That's the ultimate prize???

Yes, I like to complain about stuff. Looking around me, I don't think I'm alone in that.

Today's rant is about IMVU's latest Street Team "woo woo" invite all your friends thing. Refer 30 friends to sign up for IMVU in one month, and you're entered in a drawing to win a 4gb iPhone. They call it the "Ultimate Prize".

I've seen IMVU give away gameboys and whatever the latest little gadget is before, and I guess that's cool but I just wonder why the four gig iPhone is the "Ultimate Prize". First of all, couldn't they have spent an extra hundred bucks for the 8gig? That would be so much better of a prize, IMO. I have the eight gig and I already have more than four gigs of stuff on it. 4gigs just isn't that much space. Also, if you get the iPhone you are talking about a VERY EXPENSIVE phone bill.

I mean, I have people emailing me every day asking how they can get cheap credits or free credits because they have no money, have no credit card, they are only 14 years old and their parents won't buy them any credits, etc. etc. Now you want to give them a prize that is 1.) The wimpier iPhone that doesn't hold that much data and 2.) comes with a phone bill of about $100 a month? I think most of the people that might potentially scramble around for a month trying to get thirty people to join are probably people who either don't want to or can't afford to pay one hundred dollars a month for a cellular phone which only works on the Cingular/ATT network.

I suppose if you win this phone, you can always sell it on eBay or Craigslist or something. And, if you are in a country where the iPhone is not available you could always sell sexytime with it, but wouldn't it make more sense to just give away a Wii or something?

Actually, if it were a Wii they were giving away...I might be tempted to try and rustle up 30 friends myself!

What is real?

Today I rather randomly received the following email from some random person:

I know what you're up to, you're just advertising those imvu credits and believe me i won't spend my money on something not real so nice try girly

I usually receive an average of about one email a day that appears to be from someone with an avatar at imvu.com and has to do with imvu credits...like someone either wants me to give them free credits because they think buying them is stupid, or they don't think it's stupid but they don't have a credit card or maybe like the above email, they aren't actually asking for any free credits, they just want to tell me buying credits is a foolish idea.

This one is probably my all-time favorite:

jinx can you please give me some creds 5,000 please I dosen't have aby money I dont wont buy a creds its stupid :( please :) 5,000 and thets all ..........

Like...hello...first of all, proof-read what you write but besides that...you are telling me what I do for a living is stupid and then you want something for free from me? That's like going into a bakery and telling the baker/owner, "buying cupcakes is stupid, I don't want to pay for your cupcakes, so please give me some cupcakes." Like, is this actually supposed to work???

Mmmm...cupcakes!

But anyway, back to the first email above. It got me thinking, "what is real?" It's like I asked them to pay for something that has absolutely no value (well, not ask them...more like just passively advertising them) and I find that an incredibly interesting point of view. I mean, if my grandmother thinks IMVU credits have no value, that's different. I don't think my grandmother has ever been on the Internet and she certainly hasn't used IMVU...credits really do have no value to her (unless, of course, she had a whole bunch of them for some reason and then someone offered her a wad of cash for them...then they would have value to even my grandmother who couldn't use them herself.)

But...if you have an IMVU account...if you use IMVU...how are credits not real? IMVU is a real company, it has real employees, real venture capitalists, real offices located in Palo Alto, CA. and millions of "real" users. A bunch of people make money off of IMVU and a bunch more people spend money on IMVU. If IMVU credits aren't real then I'm thinking perhaps the following things are also not real...

The Internet
Anything downloaded from the Internet (software, movies, music, audiobooks)
Movies watched in a movie theater
souls
money spent against your credit card limit
etc...

If you can't touch it, can't hold it in your hand, it must not be real, right? If this person REALLY TRULY never buys anything that is not "real", then I'm impressed as it seems quite hard to do these days. Well, either that or it's just a kid who's parents won't let them use their credit card.