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<\/p>\nOnce upon a time, a younger more na\u00efve Shemonti decided it would be a good idea to make an account on IMVU. She had no idea what it was about, but the pictures looked cool \u2013 bad idea \u2013 So there she was, creating her account, getting way too excited over decorating her Avatar (honestly, this is just a glorified, boring version of The Sims \u2013 without the fun building part) and putting in a lot of care on her appearance. Cue an excited Shemonti:<\/p>\n
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So while I was choosing my appearance I chose a darker skin tone for my avatar for reality\u2019s sake, thought it would make everything a little more authentic. I thought, the more honest I was about my appearance the better it would be. Oh how wrong was I.<\/p>\n
While exploring the website I discovered that I was able to go to different \u2018rooms\u2019 and walk around to socialise \u2013 because God knows I don\u2019t socialise enough in the real world, I thought it would be better to do it virtually \u2013 so there I was in a pixelated, swanky little room, looking around, and the first thing that showed up in the chat box was \u201cget the fuck away from here chocolate bitch\u201d. Cue a sad Shemonti:<\/p>\n
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The first thing that came into mind was \u2013 chocolate bitch? Really? You\u2019re being a racist tool, and you\u2019re comparing me to something that\u2019s really delicious? I \u2013 as you can obviously tell- was pretty confused. And to be perfectly honest I didn\u2019t find it as insulting as I probably should have. Like I said \u2013 na\u00efve. Add idiot to that list too.<\/p>\n
TLDR \u2013\u00a0[soundcloud url=”https:\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/303874206″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” \/]<\/p>\n
As I have touched on the topic of websites doing better to stop online racism, I genuinely believe that more should be done. When I received this abuse \u2013 admittedly EXTREMELY mild compared to what many others go through \u2013 it was never made clear anywhere on the website what I should do to get help from this abuse \u2013 and that in itself is heart breaking.<\/p>\n
My only hope for the future of online racism is that websites will take better care of their users and take stronger actions against those who are being racially abused \u2013 because so far not enough is being done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Once upon a time, a younger more na\u00efve Shemonti decided it would be a good idea to make an account on IMVU. She had no idea what it was about, but the pictures looked cool \u2013 bad idea \u2013 So there she was, creating her account, getting way too excited over decorating her Avatar (honestly,…<\/p>\n