Hello folks,

It's that time once again for updates and general chat.

First starting with the updates, some of you may have noticed that we are now HTTP secure! There has been work going on behind the scenes to tighten up VP’s direct security. Any external images would still come up as unsecure, but EN.virtualpopstar now is! There has also been some upgrades for our moderation and administration team but that's information between them and myself.

Outside of updates, the first forum auctions started this month; thank you everyone who took part! And thanks for bearing with me as I'm still sorting out the issues. Next month I'll be attempting it through the current auction system and still locking sets to prevent reselling straight away. My only issue is I can't monitor, so please be kind to your fellow players and only bid on your main.
Mega Credit week is next week, along with the standard auctions.

The person we have chosen as user of the month this time, was nominated for all the time and dedication he invests in teamwork on VP. He is a part of three teams, and plays a vital role in all of them. He is a kindhearted, hard working person, that we in NT are very glad to have as a part of our team. Our team, and VP in general even, would not have been the same without him. February’s user of the month is none other than Libertas!

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Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
“I’m Libertas, also known as Sebbe, and I’m a 19-year-old guy from Sweden. I’m basically a crazy cat lady, with 5 cats, who really loves to play games and bake. I’m also really interested in politics and music, and I’m probably singing at least 50 times a day.”

Libertas joined VP back in 2015 when some people migrated because GoSupermodel became pay to play. He wasn’t really active at first, but started playing more actively around a year later, because as he said “started to make friends from all over the world!”

His teamwork experience started in 2017, when he became a member of the BloggerTeam. Initially he only made it to bootcamp that year, but a few weeks after the new members had been invited to join the team, another spot opened and Libertas became an official member of BT. About a year later, at the end of 2018, the NewsTeam was holding applications again, and Libertas decided to try out for this team as well. “I was really looking forward to applying because NT was something I was really curious about.” Fortunately, after a longer application process, he was offered a place on the team in late December 2018, and he has been a member of our team ever since. Well into 2019, it was time for the SocialMediaTeam to look for new members. Libertas had already applied to this team two times before, first not making it to bootcamp and the second time making bootcamp, but due to the bootcamp being at an inconvenient time, he wasn’t able to give it his best and didn’t make the team. He was determined that this time around he would make it, and, as we say, third time’s a charm, he was then after bootcamp 2019 invited to become a SMT member.
“It’s a bit funny that I have made it into a team per year!”

How much time does all this teamwork require?
“That really depends,” was the short answer. As the three teams Libertas is a member of work quite differently, his workload for each team is distributed differently over the month. “In SMT we kind of plan everything a month ahead, but then every month we are also hosting some sort of event or competition so it’s more constant discussions there. Since it’s a big team, you can always get help and brainstorm together!” Libertas’ role in SMT is to manage the official English/international VP instagram page, together with Somsoc and Callum. In NT, he is a writer, which means that he writes an article or creates an interview each month, as well as contributing with the writing of our monthly magazine. “Some articles take longer to make than others, it honestly depends on how much research I need to do before I can start writing.” He might also need some time to research if he is writing about a specific topic for BT, as his role there is also writer, but if he is to write a personal blog about his own life, it’s a lot easier as he can just write down whatever comes to mind, he said.

What motivates you to keep on top of all these teams?
“I love being creative, and I feel like writing and event planning allows me to be that. I also really love to work with so many people, they honestly make the teams so much better, and without them VP had been so boring!” Having a good connection with the other members is an important part of teamwork. “SMT is a pretty big team, which is lovely because you have a bunch of people to brainstorm or just have a little chit chat with. Everyone is really helpful and supportive too which makes it so much fun!” NT and BT are smaller teams than SMT, which changes the dynamic. “NT is a very close team, and we chat with each other daily. We all help each other with everything from proofreading to helping out with learning new codes to improve our articles, it’s an amazing team to be in and work with!” (I agree!! <3) He continued with explaining that BT is more of a ‘solo team’, meaning they work more individually on their own blogs, and then contacts their layouter to make the layout for it. But he emphasised that they also in this team have fun chats from time to time.

All the positive feedback from the community is of course also a huge motivator to keep going. “I really enjoy seeing the positive reactions from the community when something you have planned for a long time is being revealed. It’s really rewarding and makes me want to continue doing what I do.”

