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| Serenity..Wearing the offending Logo. This is not allowed! |
The Lore...
After the great Flickr debacle hit our little corner of the Second Life adult scene, many of you will remember I went looking for free alternatives for members of **The Sexiest Pornstars**. I didn't want people to feel they had to pay for Flickr Pro just to remain an active part of the community.
Some people objected to Flickr's changes on principle (myself included). Others simply couldn't afford it. Either way, it felt unfair.
So we adapted.
I started sourcing galleries from Slushe, DeviantArt and Twitter/X, while Ali continued with Flickr galleries. We promoted the **Sexiest** tags on Slushe, created a dedicated Sexiest group on DeviantArt, and launched an official hashtag on Twitter. I pushed those platforms hard because I didn't want anyone to feel like a second-class Pornstar simply because they weren't paying for Flickr.
The important thing was that nothing really changed for members. You could still share your work in-world, still submit links, and still have the chance to appear on the Pornstars Blog. Just as people had done for well over 17 years.
Then along came Primfeed.
I'd often said the three platforms we were using were really just lifeboats. They kept the free side of the community afloat, but they were never perfect. My hope was always that one day a platform would appear that brought everything back together again, much like Flickr once did.
Primfeed looked like that platform.
It was built around Second Life, supported both images and video, and felt like exactly what our community needed.
I promoted the absolute hell out of Primfeed.
I even renamed blog features around it to help spotlight the platform during its early days. My thinking was simple: if people uploaded there, they'd be seen by our community, and if our community uploaded there, Primfeed would grow. Everybody wins.
I even pay for Primfeed myself, partly because I believe in supporting platforms I rely on. Primfeed gave you a choice, Free or Upgraded Paid services. Flickr did not, which was my main gripe with them. Now they've taken that even further. In my country the UK, you have to age verify to see adult content. Flickr offer no free means to age verify. Guess what the only means of age verifying is? Go pro! So before i could not use Flickr, now i cannot even view it without paying. Which underlines how welcome Primfeed is on our scene.
So... How Did I End Up Suspended?
Quite early on, Luke (Primfeed's owner) asked me not to add my **Sexiest Primfeed of the Week** graphics into the Primfeed Public Gallery because promotional graphics with heavy text weren't allowed there.
Fair enough.
His platform, his rules.
It reduced the reach of those graphics a little, but I respected the decision.
Which is why I was so surprised this week, years later, when I was suddenly suspended without warning. The owner himself saw the Sexiest of the Week Graphics way back, and seemed ok with them, as long as they were not in the Primfeed Gallery section. Which i observed from that day onwards.
The reasons?
Apparently I had infringed trademarks/copyright by using various logos.
The Primfeed logo was one.
In fact, I was even told I couldn't place the word "Primfeed" alongside my own logo in the way I had.
Old DeviantArt and Slushe promotional graphics were also cited.
Even... Temu.
Yes, really.
The Temu logo appeared in an old parody image making a joke about YouTube Channel culture. It was clearly satire. Nobody looking at it would reasonably think Temu had suddenly decided to sponsor a Second Life porn blog.
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| Serenity..Not Sponsored by TEMU.( Slushe are also more than happy to get in on the act. And have their Logo visible as a water mark on this downloaded Pic. To be featured wherever i choose. ) |
What Disappointed Me
I've supported Primfeed in several ways over time.
I've paid for multiple subscriptions, spent countless hours introducing the platform to the community, encouraged others to join, and featured it regularly across my blog and in my Sexiest Group. In many ways, I’ve helped promote the service simply because I believed in it and wanted to see it succeed.
Of course, I understand that none of this entitles anyone to special treatment. Platforms need rules, and those rules need to be applied fairly.
However, I did feel that my history of support and as a paying customer I deserved something very basic: communication.
A message.
A warning.
Even a simple, “Hey, could you please stop doing this?”
Instead, the first interaction was an immediate suspension.
Officially, it was for one day — although that one day somehow extended into a third. I was suspended on Sunday, remained unable to access my account throughout Monday, and was eventually able to return sometime in the early hours of my Tuesday morning.
Responses from Primfeed were delivered politely, accompanied by references to the rules and even a few emojis. Which was pleasant, but I was frustrated i could not get anything meaningful across or acknowledged.
A little communication before taking action would have made a significant difference. They finally said I was being un realistic in my suggestions for a fairer treatment ( recieving a warning message, instead of being suspended. ) as they process thousands of pics a week. But, they send a message about why you're being suspended, so why not just send the message only, and hold back on the suspension? At least initially. Give you a chance to show them you'll comply without something more drastic being needed. I truly appreciate they are busy people. But i hope they appreciate how jarring it is to be suspended. And how bad you feel. Especially if you were not being an asshole or anything! It's likely making you look bad too, and you imagine everybody is trying to imagine what a bad person you must be to get booted off Primfeed! Was i suspended for being a troll, a cyber bully, a scammer? Nobody knows at the time. They just see your account does not exist and wonder what happened or what you did.
Their Platform, Their Rules
To be clear...
Primfeed absolutely has the right to decide what is and isn't allowed on its own platform.
One thing that particularly puzzled me though was being told I needed express permission from DeviantArt to use their logo.
That simply isn't true.
DeviantArt actually provides downloadable logos page specifically for promotional use, provided you follow their branding guidelines and don't modify them. That's exactly what I did. I know many other sites have the same philosophy too.
That same line of thinking is what I 'mistakenly' applied to the Primfeed logo.
I wasn't attempting to represent myself as Primfeed.
I wasn't implying endorsement or an official partnership.
I wasn't trying to mislead or confuse anyone.
The logo was simply there to indicate that the featured gallery contained content hosted on Primfeed. My intention was to encourage people to visit the platform and celebrate the creators whose work was featured there—to say, in effect, "If you're on Primfeed, you're in the spotlight."
Outside of Primfeed, I would generally regard that as a straightforward example of promotional use. However, Primfeed has chosen to apply a more restrictive policy within its own platform.
That's entirely their prerogative, even if it wasn't the outcome I expected.
Why It Hit So Hard
I put a lot into keeping this community visible because I genuinely enjoy doing it.
So having the rug pulled out from under me right at the end of a full weeks work was upsetting. Every gallery takes time. Every graphic takes time. Every blog post. Every social media promotion. Every weekly feature.
A lot of things prepared were going unpublished, a lot of people were not being featured. A lot of the work felt like it was for nothing. From experience I know if you miss windows promoting stuff, that's that.
I'll be honest, i felt upset, because i was genuinely trying to help and support Primfeed, and steer people to a platform i felt was perfect for our scene.
Where Things Go From Here
Thankfully, we already have something better.
Our own identity.
Our own branding.
Our own logos.
They represent over seventeen years of creativity, friendships, achievements and community history. We've been around about 15 years longer than Primfeed too.
So from this point forward I'll simply be using that branding instead.
I'll continue paying for Primfeed because it's still a useful platform for our members, but I won't be actively promoting the platform itself through the group or the blog anymore. I will still publish the Sexiest Primfeed of the Week in all but name, those hot pics which i've spotted on the platform using our hashtag, but it'll be without the Primfeed branding in future.
Not because I'm angry.
Well... perhaps *slightly*.
Mostly because I don't particularly fancy risking another suspension for trying to advertise someone else's platform.
I think what disappointed me most wasn't the suspension itself.
It was realising I'd probably thought more highly of the platform than the platform thought of me.
That's a shame.
Serenity. 💋
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| The Future Of Sexiest Gallery Graphics! - Picture by Alexus Minotaur - Ft Serenity. |
