting, everyone! Best of luck to all contestants!

Dressup games at Stardoll

Dressup games at Stardoll

THE MISUNDERSTOOD AUCTION

Buying and selling on Stardoll may seem simple at first: there’s the Starplaza and then there’s the Starbazaar. But once you enter the collector crowd, things will get dirty. 

When it comes to buying and selling rare items, such as popular DKNY, Amy Claire, LE, Elle, and other things from various tribute stores, most collectors find that the maximum Starbazaar pricing limit (500 stardollars) is just a little too cheap. And so, instead, they like to either exchange their precious rares for items equally as rare, or host auctions for them. Of course, this doesn’t always apply to everyone--some people like trading because it’s a more economical way to get an item that they like (and plus, it helps out the person at the other end of the trade, who most likely feels the same way), and some people like bidding because it helps them find the best price for whatever they’re selling and it makes the whole transaction much faster, since there is always a fixed winner of the auction in the end. Sometimes the case is that they're selling a very rare item that happens to have a fixed selling currency of Starcoins and find that the actual item is more worth Stardollars.

Stardoll discourages these types of business deals (wow, that sounded really professional) in their One-Stop rules list. They state that the maximum amount someone can pay for anything on Stardoll is 500 stardollars, and they do not approve of private deals. Frankly, I think these taboos are mainly to keep everyone safe from scamming.

According to Stardoll's One-Stop rules: 

“Make private deals to trade items, trade/sell/buy accounts nor sell items for more than the Stardoll limit of 500 Stardollars.”

No matter what Stardoll says, I really want to go over some of the misconceptions people have of auctions on Stardoll.

The things that make up an auction are fairly simple. You have the item to sell, a starting price, a start/end time, and the highest bidder. If you’ve ever shopped on eBay, then you’ll see that these concepts are painfully simple to understand. 

The starting price is the minimum price for the item, and it’s purpose is usually to give a price that bidders can start on while guaranteeing a little profit for the auctioneer.

The start/end time is very important because it’s what determines the winning bid--bidders fight to have the highest bid before time runs out, and once it does, whoever bid last is the highest bidder, in other words, the winner.

What’s sad is that on Stardoll, there are many collectors with well-sought-after items that just don’t get these concepts! Because my dear sister Bright16 is an avid collector of all things rare and shiny, I’ve seen her go from auction to auction, occasionally bidding or sometimes just shopping through them all. Unfortunately, from what we’ve both seen, a lot of users seem to think that auctions basically mean uploading a picture of what you want to sell on your presentation, writing ‘BID!’ right under the said photo, and then waiting around for people to spam your guestbook with bids UNTIL you find the bid you like the best. There’s nothing wrong with uploading pictures of stuff on your presentation or screaming ‘BID!’, but the problem is that you can’t just wait for people to jot down bids and THEN just sift through them all looking for a good price. There’s no competition and it’s not fair to any of the bidders that way, and plus, it’s illogical. When you leave out a start/end time, all the rules of the auction are lost and, seeing as it technically never ends, you never really have a true winning bid.

I’ve seen other people mess up auctions in other ways. Some people very wisely leave out starting bids. Even better, they don’t even know what a starting bid is. Lack of a starting bid makes the whole bidding process even more complicated and is also very unfair to bidders because they’re completely in the dark about what’s a good bid and what isn’t. 

And then, you have people who simply don’t care. They shout ‘BID!’ in their presentation, politely clean out a room to show off all the items for sale, and then, without putting a starting price or a start/end time, leave for a few weeks and assume that all their loyal bidders will come, make a mess of bids in their guestbook, and somehow win the auction without their consent. If they do moderately monitor their auction, they pay very little attention to highest bids and in the end the auction just fails flat on it’s face. 

I REALLY wish more people knew about the makeup of an auction--just imagine how many more happy collectors there would be if there was a more thorough understanding of it! Is anyone else sick of these auction misconceptions?

Meroperiddle signing out! ^0^

BY THE WAY, we went to see the Dark Knight trilogy & midnight premiere and it was just absolutely beautiful--GO SEE IT YOU'RE MISSING OUT ON A LOT OF PURE BEAUTY!!!

JULY - HOT OR NOT?

July's Hot Buys have been released! They are just the cutest things!

LET'S GET STARDOLL BACK TO NORMAL!

Stardollian MILEYKENT started a petition to bring the old Starpoint system back, and she needs all the help she can get. :3

SIGN THE PETITION HERE!

The target amount of signatures needed is 1,000,000,000, but if we spread word of this enough, I'm positive the numbers will shoot up! If we work together on this, we can save Stardoll from looking like an MMPORG!! (Stardoll hates it when I call it that XD)

STARDOLL IS FOR KINDERGARTNERS

HONESTLY STARDOLL.
STARDOLL JUST RELEASED THIS STUPID 'REWARDS' THING WHERE USERS CAN SHOW OFF 'AWARDS' OF THEIRS. I'M NOT TALKING 'HOTTEST DESIGN' AWARDS, I'M TALKING AWARDS FOR SAVING YOUR DOLL AND DOING DEATHLY SIMPLE THINGS.
IT'S LIKE WE'RE IN KINDERGARTEN AND WE CONSTANTLY NEED SELF-ESTEEM BOOSTS BECAUSE WE'RE SO DUMB.
HOW OLD ARE WE AGAIN?

WHAT THE FLYING DAVID 8?!?!?!?!!?!?