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If you know of someone you think deserves to be recognised in our magazine as the user of the month, please send a message to the NewsTeam account with the name of the user and the reason behind your nomination, and maybe you’ll see them on this page in the future!

MCW
The Mega Credit Week this month was filled with a bunch of beautiful sets and also some bonus sets. Females had a chance to get 6 sets and 6, Winx themed, bonus sets by Solovey while males could get 4 different sets. You can see all the sets in this forum.
Next month’s MCW will start on Monday, 2nd March.

Auction
This month females got two auction sets as usual and male, unfortunately, only got one set. The popdollar set for both genders was made by Lily and the female credit set was made by Solovey. The popdollar sets were matching Valentine’s day themed sets and the credit set was a mix of fantasy and normal street style. If you want to see what the sets look like, you can do it in this thread. 

This month, and the coming months, Jess is hosting forum auctions as a try to tackle the credit issue. The female set was made by Solovey while the male set was made by Ouch. This month there was a chance to get the set every 30 minutes and in total there were 80 chances to get the sets. The next forum auction might be a bit different since this was mostly a trial.

From next week, Saturday 7th March, and each Saturday after that there will be LE shop releases to tackle the credit issue for females. This event is organized by the English DT and Jess and it will consist of code sets not released on EN - and they won’t come cheap! More information will be out next week by Jess.

As most of you most likely are aware, BT is in the process of finding new members. The application period was in the beginning of the month, and recently those chosen to participate in the bootcamp were announced. The participants are paired up one writer to a layouter, and together they have to create a blog on an optional topic. The deadline for making the blogs is March 6th, after which they’ll be posted on the BloggerTeam account. We in NT are very excited to read the blogs, and wish the best of luck to all the bootcampers.

With February being a month to celebrate all things Valentines, there certainly wasn't a lack of comps this month!

Smt gave us four comps this month, including the usual two WWIB. The first one had users dress up in anime type clothing to win a beautiful Sailor Moon sweater designed by Ouch. The winners have received their code already for that one. The second WWIB was a Star Wars themed dress up to win an adorable baby Yoda designed by Ouch. Voting for that comp is currently taking place. 

Next SMT tried something new with a "draw this in your style comp" where users have to draw the Nama design in their own style and put it on their social media pages. If you haven't applied yet, you still have 1 day to do so (deadline is March 1st). Everyone who participates gets a set designed by Nama, or a few jackets designed by Dani for the boys. Lastly, we have the Valentines Meme comp, where users had to make their own memes for valentines day. The prize wasn't shown, but users were surprised to a Anti Valentines type set designed by Solovey and Wishbone.

ET had some pretty good comps running this month as well! For Valentines they had their Naughty or Nice dress up comp, where users either had to dress up as a sweetheart or a heart breaker to win either a female set by Songbird or a male set by Flamink. Results for the comp have yet to be posted, but I can't wait to see who won. 

This month also saw the return of the design Event, where users have to design something fitting the theme in order to get the prize. This months prize is a female set designed by Gravitation and a male set designed by HungryMonster. The theme for this month is Celestial/space. Deadline is the 11th of March, so get those designs in if you want to win these awesome sets!

As we all know, 14th of February is Valentine's day, a day dedicated to expressing our love and appreciation for the people around us. It is celebrated all around the world, and the day of course did not go unnoticed on VP either. Maybe you noticed how some of us in the News Team were making rhyming posts in the forum? That was all in anticipation for our quiz, which was made up of rhyming poems describing VP users. The quiz became an instant success, with users being especially excited about the poem about our almighty creator, Kaj.

Apart from NT, many of the other teams also had events lined up to celebrate Valentine's day. The Social Media Team hosted a meme event, where users had to create Valentine's-themed memes in order to receive a special prize. The Youtube Team posted a video showing you how to make a cute heart-shaped box to fill with sweet treats. The Forum Team made a thread for spreading love, and many took the opportunity to share their appreciation for friends, teams and other VP users in true Valentine's spirit. Celebrations are always a reason to dress up, and Valentine's day was no exception. The Event Team organised a dress up competition where you had to create an outfit based on the theme of either sweetheart or heartbreaker, and the Forum Team made a thread collecting some of the amazing pink and red outfits made by creative VP users.

We hope you all had a good time celebrating Valentine's with us!