Avatar Cloning Gets Out of Control

Picture of users with Gunter’s main avatar uploaded by hewstopia.

VRChat user’s log, day twenty seven of avatar cloning. It’s been three weeks since “avatar stealing” became a feature, and while most people seem to be enjoying it, things are most likely to be getting out of control.

Some of the common theories suggested that VRChat introduced users to avatar cloning in order to either bring back Ugandan Knuckles, or let players explore new memes to spread non-literal “cancer” in the community on purpose since most users don’t seem to be as toxic as VRChat used to be during the first three quarters of last year.

However, even though it’s been almost one month since the last big update, some members of the official VRChat staff forgot to mark their avatars as private. On January second, several users notified Gunter that his avatar was being used by multiple strangers in the same instance. Apparently, Gunter’s avatar is no longer private, as users don’t have access to it anymore. As N8 said, it is considered that cloning is “a blessing and a curse.”

“You know, when they first introduced cloning avatars, I was kinda against the idea,” Kumo360 said on the official VRChat Discord. “But at the end though, after seeing people become so happy as they copy off me, it made me feel good. So, it's not so bad after all.”

And yet, despite the fact that some avatars get easily copied by dozens, if not hundreds, of players every day, it looks like with this new feature users now consider making even more advanced avatars with chairs, custom animations, and physical colliders used for flying, although it is certainly worth mentioning that on December 21st Tupper said, “As a reminder, ‘Collider Flying’ is a bug, and will eventually be fixed. We want to replace it with a real "flying" option that world authors can turn on. Ideally the latter first, then the former.”

For now, the system remains unchanged, and it’s only a matter of time before “2018 Part 2” is over, which, for better or worse, may end as soon as the Ugandan version of Big Chungus in VRChat gets to finally rest in peace.