It's happened to all of us. You log into Second Life only to find, or to be told by those witness to your arrival, that rather looking your usual dapper, stylish and mighty fine looking self, you have shrunk, men have transformed into women, and you are sporting a very unchic light-brown basin bob hairdo that is interfering with the coiffured prim hair that you spent hours choosing. You sigh, and realise that once again, you've been "Ruthed". However, with the release of the latest SL viewer, this humiliating inconvenience has now been resigned to the history books. Linden Labs have now corrected this phenomenon. With this in mind, I thought I would take a moment to acknowledge the passing of something that has been a part of our Second Lives for as long as many of us can remember.

Being Ruthed was the affectionate term for what happened when an avatars appearance had problems updating, and therefore reverted to the default avatar shape, that of a short female, proving that as with foetus' in rl, we are all born female, and our sex is decided in gestation (or on orientation island anyway). It was usually resolvable through going into the "edit appearance" menu, and then closing it again, in effect refreshing your avatar shape, but there were times that even this couldn't save you. There are rumours that the name Ruth comes from an early Linden avatar, but the term became so commonplace, that one of the sims dedicated to the SL 5th Birthday event was called "Ruthed".

Ruthing meant that when you went wandering from sim to sim, there was never a shortage of sexually ambiguous avatars, as bearded men suddenly developed breasts. (Pic by Tid Kidd)


Women weren't any safer, as prim hair became swallowed by the Ruth bowl, and they suddenly shot down in stature. (Pic by Restless Roizman)


Of course, nothing spoilt your attempts to look dark moody and gothic, than a good Ruthing (Pic by Strawberry Holiday)


It's never more difficult to chat up the ladies than when your nipples are suddenly jutting out of the tank top designed to show off your manly muscular frame. (Pic by Tid Kidd)


And nothing would spoil the romantic impact of a SL wedding, than when all the guests are giggling and resisting the urge to shout out "You may now kiss the Ruth!" (Pic by Restless Roizman)


Of course, it's all well and good for me to laugh at the misfortune of others, but even such powerful SL superstars as Trin and I were not immune to that attack of the Ruth (me more than most, to be honest) (Trin pic by Voodoo Buwan, Voo pic by dana Vanmoer)


Lastly, I'd just like to mention, that although being Ruthed is a thing of the past, the Lindens have kindly added the Ruth avatar to all of our default Libraries, meaning that even though she may be gone, Ruth will always live on, in our inventory.