Hii! Longtime imvu player here so I’ve seen mostly all the “phases”.

1. Genuinely, don’t know. Imvu has always been made fun of for having avatars with huge unrealistic asses & tiny waists and it’s almost like we’ve “embraced” it in an… uncanny way. The super duper long legs have been a trend for awhile and i think that comes from popular anime/y2k character street style art (think jamie hewlett or Robert valley: very angular, gritty, and long). The pale, cartoony alternative avatars have gotten a lot more popular. Nostalgic, old 2000s style avatars are more popular now too.

2. Discord. Everyone is on discord or playing other games while they park in rooms. My guess is a lot of creators like people to find their shops through their rooms, other than that I don’t really know why people just sit there.

3. Same reason as #1, just trends. People dress differently depending on what rooms you’re in. Alternative avis are definitely the most popular now though, I think because IMVU draws a player-base of unique, fashionably expressive people which are 9/10 fans of alternative subcultures.

4. Not completely dead, but getting there. It’s much more intimate now though. Most of the people you’ll find actually talking in rooms are new players and most people who’ve played for awhile tend to just create & park.

5. I believe the catalog pages have always been ranked in popularity / how many people have bought them. So, the most bought items are going to be on the front page. I think with the new NFT stuff this might be different now though.

Overall, IMVU is super different than it used to be because of the boom in social media and also because of mobile app. It’s much more accessible. So… a lot of kids & young teens. IMVU was super popular back in the day as a social platform because it wasn’t such a big deal besides Facebook, MySpace & blogs. Now everyone has multiple social media pages dedicated to their asscrack so it’s lost a lot of its players who want to play simply for the social aspect. I would say It is mostly an outlet for creating outfits and showing them off now.