STARDOLL JUST ADDED AN UGLY NEW FEATURE LIKE ONLY A FEW SECONDS AGO!!!!!

WHY IS STARDOLL BEING SO PROGRESSIVELY BAD THESE DAYS?!!?!??!

STARDOLL - 'LEVEL UP' OR 'DOWNGRADE'?

Stardoll just released a hideous new update for the whole site, titled 'Level Up'. Now, the whole site looks like an MMPORG.
Now you can't see your amount of individual Starpoints. It's all in 'levels', so we all get this exhilarating feeling of being in World of Warcraft! Will it help to say that I HATE World of Warcraft?

As you can see, you cannot see your Starpoints and instead see an odious green meter. 

Your clothing tags are now oversized and, in my humble opinion, very annoying.

And this is the update I hate the most--you can actually SEE all your Starpoint rewards! Stardoll spoiled all the hairstyles! They really squished out all the fun and excitement of racking up Starpoints.

Everybody I know isn't so 'leveled up' by the new look, either. Even if Stardoll has made tons of Help topics to help everybody in this confusing messy labyrinth of an update, I still find all the new features very useless. Are they improving on the old design at all? No, all they did was add and remake some old features and made them ugly. If Stardoll doesn't change back to the old look or at least try to simplify and clean up this current version, I think I'll be logging on there much less and maybe spending a little more of my Internet time on more factual, less fake-feeling sites like Youtube and deviantArt. Good one, Stardoll.

NEW LOGIN TEMPLATE??

Stardoll just made a new template for the little sign in/out box on Stardoll! What do you think?
Frankly, I think it's awful.

NEW CHANEL ON STARDOLL

New Chanel is now available on Stardoll! As per usual, everything looks perfectly chic. We're absolutely loving the hair! Which is your favorite piece? 

Preview of Chanel Tribute

JUNE - HOT OR NOT?

This June's collection of Hot Buys is being released! What do you think, hot or not?
Frankly, I think they're all very very cute. I love the palette they're using! I think the May Hot Buys collection is kind of lacking. There were a few really nice things, though--them being the Batman necklace, the Boombox top, the Mickey glasses and the Striped Heels. :)

RUGGED INDIVIDUALITY

You can become whoever and whatever you want to be on Stardoll. Isn’t that awesome? And very literally, too--not only can people change their hair color, gender (I did that), ethnicity, and body type on their doll, but, with the proper skills, they can also become crazy things--zombies, dragons, vampires, or look straight out of an anime. You’d think this freedom would make people want to flaunt every bit of their individuality on Stardoll, right?

Well, actually...no.

Look at this girl’s face. You can think whatever you want of it--maybe her chin is too big, or maybe it’s fine the way it is. Maybe she’s really pretty. Maybe she overdid the makeup. Maybe her makeup looks perfect. Whatever.

The point is...this is no one girl’s face. 

Countless times I have seen this face type on more than several female MeDolls, all the same makeup formation, facial feature placement and everything. I could name quite a few users, but I don't want to be mean. Even if the users with these kinds of dolls are completely different from one another, it’s still hard to deny that this face is shared by many people. The only question is why? Why is it that they all feel they should look identical? Is there something dark and cliquey going on with these mostly Superstar members, or do they just think it's a trendy, cute look? It’s really hard to ignore. And like I said, Stardoll does, in a way, give people freedom to stand out as much as they want from everyone else. I mean, look, I made my doll a guy (a Cillian Murphy-kind-of-guy if you know what I mean) and usually dress him up in clothing I would never ever be able to acquire. What makes these identical girls feel afraid to stand out?

Frankly, I don’t know, and neither does Athena. Maybe sometime one of these kinds of girls will be able to actually speak out and tell us, but until then, we want to hear what you think. Feel free to share your thoughts in the guestbook. :) 

While girls (and maybe even boys) will continue to mimic eachother, it’s always refreshing to see a girl or guy stepping beyond the usual and really strutting their individuality. :)

Take for example one of the ever-winning Hottest Fashion Designers Mo0ohanad. Last time I saw him, he was cosplaying Vendetta, and before that he had dressed up as a snowman, a car (totally serious here!) and a tree! He’s very creative and original, and I definitely applaud him for that.

And not every MeDoll needs to dress up as a car to look great. There are plenty other very different and drop dead gorgeous dolls--funnycupcake97‘s doll stands out from the rest and she also has a killer sense of style. QWERTU456 is one girl that has a look I absolutely love and very cool fashion taste, and so does her friend IBoresS (oh my gosh don’t even mention his doll he is so lovely O_O). Nirvana_4ever looks practically fresh off a runway from Paris (and not only that, but she’s a crazy good designer and a huge Harry Potter fan!) and CrystalsJoy is a very creative girl with a glamorous doll and an amazing knack for designing pretty much anything.

So through the millions of MeDolls, both girls and boys, at the end of the day Stardoll really does give us opportunity to explore our creativity and really 'be ourselves' fashion and style-wise in a way--the question is, does everyone take that opportunity?

What do you think, everyone? :D

-Artie ^//w//^

WELCOME!

Hi, and welcome to Stardoll: Incognito! As the title says, this blog will cover mainly Stardoll and the many sides of it--from the fun and cuteness to the drama and ugliness.
My name is Artie and on Stardoll I'm meroperiddle. :3

And my name's Athena and on Stardoll I'm Bright16! ^w^

We both are the founders and writers of this here blog and we'll try to update at least once a week. 

Stay tuned!!!

--Athena and Artie <3