What is the IMVU App?
Description: IMVU is a very popular 3D avatar-based social experience with the largest 3D world and catalog to customize your look and meet new people. You can chat with friends, roleplay, and join a virtual world with millions of others. The best part? It’s totally free! Enter a virtual world simulator and social chat. IMVU is more than a life simulation – it’s a virtual life in a 3D world with an avatar that you make. Choose your life as you want it to be. Customize a 3D avatar, personalize your own animated emoji, and message friends! Does life have you down? Then your dream life, love life, and virtual life await in IMVU! (copied from App Store)
Category: Social media
APP Store rating:Â 17+ Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content and Nudity, Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes, Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References, Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence, Infrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude Humor, Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes
What do parents need to know about IMVU?Â
Chat Now: The app will suggest people for you to chat with one-on-one. It will show the person’s avatar, user name, age, gender, and country as well as their profile picture. This picture may be their avatar or a user-loaded picture. One of the people suggested to us was named Daddydick and the profile picture was a penis.
Chat rooms: There are several chat rooms that you can join. The avatars can interact as well. There are actions like blowing a kiss, bear hug, light hug, high five, etc. We ventured into a few chat rooms. One person off the bat started calling us names and another person just kept asking us to give them gifts. Just like any chat room, you will be able to find trouble if you are looking for it. Some of the chat rooms allow your avatar to get into explicit positions with other avatars. 
 Access Pass: Users can buy an access pass and all of the mature content (explicit actions and nudity) is available to them. There are also Access Pass only chat rooms, which a Google search tells us are filled with virtual sex. Users need to be 18 (and go through a verification process) and have a credit card to pay for the subscription.Â
Addictive?:Â Users can earn credits to buy clothing and accessories by completing surveys or watching videos. This could become addictive if you are really wanting a certain item. Users can also buy credits with real money. There is also a feed associated with IMVU where users can post pictures. Most of the comments on these posts are ‘Likes 4 likes’ meaning that if you like their posts or friend them, then they will do the same for you. Depending on how invested someone is in gaining followers, this could become addictive.Â
They weren’t kidding about creating a virtual life:Â Users can buy a marriage badge and propose to another avatar. The two avatars will have a shared space/room, can change their names, and even get a divorce. There is also an option to buy pregnant outfits and then after 9 months, you can buy a baby. There are specific pregnancy chat rooms that call themselves hospitals. 
App Store rating is accurate: Parents should take note when the Apple App Store considers an app to be 17+. If Apple does not think the IMVU app is appropriate for most high school students, then we can agree that it isn’t.Â
Hidden browser doorways and privacy: On Apple devices, you can find hidden search bars, but this is now true in most apps that we test, so it shouldn’t be a surprise. This is why locking in SafeSearch options at the operating system level (like Apple’s Screen Time) or DNS level with CleanBrowsing, is so important.
Related Posts: (1) Setting up Screen Time, (2) How to Block Porn for Free.
Related to privacy, upon signing up for IMVU, you give them your name, avatar or username, password, email, and age. They collect location data (city, state, country, latitude, longitude, etc.) through your IP address. It is possible to make your gender, age, and location private within the app.Â
The bottom line – is IMVU safe?
Parents, please keep your kids away from this app. There’s no reason for it. Want to learn how to turn off the app store? Read this article.
What if I have more questions? How can I stay up to date?
Two actions you can take!
- Subscribe to our tech trends newsletter, the PYE Download. About every 3 weeks, we’ll share what’s new, what the PYE team is up to, and a message from Chris.
- Ask your questions in our private parent community called The Table! It’s not another Facebook group. No ads, no algorithms, no asterisks. Just honest, critical conversations and deep learning! For parents who want to “go slow” together. Become a member today!
